The evening bled itself out over Vancouver in shades of bruised violet when Liam Thomas killed the engine outside the glass tower where Miranda Hale worked. The dashboard clock read 7:14 p.m.—the sacred hour she'd sworn was buried beneath paperwork and exhaustion, far from any temptation.
Yet intuition—or the sharp stab of fading love—had driven him to wait.
With his coat collar raised to his jaw, he sat hidden among the traffic's pulse of lights, an invisible man in a city of reflections.
He didn't wait long.
She appeared in the lobby glow, and a knot cinched in his throat.
Miranda's laughter—familiar, intimate—cut through him like a sweet blade. The taste of metal filled his mouth: jealousy sharpened by betrayal. He stared, searching for an excuse, a sliver of doubt. There was none. She was holding a folder and laughing with a warmth she once saved for him.
Beside her, Mr. Perrin—boss, mentor, and now suspect—brushed her arm too familiarly. She tilted her head toward him, cheeks blooming with pleasure at something he whispered.
No kiss, no overt sin—just proximity stretched a second too long.
And that was enough.
Liam's knuckles tightened against the steering wheel until they cracked.
When Miranda left in a cab—not her usual one—and Perrin's fingers lingered in the air after her, Liam knew it was over. Whatever they had patched together with frayed devotion had collapsed at last.
He pressed the clutch, turned the wheel, and drove off with a stomach turned to stone.
But in the rearview mirror, a flash of blue eyes surfaced in memory—Anna Viktorie—watching him from the bridge nights ago, her gaze a lethal mix of curiosity and possession.
The Moonlit Beans Café had always been his refuge: soft jazz, amber light, the comforting scent of Ethiopian roast that hid the Pacific's damp chill.
That same evening, desperate for certainty, Liam sat by the window. The waitress took his order, and he froze when he heard her voice—Miranda's—asking for "a double Americano."
She arrived late, apologizing: "My boss needed extra help."
Her lips—painted a timid red—smiled automatically.
"Let's sit in the back," Liam said. It sounded more like a command than an invitation. "We need to talk."
Miranda walked ahead, scrolling through her phone without looking up.
He opened his mouth to confront her—but something interrupted.
A woman in a black coat brushed past Miranda, so lightly it seemed intentional.
"Hey, watch it!" Miranda snapped, irritation cracking her polite mask.
"I'm sorry," said the stranger, her voice a velvet whisper.
Blue eyes glinted as they met Liam's for a heartbeat—then turned to Miranda, piercing her with a gaze that froze the air.
Anna Viktorie moved like liquid shadow. The temperature seemed to drop; the air thickened. Silence rippled outward, as if the city itself held its breath.
Then, under that silence, she murmured—barely audible:
"What a sickly-sweet scent this woman carries…"
The floral perfume clawed at her throat like spoiled syrup.
Anna wrinkled her nose, suppressing a silent gag. Her pupils contracted with a flash of contempt.
For an instant, their elbows brushed—and a torrent of images burst into Anna's mind: muffled laughter behind office doors, trembling fingers unbuttoning blouses, text messages deleted before the front door opened.
"Vinegar wine and sugar-coated lies… what a feast of corruption flows in your veins."
Miranda, oblivious, muttered another irritated "watch it" and returned to her glowing phone, proud of her small performance as the weary girlfriend.
She never noticed the ripple of revulsion passing through Anna, the disgust at the thought of biting into a vein tainted with mediocrity and deceit.
From a few steps away, Liam watched, realizing that the woman he had loved no longer inhabited that body.
Only an actress remained, reciting tenderness she no longer believed in.
Anna tilted her head slightly, observing them both—predator and prey, mirror and illusion.
"Still in doubt, boy? Look at her shoulders—how they stiffen when you try to touch her hand. See that spark in her pupils when a message, not from you, lights up her screen."
She could have whispered the truth to him right there—
"Look into her eyes. The desire is no longer yours."
But she chose patience instead—the artistry of timing.
She glided away, savoring the threads she'd just tightened. The real hunt had not yet begun.
The city exhaled a shiver of wind as she vanished, leaving behind a wake of cold that raised the hairs on Liam's arms. He didn't dare turn, though instinct screamed her name inside him.
"Lies wrapped in cheap silk… Is that what you prefer, man who has tasted my shadow? Then I'll remind you. Miranda will learn how fast oaths rust, how swiftly flesh tears."
Anna pictured Miranda's face—eyes wide when she finally understood who her executioner truly was.
Her patience was long; her thirst longer. Both eternal.
Liam still belonged to her, even in silence.
Miranda, meanwhile, would become the mirror where he saw his own naivety shatter.
"I'll let your lies ferment in your blood," Anna mused.
"When it's bitter enough, I'll decide—shall I seal your end with a kiss… or deny you even that mercy?"
With the taste of an impending feast burning in her throat, Anna Viktorie melted into the crowd, vanishing without a trace—satisfied, for now, that hunger and destiny had begun to stir again in the shadows.