I spent the week between sessions trying to convince myself I could handle Zachary Hale.
I reviewed his file every night. Made notes about therapeutic approaches for antisocial personality disorder. Researched boundary maintenance with manipulative patients. Read every article I could find about treating sociopaths.
None of it prepared me for Tuesday at 2 PM.
The knock came exactly on time. Zachary was nothing if not precise.
"Come in," I called, my notepad already open, my professional mask firmly in place.
He entered looking even more devastating than last week. Different suit, same perfect tailoring. Same empty eyes that saw too much.
"Dr. Reeves," he said, settling into the chair like he owned it. "I've been looking forward to this all week."
"Mr. Hale." I kept my voice neutral. "How have you been since our last session?"
"Productive. I closed two business deals, restructured my offshore holdings, and thought about you quite a bit." His smile was sharp. "Mostly about how we're going to spend the next forty-nine sessions."
I ignored the boundary violation. "Today I'd like to discuss your childhood. The evaluation from when you were ten mentioned concerning behaviors at school."
"Did it? I don't recall much from that evaluation. I was more focused on learning to hide what I was." He tilted his head. "But we're not here to discuss my childhood, are we? We're here because a judge said I had to sit in this room for fifty hours. So let's make it interesting."
"Therapy works best when the patient engages honestly with the process."
"Therapy works best when both parties are honest." He leaned forward slightly. "So let's be honest, Nina. May I call you Nina?"
"Dr. Reeves is appropriate."
"Dr. Reeves, then. Tell me about yourself. How did you become interested in criminal psychology?"
I blinked. Patients didn't usually ask about my background. "This session is about you, not me."
"Humor me. You know everything about me from that file. I know very little about you beyond what I've researched." He paused. "Well, that's not entirely true. But I'd like to hear your version."
Warning bells went off in my head. "What do you mean, what you've researched?"
"I told you last week. I research everyone I work with. You've had a fascinating journey, Dr. Reeves. Born in Queens to working-class parents. Your father was a construction worker before his accident, wasn't he? What year was that? 2005? 2006?"
My hands tightened on my notepad. "That's not relevant to your treatment."
"2006," he continued like I hadn't spoken. "He fell from a scaffolding. Shattered his leg. Got addicted to the pain medication they prescribed. Your mother had to take on three jobs to keep the family afloat while your father drank himself through his disability payments." He paused. "That must have been difficult. Watching your father self-destruct while you tried to be the good daughter."
I couldn't breathe. "How do you know that?"
"Public records mostly. Your father's accident report. Your mother's employment history. Tax returns are remarkably informative if you know where to look." His expression didn't change. "You were fourteen when it happened. Critical age for development. That's when you decided to become a psychologist, wasn't it? You wanted to understand why he couldn't stop. Why addiction was stronger than his love for you."
"Stop." My voice came out sharper than intended. "You have no right to dig into my personal history."
"I have every right. You're going to be inside my head for fifty hours. I need to know who's doing the digging." He leaned back. "You got a full scholarship to Queens College. Impressive. Then Columbia for your graduate work. Also impressive. Your dissertation was on recidivism rates among violent offenders with antisocial personality disorder."
He'd read my dissertation. Most people hadn't even read the abstract.
"You argued that early intervention could reduce recidivism if treatment focused on behavioral modification rather than emotional development," he continued. "The theory being that if you can't make someone feel empathy, you can teach them to act as if they do. Fascinating work. Wrong, but fascinating."
"It's not wrong," I said before I could stop myself. "The research supports cognitive behavioral approaches for ASPD."
"The research supports teaching people like me to lie more convincingly. That's not treatment. That's performance coaching." His eyes locked onto mine. "You know this. That's why you haven't published anything in three years. You've seen how well your theories work in practice. Which is to say, they don't."
My throat was tight. He was right. I'd stopped publishing because I'd stopped believing my own research.
"You had an article in the Journal of Criminal Psychology in 2022," he continued. "About the correlation between childhood trauma and adult violence. You argued that most violent offenders were created, not born. That with proper intervention, they could be redirected toward prosocial behavior."
"That's correct."
"Is it? Then how do you explain me?" He tilted his head. "I wasn't abused. My parents were wealthy, attentive, loving. They tried everything to help me. Therapy, medication, special schools. Nothing worked because nothing was wrong. I'm not broken, Dr. Reeves. I'm just built differently."
"ASPD is a disorder. By definition, something is wrong."
"Only if you define 'wrong' as different from the majority. I don't feel guilt. I don't feel empathy. I don't form emotional attachments the way you do. But I'm highly functional. Successful. I've built an eight-billion-dollar empire. Who's really disordered? Me, or the system that calls my difference a disease?"
I was writing frantically, trying to capture this. "You're rationalizing. Trying to normalize behavior that society considers pathological."
"Society considers homosexuality pathological in some places. Does that make it a disorder?" He paused. "I'm not saying I'm morally equivalent. I'm saying that morality itself is a construct. One I understand intellectually but don't experience emotionally. That's not a flaw. It's just a difference."
"A difference that led you to hospitalize someone."
"A difference that led me to protect myself from someone who threatened my livelihood. We'll get to that." He shifted in his chair. "First, tell me about your article from 2020. The one in that small journal no one reads. You argued that understanding criminal behavior doesn't mean condoning it. That empathy for the offender can coexist with accountability for the crime."
He'd read that article. I'd published it in an obscure journal because no major publications would take it. The paper had gotten maybe fifty downloads total.
"You've read that?" I asked.
