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“Bella.”

I stare at him, not really seeing. Not even hearing my name as the horrific, numb feeling begins to spread all over my skin.

“Bella.”

“I…”

My voice won't fucking work. But I’m dimly aware through the snarling roar of my pulse that he’s standing in front of me, cupping my face with a hand. His brow is dark, his eyes glinting with a lethal coldness that somehow cuts through the numbness coiling tight around my reality.

“Dame…” I whisper hoarsely.

Raw, sharp fear twists inside me.

This isn’t how I thought it would happen. All those times I fantasized about seeing him on the street, or hunting down a predator only to discover it was him…

In my head, I was an avenging blade. A furious female roar exacting vengeance for a thousand silenced victims.

But now that I’m here, I just feel scared.

Weak.

Small.

A little girl still locked in a red room, weeping for the innocence that was ripped from her.

“We… We need to go…” My vision blurs as my frantic eyes touch a million different points around the room.

My lungs feel too small. My skin feels too tight.

“Please,” I choke in a voice I don’t even recognize. “Please, can we leave⁠—”

“That’s him?”

The glacial, controlled violence in his voice snaps me out of my spiraling.

My throat squeezes as it bobs. My eyes feel dry and scratchy as I raise them to Damiano’s stony gaze, bracing for the look I’ve always been terrified to see there.

Revulsion. Pity. Like just being this close to my monster somehow makes me dirty all over again.

But Damiano’s eyes don’t waver from mine. Instead, they blaze into me with fierce, feral possessiveness.

Slowly, I nod.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “That—that’s him.”

Black malevolence ripples across his tense jaw.

“Dame, we need to leave before he recog⁠—”

“I need you to do something for me, baby,” he murmurs, his eyes still riveted to mine.

He cups my face with a gentleness you’d never expect given the cold, murderous expression on his face.

“Stay right here.”

I don’t even have the brainpower right now to ask questions.

Suddenly, he’s slipping away from me, his hands leaving my face as he turns and strides across the room. He ignores the other guests as he steps around them, walking straight to the room's double doors and pulling a length of plastic from his pocket.