The nightmare tears me out of sleep so violently I don’t realize I’m awake until my throat burns from screaming. The room is dark, too dark—shadows layered on shadows, corners shaped like cages. My pulse claws its way up my neck. The air feels tight, wet, metallic, like the Navarro warehouse on storm nights.
I stumble out of Damian’s bed, grabbing the nearest thing I can cling to—his coat. It’s heavy. Warm. It smells like him: gunpowder, cedar, expensive smoke, something darker underneath, something only he carries.
I pull it around myself and slip out onto the balcony.
Cold air slaps my skin, sharp enough to sting the panic out of my blood. Manhattan stretches beneath me—towers like jagged teeth, lights flickering like distant fires. The wind whips my hair across my face, but I don’t move. I let it hit me. I let the cold root me in the present.
But the warehouse is still inside my skull—chains rattling, steel doors slamming, Navarro’s voice echoing like a god of cruelty. I press my palms to the railing and close my eyes, trying to breathe through the memory.
That’s when I hear footsteps behind me. Soft. Controlled. Predatory. I already know the rhythm.
Damian.
I don’t turn. I can’t. I’m not ready to see the guilt in his eyes or the rage he’ll try to stuff back into his voice.
He steps beside me, not in front, not behind—beside. Our arms almost brush. He’s barefoot too, hair messy, wearing only black sweatpants and the fatigue of endless war. His chest rises and falls like he ran here.
His voice is quiet. Too quiet.
“Were you dreaming of the warehouse again?”
My throat closes. “Yes.”
A moment of silence stretches between us, long and fragile, like a thread pulled between two shaking hands. Then Damian speaks again—lower, rougher.
“I dream of it too.”
I jerk a little, surprised. Damian Wolfe never admits weakness. Never shares the pieces of him that bleed. But tonight his armor is cracked, and through the cracks I see the boy he used to be—the boy Navarro tried to destroy.
The wind picks up, tugging the coat tighter around me. Damian notices. Of course he does.
He stares at the coat, at my bare feet, at the tremble in my fingers. His jaw clenches. Something raw unravels behind his eyes—fear, protectiveness, longing, all tangled together.
“Aria…” He swallows hard. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I didn’t want to burden you.”
His head snaps toward me. “You are not a burden.”
I look down at the coat draped over my shoulders. “Then why does it feel like the entire Syndicate is falling apart because of me?”
He steps closer. Not enough to touch me, but enough that I feel the heat of him like a gravity field pulling me in.
“Because they fear anything they can’t control,” he murmurs. “And they can’t control you.” His voice drops even lower. “Neither can I.”
My chest tightens. Those words shouldn’t make me warm. They do anyway.
We stand there in silence, the cold wind slicing between us and still not enough to cool the tension building like pressure in a sealed room.
My fingers shift on the railing, brushing his hand by accident.
He freezes.
So do I.
Slowly—hesitantly—he turns his palm upward, and my hand slips into his without either of us deciding to do it. Our fingers curl together on instinct.
A breath escapes me. His grip is warm, steady, grounding. His thumb strokes once against my knuckle, unintentional but devastating.
Damian stares at our joined hands like they are the most dangerous weapons in the world.
“Aria…” he whispers.
My heart stutters. Not from fear. From recognition. From the truth we’ve both been drowning under.
He lifts our hands between us, studying them like he’s memorizing the shape of us. Then, with a slowness that feels like surrender, he leans in. Our foreheads touch—not hard, not rough. Soft.
Too soft.
My breath trembles. His does too.
And then he kisses me.
Not like the last time—wild, desperate, brutal.
This kiss is slow.
Like he’s learning the shape of my mouth.
Like he’s terrified he’ll break me.
Like he’s terrified I’ll break him.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, fingers weaving into my hair. My hands rise to his chest automatically, gripping his skin, feeling the warmth of him, the strength, the exhaustion.
He tilts his head, deepening the kiss—not hungry, not claiming. Just… real. Intimate. Healing in a way that hurts. His thumb brushes my jaw. Mine slip around his waist, pulling him closer without thinking.
When we finally break apart, our foreheads rest together, breaths mingling in white clouds of cold air.
Damian’s voice is a rasp, barely human.
“I shouldn’t want you like this.”
A bitter laugh escapes me, soft but cracked. “Then stop.”
His fingers tighten in my hair. His breath hitches.
He doesn’t stop.
He leans in again—then stops himself a fraction of an inch from my mouth. His eyes flicker down to my lips, then to my collar, then back to my eyes. The restraint shaking through him is almost violent.
“I can’t,” he whispers, voice breaking.
My chest aches. “Then don’t.”
He inhales sharply—like those words were a trigger.
His forehead presses harder to mine, his hands trembling against my skin. He doesn’t kiss me again. Not yet. He just holds me there, breathing me in, grounding himself in the one thing he swore he’d never want.
Minutes pass like that—quiet, fragile, sacred.
Finally he murmurs, “Come inside, Aria. You’re freezing.”
But when I try to step back, his hand catches mine again. He brings our joined hands to his chest, right over his heartbeat—fast, uneven, nothing like the calm monster he pretends to be.
I look up at him.
He looks down at me.
Nothing is said.
Everything is understood.
He leads me inside—not dragging, not pushing, just holding my hand like he’s afraid letting go will wake him from the only good dream he’s had in years.
Tonight, he doesn’t cage me.
Tonight, he doesn’t guard me like an asset.
Tonight, he stays beside me.
And for the first time since the war began, I fall asleep in Damian Wolfe’s arms—not as his captive or his responsibility, but as the woman he can no longer pretend he doesn’t want.
And he doesn’t let go.
Not once.