In the guest suite of the Dery estate, the silence was heavy, broken only by the hum of the central cooling system. Damian lay sprawled across the oversized bed where his brother and the gardener had unceremoniously dumped him.
The moonlight filtered through the sheer curtains, casting long, skeletal shadows over his muscled frame. To anyone looking through the observation pane in the door, he was the picture of a broken mind—limbs heavy with sedatives, chest rising and falling in the shallow, jagged rhythm of a drugged sleep.
Then, the clock in the hallway struck midnight.
Damian's right hand, which had been twitching rhythmically for the last hour, suddenly went still.
His eyes snapped open.
There was no fog in them. No madness. No ghosts. The pupils were sharp, clear, and intensely focused.
Slowly, with the fluid precision of a man who had spent years mastering his own biology, he sat up. The "sedative" that should have knocked a man of his size out for twelve hours seemed to have no hold on him. He rolled his shoulders, the muscles of his back rippling like silk over stone, and exhaled a long, controlled breath.
He stood up and walked toward the window, his nakedness no longer a weapon of shock, but a mark of a man stripped back to his essentials. He looked across the dark expanse of the manicured lawns toward the Fidel mansion, where a single light burned in a top-floor study.
A low, dry chuckle vibrated in his throat—a sound far too cold and intelligent for a madman.
"Ice Queen," he whispered, his voice smooth and devoid of the jagged screams from earlier. He raised a hand, pressing his palm against the glass exactly where her window sat in the distance. "You're even more rigid than I remembered, Anna. It's going to be a pleasure watching you break."
He heard the faint click of footsteps in the hallway—Gregory, likely coming to perform a late-night 'clinical' check.
In a heartbeat, the clarity vanished. Damian's spine collapsed, his jaw slackened, and he slumped back onto the rug, his eyes rolling toward the ceiling in a vacant, haunting stare. By the time the key turned in the lock, the predator was gone, replaced once again by the neighbor's tragic, broken son.
The heavy bolt slid back with a metallic clack.
Damian lay on the floor, his body contorted into an awkward, uncomfortable twist. He kept his breathing shallow and erratic, allowing a small thread of saliva to escape the corner of his mouth. To the world, he was a vegetable; to Gregory, he was a fascinating failure of neurochemistry.
Gregory stepped into the room, the scent of antiseptic and expensive cologne preceding him. He didn't come to comfort his brother. He didn't bring a blanket. Instead, he pulled a small penlight from his breast pocket and knelt beside Damian's head.
"Still trapped in the dark, aren't you, Damian?" Gregory murmured. There was a sickening note of triumph in his voice.
He peeled back Damian's eyelid. Damian let his eye roll upward, vibrating the iris just enough to mimic a seizure-prone state. He felt the sting of the bright LED light, but he didn't flinch. He had spent years in places far worse than this, training his nerves to ignore the screams of his own body.
"The great Damian Dery," Gregory scoffed, clicking the light off. "Father's favorite. The 'son' who was going to inherit the estate. Look at you now. You're nothing but a failure in the family line."
Gregory stood up and walked to the window, looking out toward the Fidel house—the same view Damian had just been contemplating.
"You nearly ruined it tonight," Gregory said, his voice tightening with suppressed rage. "Anna was five minutes away from signing her life over to me. Now, she's 'thinking.' She's doubting. All because she saw a glimpse of your pathetic, naked hide."
Damian remained motionless on the rug, but internally, he was smiling. So, she's doubting. Good.
"It doesn't matter," Gregory continued, more to himself than his brother. "Tomorrow, I'll begin a 'pioneer' treatment. A heavy regimen of neuroleptics. By the time I'm done with you, you won't even remember her name, let alone be able to scream it. I'll be the hero who cared for his broken brother, and Anna... Anna will eventually come back to the only logical choice left."
Gregory turned back, leaning over Damian one last time. He reached out and gripped Damian's jaw, squeezing hard enough to bruise. "You're going to be my greatest case study, little brother. I'm going to bury you inside your own mind."
He let go with a shove, Damian's head thudding softly against the floor. Gregory exited, the heavy door locking once more.
In the dark, Damian's slack face slowly shifted. His jaw set. He sat up, wiping the saliva from his chin with the back of his hand. His eyes were burning with a cold, lethal fire. Gregory wanted to study his brain? Fine. He would give the doctor a lesson in psychology he would never survive.
And as for Anna... she was already doubting. Now, he just had to give her a reason to come find the truth.
The following hour in the Fidel household was a slow-motion car crash of emotional manipulation. Anna's mother, Martha, paced the length of Anna's bedroom, her silk dressing gown hissing against the floorboards.
"He is a neurosurgeon, Anna! A pillar of the community!" Martha's voice broke into a high, jagged sob. "Do you have any idea how it felt to watch you stand there and treat him like a bad business deal? We were humiliated. The Derys have been our neighbors for thirty years, and you treated them like strangers you were firing from a boardroom."
Anna stood by her window, her arms crossed tight. "I didn't treat them like strangers, Mother. I treated them like people who think they can buy my life. I told you, when I find the right person—when I feel something real—I will bring him to you. But it isn't Gregory."
Martha sank onto the edge of the bed, burying her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with genuine, exhausted weeping. The sight of her mother—the woman who had taught her to be "proper"—falling apart was almost enough to make Anna buckle.
"What is wrong with you?" a deep, booming voice demanded.
Anna's father stood in the doorway, his face a mask of cold fury. He didn't go to comfort his crying wife; he looked straight at Anna, pointing a trembling finger. "Your mother is in this state because of your selfishness. You've had everything, Anna. The best schools, the company, the freedom—and the moment we ask for one thing, you play the rebel. This is on you. Every tear she sheds is your fault."
The air in the room felt like it was being sucked out. Anna felt the walls closing in, the "logic" of her family suffocating her like a plastic shroud. Without a word, she grabbed a light shawl and walked out, heading for the French doors that led to the garden. She needed to breathe.
As she stepped onto the dark grass, the cool night air hitting her face, she felt a strange prickle on the back of her neck. She looked up toward the Dery estate. There, in the high window of the guest suite, a silhouette was framed by the moonlight. Damian. He wasn't moving. He was just a dark, broad shadow, silently watching her through the glass. Even from this distance, she felt his gaze like a physical touch—heavy, raw, and far more honest than the conversation she'd just left.
The next morning, the sun was bright and unforgiving. Gregory stood in the Fidel's sunroom, his jaw tight. He had tried to catch Anna as she left for AnnTech, but she had driven past him without even slowing her Tesla.
"She won't even look at me, Shanti," Gregory said, turning to Anna's sister.
Shanti sighed, pouring him a cup of coffee. "She's stubborn, Gregory. You know Anna. She processes everything like a computer. Give her time to reboot."
"I don't have time," Gregory clipped out, then softened his tone. "I care about her. I want to protect her. Please, talk to her. Bridge the gap. Remind her of what we could be together."
"I'll try," Shanti promised, though her expression was doubtful. "But honestly, Gregory... what happened to Damian? I remember him from when we were kids. He was adventurous, sure, but he wasn't... this. What happened in those five years?"
Gregory took a slow, deliberate sip of his coffee, his eyes turning cold. "The world is a brutal place for someone without discipline, Shanti. He disappeared, wandered who-knows-where, and apparently, his mind simply snapped under the pressure of whatever life he was leading. He showed up a few days ago just as you saw him—completely gone. It's a tragedy, really. A complete neurological collapse."
Shanti shivered. "It's terrifying. To think someone could just... break like that."
Gregory nodded solemnly.