He blinks once. The calm before the carnage.
“Don’t lie to me.” His grip tightens. “There’s only one reason your old landlord just texted me a video of you hugging a man named Noah outside your apartment. And it’s either a threat…”his thumb drags down my cheek, slowly, like he’s dragging the truth out of my skin—“or you’ve been lying to me.”
I try to move. He pins me back.
“You’ve been watched, Raven. Every day. Every second. Every street camera. Every blind fucking corner. I let you think you were free, so you’d reveal your patterns. And now you’ve been seen with him?”
My voice is a whisper. “He’s just my brother.”
The air stills.
His eyes widen—but not with understanding.
With betrayal.
Then he laughs.
One harsh, empty sound. He steps back. Paces. With one hand in his hair, the other fisted at his side.
“That’s not in the file.” His voice cracks.
“What file?”
He whips around, eyes hollow.
“The one I paid a fucking fortune for. The one I built your world on. The one who told me everything about you. Every nightmare. Every scar. Every ex. And not once did it mention a brother?”
I take a shaky step back.
And he lets me.
That’s what scares me because Damien never lets go.
Until he wants to make you run.
“I don’t believe you,” he says quietly. “But I’m going to find out.”
I open my mouth to argue, to explain, to scream—but he grabs me again and crushes his mouth to mine.
It’s not gentle. It’s not even angry.
It’s devastated and as he pulls away, his voice is calm again. Chilling.
“If he touches you again, I’ll cut off his hands.”
He licks the blood from my lip where his kiss split it open.
“And if you lied to me… if you made me love a version of you that doesn’t exist…” His smile is razor-sharp. “I’ll remind you why you were better off never being found.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DAMIEN
She lied.
She fucking lied.
I pace the length of the abandoned storeroom, fists clenched so tight my knuckles crack. My chest feels like it’s going to split open from the pressure building inside me. Every breath is too loud, every heartbeat a fucking gunshot in my skull.
