“I like black,” he murmured. “I’ll take my pleasure first—right in front of you, Damian. Then I’ll let my men have her.”
I turned my face toward Damian. His lips parted slightly, as if the air had been ripped from him. Fire blazed in his eyes—untamable, volcanic, ready to erupt. I knew he would risk everything, even his life, to get me out of here. And that terrified me.
“That’s low, even for you,” Damian spat.
Mason straightened, pulled himself from his pants, and stroked himself.
“Mason, I swear—I’ll kill you if you touch her!” Damian roared.
Mason grabbed me roughly, shoving me in front of him. I screamed and fought, but his grip was a vise.
“Be quiet,” he hissed, just as he ripped at my panties—when, at that exact moment, the elevator doors slid open.
Damian’s bodyguards stormed in, and chaos exploded. Gunshots cracked through the air. Men clashed in a blur of violence. I caught one last glimpse of Damian—moving with lightning speed.
With a swift, practiced motion, he tore the weapon from his opponent and struck him down with the butt. At the same instant, a bullet caught Karl, and he collapsed. Mason released me and pushed to his feet. Damian didn’t hesitate. Two to the chest, one to the head. Then silence learned a new shape. Mason crumpled, hitting the floor hard. Without a flicker of hesitation, Damian stood over his body and fired again. The gunshot shattered the silence, its echo ringing in my ears as the bullet tore into Mason’s corpse. Another shot followed. And another.
I froze, my breath lodged in my throat. It wasn’t the gunfire that paralyzed me—it was Damian himself. The effortless precision with which he held the weapon. The frost in his eyes. No pause. No hint of remorse. He moved as if this act were nothing. Routine. Part of his daily life. And deep inside, I felt it—the undeniable truth. This wasn’t Damian Miller’s first kill.
I tried to rise, but my knees buckled, the weight of reality crashing down. Damian’s gaze stayed icy, his movements steady, measured, as he lowered the gun like it was just a tool. Routine. Not his first kill. The coldness of it hit me harder than the gunfire itself. I had always known he was dangerous, but this was something else entirely. Another caliber.
He turned and fired again. A bodyguard staggered back, crying out before collapsing. Damian moved with a terrifying fluidity, as though violence lived in him—something he could summon at will. A chill raced through me.
I pushed myself upright on trembling legs, but the ground pitched beneath me while my eyes stayed locked on him. For a fleeting second, his gaze met mine. Then another shot cracked—another man dropped. And suddenly, the space between us stretched vast and unreachable, as though an invisible wall of shadow and ice had risen to divide us. Damian wasn’t only the controlled, magnetic man I thought I knew; he was also a man who killed without conscience.
The air thickened with screams, sweat, blood, and the acrid sting of gunpowder. I stumbled toward Ference and dropped to my knees beside him, but before I could reach for him, Damian yanked me back to my feet. I fought against him, but he hoisted me into his arms and carried me into his bedroom. Another gunshot rang out behind us.
“You stay in here!” he ordered, his voice hard.
“No, Damian!”
“You stay in here!” he barked again, slamming the door shut.
I crouched on the bed, every nerve screaming, praying with all I had that I’d wake from this nightmare.
Minutes later, the door opened. Damian stepped inside. “It’s over,” he said, pulling me into his arms and pressing a kiss to my hair. His hands cupped my cheeks, his voice raw. “I’m so sorry, Daisy.” He held me tight as the rising wail of police sirens sliced through the silence.
He said it was over—but the way he held me felt like a man who had just crossed a line he’d never come back from.
I stepped out of the shower, steam curling around me. The hot water had eased the tension in my muscles, but it couldn’t wash away the restless weight pressing on my chest. Wrapping a towel around my body, I moved into the bedroom and pulled clothes from the closet.
Damian’s voice carried softly from the living room. He was on the phone—almost certainly with his lawyer. His tone was calm, composed, but the cold undercurrent in it reminded me how close we had been to the darkness these last days.
Yesterday had been consumed at the police station. Damian and the two surviving bodyguards were arrested, questioned, held under the suffocating pressure of suspicion. The investigation was still unfolding, and every move we made was being watched. Karl and Marlon lay in the hospital, fighting their injuries. So did the only two survivors of Mason’s men.
And Ference...
My chest constricted at the thought of him. He would never come back. Not ever. Because of me. The guilt pressed heavier than any wound, turning each breath into punishment. It had been my choice to go with Mason. My choice to play his game. If I had fought back then—if I had chosen differently—Ference would still be alive. His blood was on my hands.
And Damian... Damian hadn’t just lost a bodyguard. He had lost a friend—a man he trusted with his life. That wound would never heal. Not for him. And not for me.
Damian entered the bedroom, his expression unreadable.
“The lawyer has everything under control,” he said evenly, setting the phone aside. “The investigation is ongoing, but they have nothing that could endanger us. Not if we’re careful.”
“Nothing except the incident in Mason’s office.”
Damian gave a short, dry snort, his gaze cold and calculating. “Mason made sure there were no records of it. He was too terrified of the fallout.”
