The first time Carmen saw him in the crowd, she didn't flinch.
She was leaving a café in Mayfair, silk gloves hiding the scent of someone else's blood, her hair pinned in that perfect way that suggested she'd never bled at all.
He was across the street.
Hat low. Coat buttoned. Just another shadow stitched into the fog.
But he wasn't looking at the street.
He was looking at her.
She didn't tell Julian.
Not yet.
She watched instead.
Every two days, Hargreave appeared—at the corner of an alley, lingering near the theatre, leaning too long near a market stall. He never approached.
But Carmen could feel it.
The rhythm of his obsession.
The pulse of a mind that moved like hers—part hunter, part grave-digger.
Julian noticed by the fifth time.
"He's not police," he said.
"He's worse," Carmen replied. "He's paying attention."
Vivienne was the first to name him.
"Hargreave? Edwin? He used to be famous. Caught a woman who killed everyone in her boarding house. She was his sister."
Julian lit a cigarette.
"Is he good?"
Vivienne's mouth twitched.
"He's broken."
Carmen smiled.
"Then he'll fit right in.
That night, Carmen left the flat alone.
No knife. No gloves. No plan.
She found Hargreave standing outside a butcher's, pretending to read the paper with hands too still to be casual.
She walked straight toward him.
Stopped a foot away.
"Are you following me?"
He didn't blink.
"Are you asking because you care, or because you're curious what I know?"
Carmen tilted her head, a sliver of amusement on her lips.
"You don't know anything."
"I know you don't blink when you pass a body."
She stepped closer.
"You shouldn't flirt with fire, Detective."
He stepped closer, too.
"I'm not here to flirt. I'm here to see if you leave footprints."
Carmen leaned in, breath brushing his cheek.
"Only in blood."
And walked away.
He didn't move.
Just watched her vanish into the dark.
And knew—
He wasn't chasing a case.
He was circling a black hole shaped like a woman.
And part of him—
Part of him wanted to fall.
Back home, Carmen found Vivienne waiting on the stairs.
"No Julian?"
"Out," Vivienne said.
Carmen sat beside her.
They didn't touch.
Didn't speak for a moment.
Then—"Will you kill him?" Vivienne asked.
Carmen didn't ask who.
She just said:
"Not yet."