"I've read everything you've published. Twelve articles, one book chapter, your dissertation. You're brilliant, Nina. You see patterns other psychologists miss. You understand that the line between victim and perpetrator isn't as clear as most people want to believe." He leaned forward. "But here's my question: what if understanding does lead to condoning? What if the more you understand why someone like me does what I do, the more you realize it's not actually wrong? Just different?"
"That's not how it works."
"Isn't it? You understand why addicts relapse. You understand why abuse victims become abusers. You understand why poverty drives people to crime. Understanding doesn't make you condemn them less. It makes you condemn the system that created them." He paused. "So why not apply the same logic to me? I'm a product of my neurology. I can't change my brain chemistry any more than your father could change his addiction. Why is he deserving of empathy and I'm not?"
My pen had stopped moving. "Because you're not trying to change. You're not suffering from your condition."
"Exactly. I'm functional. Successful. Happy in my own way. So why does society insist I need treatment? Why do you insist I need to be fixed?"
"Because you hurt people!"
"So do surgeons. So do soldiers. So do prosecutors who send innocent people to prison. Violence isn't the issue. Context is."
I was breathing hard, my professional composure cracking. "You're twisting logic. You're trying to make me question basic ethical principles."
"I'm trying to make you think. To question whether your ethical principles are as solid as you believe." His eyes never left mine. "You wrote in that 2020 article that rigid morality prevents us from understanding criminal behavior. That true rehabilitation requires us to see the world through the offender's eyes without judgment. So see the world through my eyes, Dr. Reeves. Try to understand my logic without condemning it."
"I can't. I won't."
"You're already doing it. You've been nodding along to half of what I've said. You're intellectually engaged in a way you haven't been in years. I can see it." He smiled. "You're thinking. Really thinking. Not just reciting therapeutic platitudes. You're questioning your own assumptions. And that's terrifying for you."
He was right. God help me, he was right.
"Our time is up," I said abruptly, checking my watch. We still had twenty minutes left.
"Already? But we were just getting to the interesting part." He stood, buttoning his jacket. "Same time next week?"
"Yes."
"Good. I'm enjoying our conversations." He walked to the door, then paused with his hand on the handle. Turned back to look at me.
"Before I go, I should probably address the elephant in the room. The assault. The reason I'm here."
I looked up from my notepad. "Yes?"
"The man I assaulted tried to blackmail me. Marcus Chen. He had information about some business dealings that weren't entirely legal. Threatened to expose them unless I paid him five million dollars." His voice remained perfectly calm. "I don't respond well to threats. So I removed the threat. Permanently, as it turned out. He's alive, but he'll never threaten anyone again."
"You nearly killed him."
"I defended myself against someone trying to destroy my life. Violence was the most logical response. Remove the threat, send a message to anyone else considering similar action. Efficient. Effective." He paused. "Does that make me a monster, Dr. Reeves? Or just practical?"
My professional response should have been immediate. Should have been clinical. Should have condemned the violence while exploring underlying thought patterns.
Instead, I sat frozen.
Because part of me, some small terrible part that I'd spent my whole life suppressing, understood his logic. Understood that when someone threatens everything you've built, when they hold your entire life hostage, when the legal system can't or won't protect you, maybe violence is logical.
Maybe protecting yourself by any means necessary isn't monstrous. Maybe it's just survival.
"I..." I started, then stopped. Didn't know what to say.
Zachary's smile widened. "You understand. You don't want to, but you do. You see the logic. You see why I did it." He paused. "That's what makes you perfect for this, Nina. You're smart enough to understand monsters. Maybe smart enough to become one."
He left before I could respond.
I sat in my office for a long time after he left, staring at my notepad.
I'd been taking notes the entire session, writing frantically to avoid thinking too hard about what he was saying. Now I read through them.
Most of it was standard therapeutic observation. But at the bottom, in my own handwriting, I'd written something that made my blood run cold:
"He's right. Understanding does lead to condoning. The more I understand his logic, the more sense it makes. Is that empathy or corruption?"
My phone buzzed. Text from unknown number.
"Excellent session today. You're starting to see the world clearly. Without the comfortable lies of morality and ethics. Just pure logic. I knew you had it in you. See you next week, Nina. We have so much more to discuss."
I stared at the message, my hands shaking.
Then another text:
"PS: Your father's treatment. I looked into it. The experimental drug therapy that insurance denied? I have connections at that pharmaceutical company. I could make a call. Get him approved. All you have to do is ask."
My heart stopped.
He was offering to save my father's life. Just like that. One phone call.
All I had to do was ask.
All I had to do was accept help from a man who'd nearly killed someone and called it practical.
All I had to do was compromise everything I believed in.
I typed: "I can't accept that."
His response came immediately: "You can't afford not to. Your father has six months without that treatment. Maybe twelve with it. Think about what matters more. Your principles or his life."
I stared at the message until my vision blurred.
Then I typed: "We'll discuss this at our next session. Not via text."
"Of course. Professional boundaries. I respect that. But Nina? You're already thinking about it. You're already calculating whether your ethics are worth your father's life. That's the first step. The rest is just details."
I turned off my phone.
But I couldn't stop thinking about it.
Couldn't stop calculating, just like he said.
My father had six months. Maybe less. The treatment insurance denied could save him.
And Zachary Hale, diagnosed sociopath, violent offender, could make it happen with one phone call.
What was one phone call worth?
What were my principles worth compared to my father's life?
I didn't know anymore.
And that terrified me more than anything Zachary had said.
Because he was right.
I was starting to understand him.
And understanding was starting to feel a lot like agreeing.