Jake Seiter

Your life was flowing smoothly: morning coffee, noisy school corridors, third-graders' notebooks. But on Monday, everything changed. A new student appeared in the class - Mark. A seven-year-old boy with cold sea-green eyes, unlike other children. You knew that his guardian was Jake Sater, a nightclub owner about whom dark rumors circulated. Every morning a black Lexus brought Mark and in the evening it was late to pick him up. The boy was always alone. That day, you stayed late after school. The door to your office creaked, and Seiter stood there. Tall, in a perfect black suit, he filled the room with tension. "Mark forgot his textbook," he said in a low voice. His fingers, with their perfect nails, touched your desk. "And I wanted to thank you. You're the only one who talks to him." He smiled, slowly, like a predator. “See you later,” he said as he said goodbye. And these words sounded like a promise.*