“I said no.” He jerks back, eyes wild with a fear. “You think you can outmaneuver him? Play his game? He’s been playing this longer than you’ve been alive. He sees ten moves ahead before you even know you’re on the board.”
“What’s my alternative?” I touch his face, and he leans into it. “Sit here while he destroys everything? While he uses you to hurt more people? While I wait to see what Alexander does with Luna?”
“I hate this,” he whispers. “And I hate more that you’re right.”
I stroke his hair, thoughts spiraling. There has to be a way around this. Some loophole, some—
And then it hits, jagged and bright.
Mom’s journal.
The pages scrawled in shorthand and desperation. The Blood Vow—old magic, primal, untouched by the rules of modern contracts. She’d written about it like it was myth, called it a relic from before the collapse.
“What if . . .” I swallow hard. The idea forms even as I recognize how reckless it is. “What if we made a Blood Vow?”
It’s insane. Mom’s notes had been incomplete, full of warnings about how little anyone understood this magic. But then I look at Dom, and I know I’d walk into hell itself if it gave him even a moment’s peace.
A violent shudder racks him. “No. Absolutely fucking not.”
“But it could break the contract, or at least override it. If we’re bound—”
“You don’t understand what you’re suggesting.” He pulls back enough to look at me. “You don’t tamper with a binding contract by layering ancient soul magic on top of it like some half-assed spell patch. That’s how you get yourself killed. That’s how you getmekilled.”
“But if Kian didn’t account for it—”
“Do you really believe that?” Dom laughs, but there’s no humor in it. Only the quiet tremble of a man who’s already done the math and still doesn’t like the answer. “Kian knows every version of every bond that’s ever existed. He’s studied them, dissected them,usedthem. If we tried it, he’d have built fail-safes. I could die, Aria. Right in front of you.”
I flinch. I hadn’t thought Dom would say it so plainly. “Forget I said anything.”
“I get why you did.” His voice softens. “I do. But that’s not the answer. It can’t be.”
“Then what is?”
He doesn’t answer. And that’s the part that guts me. Because either he’s clueless, or he knows exactly what it’ll cost and the price is too steep.
“I’ll see him tomorrow,” I say finally. “If I cooperate, if I play his game, maybe I can convince him to release you from the binding. Show him it’s not necessary anymore if I’m willing to—”
“Don’t be stupid.” Dom’s voice breaks, anger sharpened by fear, and the sound knots my stomach. “Of all the things you could ask Kian for, you’d waste it on me?” His fingers dig into my skin. “You’re smarter than that.Wehave to be smarter than that.”
“But—”
“Listen to me.” He cups my face between his shaking palms, thumbs brushing the tear-tracks I didn’t realize I’d left. “Tomorrow, when you’re in that office with him, you think about yourself. Only yourself. No matter what he offers, no matter what he threatens—you forget about me, about us. Promise me.”
“Dom—”
“Promise me, Aria.” His forehead presses against mine. “Because if you go in there with your heart already bleeding for me, we are both dead before you open your mouth. And if there’s even a sliver of a chance we can outsmart him, we take it. But not if you’re too busy trying to save me.”
“What do I do?” I whisper against his chest.
“Survive.” His arms wrap around me again, this time tighter. “Doesn’t matter what he throws at you or how this ends—just survive. That’s the only thing that matters now.” His lips press against my temple, and there’s something final in it. Like a goodbye he doesn’t want to speak aloud. “Because if he takes you from me . . .” The sentence breaks off into breath, a sharp inhale that never makes it back out. “Just survive it, Aria.Please.”
Kian’s office pierces themorning skyline, every window a watchful eye engineered to dominate. I hesitate at the threshold, fingers grazing the cold steel of the door. One final flicker of agency before I step into his lair.
Dom moves first, posture stiff with curated fury. His hands twitch at his sides, resisting the urge to reach back and close the space we’ve carved between us. But sentiment is a luxury we can’t afford. Not here. Not with Kian’s traps already tightening like nooses.
We rehearsed the choreography down to the breath—the tilt of my chin, the venom laced through my voice, the measured angle of my spine as I claim the seat farthest from his reach. A drama stitched together with silence and disdain. But Kian’s smile unfurls the moment we enter, and I watch every careful step we’ve laid dissolve under the acid of his amusement. His gaze oscillates between us, each flicker carving deeper than the last.
“Such delicious tension,” he muses. “Tell me, did the walls of The Den survive your disagreement after dinner? Or should I have my accountants prepare for renovation costs?”
