Callista Vale.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her pressed against the mirror, tears streaking her makeup as she tries to hold the pieces of herself together. It is not the first time I have seen her like that. I know more about her than I should. I have watched her for months.
I’m her stalker. It started as work, then became a hobby. Now, it’s an obsession. My mind craves to know what she’s doing, to touch her when she’s asleep and in another world.
It started as a way to impress Aleksei and strengthen the organization’s financial prowess. I had been playing with the idea of recruiting smart members to the Griffin Society, training them in money laundering and using their skills and desperation to expand. Some of their families even run small businesses like laundromats that could be useful.
Callista was a perfect target. Beautiful, visible, connected. She knew everyone who mattered and everyone who wanted to matter. I thought if I followed her, I could use her network to find recruits. But the more I watched, the less it felt like work.
The first time I realized how fragile she was, her stepmother had come to visit her. I watched from the feed, the drone parked outside the sorority house window, sound filtered through my earpiece. Callista opened the door in jeans and a silk top, smilinglike she always does. The woman did not even say hello. She looked her up and down with the kind of disgust that drips like acid.
“Do you enjoy dressing like a gold digger?” her stepmother asked. “You think men respect a girl who looks cheap? You look like a wannabe influencer, not the daughter of a respectable man.”
Callista’s smile wavered. “It’s just casual, it’s not?—”
“It’s embarrassing,” her stepmother cut her off. “No wonder your father can’t stand looking at you. You remind him of that woman he regrets marrying.”
I saw her jaw tighten, her throat work around the words she could not say. When the woman finally left, Callista sank to the floor, pressing her palms to her eyes. She didn’t cry at first. She just sat there, still, like she was waiting for her soul to return to her body.
Later that week, I saw her father come to campus. He was tall, expensively dressed, his eyes already distant. I watched through the camera hidden near the garden gate. She followed him, asking about tuition, about her future, her tone desperate and tired.
“Dad, you said you’d help with rent this semester. You promised.”
He did not stop walking. “I can’t. Selina is going to art camp in Paris this semester. Get a part-time job and make some sacrifices for the sake of your younger sister. I’ve spoiled you enough.”
“You can’t spring this on me suddenly,” she said, her voice breaking. “Rent is expensive. I don’t have much money saved up. Also, you never even come to see me. Do you even care?”
He turned to her, his face like stone. “You want honesty, Callista? I wish I could be done with you already. You look just like your mother, and I hate having to look at you. You betterfind a job, because the moment you graduate, I’m cutting you off. I did enough for you. I don’t want to see you again.”
She screamed when he left, a raw sound that echoed through the courtyard, and I stood there in my car, watching the footage as if it was happening to me. I should have turned it off. I couldn’t. Every piece of her pain felt like something I needed to protect.
Now I sit in my office, the glow of the screen making my hands look pale. I try to type a reply to Leo’s message about the laundromat, about the investigation, but the words blur. My pulse will not slow. I tell myself to focus, to think about the money, the ledgers, the risk.
Instead, I think about her.
How she hides behind that perfect smile, how she keeps her shoulders straight even when she looks ready to collapse. She wears her pain like jewelry, polished, glittering, impossible not to notice once you’ve seen it.
By three, I give up. I grab my keys and step into the night. The city is quiet, streets slick from a recent rain. I tell myself I am only driving to clear my head, but the road bends itself toward her.
When I reach the Kappa House, the mansion glows under the soft gold of porch lights. Her window is half open, the curtain moving gently with the air. I park across the street and lean back, watching the light shift against the glass. I imagine her asleep, her hair spilled across her pillow, her breathing slow and even. I imagine touching her hand, just to make sure she is real.
My chest aches in a way that feels like punishment. I should drive away. I don’t.
For a long time, I sit there, hands still on the steering wheel, staring at the house that holds everything I should not want. The night feels alive around me, humming with the same pull thatbrought me here. My mind is a mess of logic and madness, of control and craving.
I whisper her name once. Quiet. Reverent. Like a confession.
But my body craves closeness. It craves the soft, smooth coolness of her skin against my burning fingertips. She thinks all I’ve done is watch her and rummage through her closet.
But I’ve done far worse. Tonight wasn’t the first time I touched Callista. At night, when she’s sleeping I touch her in places that make her tremble. And she thinks it’s all a dream. When she wakes up, she doesn’t remember any of it.
It’s a fucked-up kink to have.
But I can’t fight it. Can’t fight the urge to feel her wet and shaking under me, completely oblivious to the fact that she’s coming for her bully. For her stalker.
With a sigh, I get out of the car. I use a key to grant myself access into the sorority house. I had a member of the Griffin Society steal Callista’s keys and make copies of them so I could use them to get in and out of her room whenever I wanted. That’s how I know what clothes she has.
But I’ve done more than rummage through her closet. I’ve given her pleasure while she was asleep, touched her in ways that defy decency.
