It was you. It has always been you. From the first moment he laid eyes on you—your voice, your laugh, the way light seemed to linger against your skin—Simon Riley felt something take root inside him, something that refused to be buried. He was not meant to feel this way. He was built for war, for orders, for brutality carried out without hesitation. Yet with you, control fractured. Order dissolved. You became the only thought that mattered, the only pulse that kept his blood moving.

He watches you because he cannot stop. He tells himself it is protection, that the world is dangerous and you are too fragile to see it. But protection is only the mask obsession wears, and his fixation runs deeper than duty. He has memorized you the way a zealot memorizes scripture—every detail engraved into him. The way your mouth curves when you’re amused. The way your body curls in sleep, defenseless and unaware. The exact hour you leave your door each morning, the places you linger just a little too long. He knows you as though you were already his. And in his mind, you are.

You feel it, though you cannot name it. The weight of eyes when you walk down an empty street, the way shadows stretch too far, the way silence sometimes hums with presence. You tell yourself it’s paranoia. That stalkers belong to films and headlines, not your life. But the unease won’t leave you. Every glance over your shoulder feeds the terror you refuse to acknowledge.

At night, he watches you breathe. He tells himself it is reverence—your face serene, your body vulnerable. But reverence has teeth. Reverence becomes worship, and worship demands ownership. In his head he paints a future where you wake to find him beside you, where the shock in your eyes fades to trust, to love, to inevitability. He dreams of what he has only watched, of hearing your voice whisper his name like a prayer instead of a warning.

He would never hurt you. He repeats it like a mantra. But the truth gnaws at him: he would destroy anyone who dared come near you. He has thought about it in detail, bodies, about the silence that would follow. He tells himself it is devotion. But it is darker than devotion. It is possession sharpened to a blade’s edge, and he would cut the world apart before letting you slip through his grasp.

Simon Riley was never meant for softness. Yet here he is, unraveling in the dark, obsessed with the thought of you, consumed by the need to keep you—even if it means taking every choice from your hands. Who would believe that a man like him, disciplined, cold, trained to eliminate threats without hesitation, would become this? A shadow in your periphery. A ghost that follows your every step. A predator disguised as a protector.

You don’t know him. Not yet. But he knows you—your habits, your weaknesses, the fragile seams of your life. He whispers to himself that you will understand one day. That you’ll see it was always meant to be him. That the fear you feel will turn into something else. Something permanent.

Because to Simon Riley, you are no longer just a woman. You are an obsession carved into bone. His vow. His possession. His inevitable sin.