Chapter 6 The clinical man

The silence had teeth.

Cady didn't realize how loud the world wassirens, screaming, street noiseuntil she was left alone in the middle of wealth, and every second passed like a held breath. A captive, yet she can't steal anything for fear of him.

She didn't eat. She didn't sleep.

She waited. Atleast he's left the door open so she could pee.

The clock in the hallway ticked too loud. Her pulse matched it, off-beat, irregular. The cut on her thigh throbbed like a second heart.

She'd never been inside a house like this. Not really. Not like this. Not with time to look.

It wasn't that it was big. It was that it was too clinical. Every book spine straight. Every painting abstract and sterile. A vase on a marble pedestal in the foyer cold, bone-colored, probably worth more than her life.

It wasn't a home. It was a mask.

And masks always hid something.

She should've stayed on the couch. She should've curled up, closed her eyes, waited for him to return like a good girl with a wounded leg and a record of bad decisions.

Instead, she stood.

Her body moved like it remembered danger before she did. Quiet steps. Careful breaths. She told herself she was looking for the bathroom. She told herself she was just curious. But really she wanted to see. To comprehend the man behind the badge. Behind the empire. Behind the house that felt like a mausoleum.

She passed a hallway lined with photographs.

Black-and-white. Stark. Faces without smiles.

A father? A brother? A woman with ice-chip eyes and a child in her lap that might have been Ford, younger and less carved.

But there were no photos after that one. Nothing recent. She turned right. A door was cracked open. Study.

She pushed it wider.

Dark wood. Bookshelves. A desk that looked more like a weapon than a piece of furniture. No laptop. No tech. Just a heavy leather notebook left open ink fresh, pen tucked inside like a blade.

She shouldn't look.

She did.

No names. No addresses. Just lines of thought tight, controlled, disturbing.

"He who controls perception controls truth."

"Compassion without leverage is suicide."

"Don't let them see your hands shake."

Cady swallowed hard.

This was how he thought. Not emotionally. Strategically, clinically. Like every connection, every mercy, had to be weighted for cost.

Like he was trying to stay human by writing down reminders of how not to become a monster.

Or maybe he already had.

She closed the book.

Turned to leave.

Stopped.

There on the shelf. Between rows of pristine legal volumes one object that didn't belong.

A single child's shoe.

Small. Worn. White canvas with a red star stitched on the side. It made no sense. She didn't touch it.

Didn't need to.

Grief has its own smell. Cold. Unused. Like time got trapped in fabric and never moved forward again.She left the study without breathing. Without looking back. Because whatever that shoe meant, it wasn't part of this game.

And if it was, she wasn't ready.

Not yet.