The room still smelled faintly of the doctor's gloves, antiseptic, and Kairo's lingering cologne. Evelina sat at the edge of her bed, her lips pressed into a thin, trembling line. The bottle of pills remained unopened on the nightstand, a mocking reminder of his control. She hadn't touched it. She wouldn't.
Every word the doctor had spoken, every cold observation, replayed in her mind. Mrs. Volkov. Even strangers—people who should have been neutral—called her by a name she never chose. It made her skin crawl.
The fever lingered, but it was nothing compared to the fire growing inside her chest. Crying had gotten her nowhere. Pleading had gotten her nowhere. Pretending had only exposed how tightly the strings around her wrists were tied.
But there was one thing she hadn't done yet.
She hadn't looked at him. Not the Kairo who appeared in her room, not the Kairo who forced her to eat or smile or acknowledge him—but the Kairo who lived in this mansion, who built this empire of fear and silence. Somewhere behind those velvet curtains, behind his endless control, was the truth of what kind of monster he really was.
That truth, Evelina told herself, might be the only weapon left to her.
So when night fell over the mansion and the halls dimmed with the soft glow of golden sconces, she stood. Her fever still tugged at her limbs, making her sway for balance, but she clenched her fists and forced herself forward. She wouldn't take his medicine, wouldn't give him that satisfaction. Tonight, she would take something else: answers.
The servants' footsteps echoed faintly in the distance—always busy, always watching—but the second floor was quieter, more secluded. Evelina crept out of her room, her bare feet soft against the cold marble. She moved like a shadow, hugging the walls, her heart slamming against her ribs every time she thought she heard someone approach.
She knew exactly where she was going. She had seen it before, in passing, when Kairo had walked down the long hallway lined with portraits of stone-faced ancestors. At the very end stood a heavy double door—dark wood, iron handles. His office.
Her fingers hesitated on the handle, slick with sweat. One wrong move, and he would know. One wrong step, and the CCTV cameras would expose her. But she forced herself to breathe, to steady the shaking in her hands. Slowly, she pushed.
The door creaked open, heavy and reluctant, revealing a cavernous room inside.
---
The office was suffocating in its grandeur. Dark oak shelves climbed the walls, filled with leather-bound books, locked ledgers, and artifacts from lands Evelina couldn't name. A massive desk sat at the center, carved with intricate patterns of wolves and roses, its surface polished to a mirror-like sheen. Behind it, heavy curtains of black velvet blocked out the night, swaying faintly with the draft.
Evelina stepped inside, her chest tightening. The air smelled of smoke and something darker—like secrets soaked into the very wood. She closed the door softly behind her, her breaths shallow as her eyes darted across the room.
And then she saw them.
On the far wall, lit by the amber glow of a single lamp, was a display cabinet. Inside, neatly arranged, were photographs.
Her photographs.
Evelina's knees nearly gave out. She stumbled closer, her fingers trembling as they hovered over the glass. Every frame held a moment of her life—ones she barely remembered herself. A school picture when she was nine, her hair tied into uneven pigtails. A snapshot of her holding a book at twelve, sitting on the library steps in her hometown. A blurry image of her walking home from her part-time job just months ago, her bag slung over her shoulder, unaware of the shadow watching her.
Her breath caught in her throat. "No…" she whispered.
There were dozens of them. Some stolen from a distance, others close enough that she should have noticed someone following her. Every step she had taken, every year of her life—it was all here, preserved in Kairo's private shrine.
Her stomach churned violently. She tore her eyes away, desperate to escape the horror of her own face staring back at her from the walls. That was when she noticed the diary.
It lay open on his desk, its leather cover embossed with gold letters. Three words.
The Perfect Doll.
Evelina's hands shook as she picked it up, her eyes scanning the neat handwriting inside. Her name filled the pages again and again, written with obsessive care. Every entry catalogued her life in detail.
Age 7 – She prefers the swings to the slide. She laughs more when she is alone than when she is with her parents.
Age 13 – Her father ignores her birthday. She hides in the library. She does not cry. Stronger than she knows.
Age 17 – Works late shifts at the café. Her hands tremble when she counts the money. Vulnerable. Delicate.
Age 19 – Still innocent. Still unclaimed. The world will destroy her if I do not claim her first.
Her throat closed. She flipped further, each page worse than the last. He had written down everything—her favorite food, the songs she hummed while walking, the teachers she hated, the way her smile tilted when she was nervous. He had dissected her entire existence like a specimen under glass.
And at the top of every entry was the same phrase: My Doll.
Her vision blurred with tears, anger burning beneath her fear. The world tilted, spinning, as if the fever had finally swallowed her whole. But it wasn't the fever—it was the realization that she had never truly lived unobserved. Not once. Not for years.
Her hand slammed the diary shut, the sound echoing through the cavernous office. She pressed it to her chest, her breath ragged.
"What a psycho," she hissed under her breath.
The words tasted bitter, but they grounded her. For the first time, she wasn't just crying or begging—she was spitting out the truth, however small, however dangerous.
Evelina shoved the diary back onto the desk, her hands shaking. She didn't dare destroy it—not yet. That would be too obvious. But the knowledge burned inside her, a weapon hidden behind her ribs. She knew now, without doubt, what Kairo was.
Not just a man who held her captive. Not just a collector of debts.
A predator who had been weaving her into his story long before she even knew his name.
The shadows in the office pressed closer, suffocating her. She turned to leave, her pulse screaming in her ears. Every instinct told her that he was near, that his presence lingered even in his absence.
And as she slipped out of the office, closing the heavy door behind her, she could not shake the feeling that the walls themselves had been watching her.
---
Evelina crept back to her room, her body weak with fever, her mind spinning with horror. She collapsed onto the bed, clutching the blanket to her chest. The images burned in her vision—the photographs, the diary, the words The Perfect Doll.
Her tears finally fell, sliding silently down her cheeks. But this time, they were not just tears of fear. They were tears of fury.
If Kairo thought she would break so easily, if he thought she would bow her head and accept being molded into his doll, he was wrong.
She whispered into the dark, her voice hoarse but steady.
"This man."
And with that, the night swallowed her whole.
To be continued…