Her face stared back at her.
A photograph.
Not a recent one.
It was older, she looked younger, standing outside a small café in the city. Her hair was pulled into a messy braid and she was laughing at something someone had said off camera. It had clearly been taken from far away, the kind of photo someone captured without the subject knowing.
Sera flipped the page.
Another photo.
This one taken outside her friend’s apartment building months before she had ever met Lucien.
Her heart began to pound.
The next page wasn’t a photo. It was information.
Her full name.
Her date of birth.
Every address she had ever lived at.
Every school she had attended.
Where she had volunteered during high school.
Even details about the café she used to visit on Saturday mornings.
Sera’s fingers trembled slightly as she kept turning the pages.
More surveillance photos.
One of her walking through a market.
Another of her sitting on a park bench reading a book.
Her chest tightened painfully.
This wasn't a casual observation.
This was an obsession.
Her breathing grew shallow as she reached the next section of the file.
Psychological profile.
Personality analysis.
Weaknesses.
Emotional triggers.
Her hands curled into fists.
Lucien had known everything about her. Before they ever met. Before that night. Before the moment that had changed her entire life.
The realization slammed into her like a physical blow. None of it was a coincidence. Not the meeting. Not the way he had approached her. Not the way he had watched her so carefully from the beginning.
