The nightmare doesn’t hit all at once.
It drips.
First it’s a sound—metal scraping metal, echoing in the dark corners of Aria’s mind. Then the smell—bleach and rust and old fear. Then the light—too bright, swinging, catching on bars and chains and skin.
She jerks upright in the bed Damian insisted she sleep in, chest heaving, nails digging so hard into her own palms she breaks skin. For a second she doesn’t remember where she is. The walls are too dark, the air too still, her own breathing too loud.
The warehouse, her brain insists. Navarro’s warehouse. His cages.
Her eyes find the shadowed outline of the penthouse ceiling instead. The soft gleam of the city bleeding in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The faint red glow on the dresser where the collar’s broken counterpart lies—a reminder and a warning.
She still can’t breathe.
Aria rips the sheets off, stumbling out of bed. Her legs are shaking. Her throat burns with a scream she doesn’t let out. She presses her palms to her ears, trying to block out the phantom sound of a boy’s voice begging in the dark.
“Please… no more…”
Damian.
She squeezes her eyes shut so hard it hurts. The image of him tied to that chair, beaten and bleeding, burned into her skull from the security footage she never should’ve watched alone. The way he looked at the camera after Navarro left the room—eyes empty, like something inside him had already died.
Her stomach twists. She staggers toward the edge of the mattress, leaning on it, trying to ground herself.
“Breathe,” she whispers to herself. “You’re not there. You’re not there. You’re not—”
The mattress dips behind her.
“Aria.”
His voice is roughened from sleep, deeper, scratchier. It slides down her spine like a command and a question all at once. She sucks in a breath, shoulders locking.
She doesn’t turn.
If she turns, she might fall apart.
The sheets rustle again. Bare feet on the floor. The soft creak of the frame as Damian pushes up from the chair he fell asleep in beside her bed—a chair he has taken every night since the bomb, claiming it’s “practical,” as if sleeping upright with a gun within reach is sane.
“Aria,” he repeats, closer now. There’s a thread of something in his voice she almost never hears when he’s awake—unshielded worry. “Look at me.”
She shakes her head once, sharp. “I’m fine.”
He’s in front of her before she finishes saying it.
His hands close around her wrists, firm but not painful, pulling them away from her ears. She almost fights him out of reflex, but the familiar warmth of his grip snaps something back into focus. She drags her eyes up to his.
Damian looks wrecked.
His hair’s a mess, jaw shadowed with stubble he hasn’t bothered to shave, scars catching the low light. Sleep clings to the edges of his gaze, but the concern in it is knife-sharp. He’s shirtless, sweats hanging low on his hips, the bandage from the convoy ambush peeking from under the tape across his ribs.
“Fine,” he repeats, voice low, dangerous in a different way. “You’re shaking so hard the mattress moved.”
“I’m—” Her voice breaks. She clamps her mouth shut.
He studies her for one beat. Two.
Then he acts.
He doesn’t ask permission. Damian never really does. But this time it isn’t a command; it’s instinct.
He pulls her toward the bed.
“Damian—”
“Enough,” he mutters, guiding her down, one hand on the small of her back. “I’m not listening to you lie to me at three in the morning.”
The mattress is still warm from where she’d been. He sits first, then hauls her gently, insistently, until she’s between his legs, back to his chest. When she stiffens, he doesn’t let go—he just adjusts, shifting them both until they’re under the sheets, until her head is on his bare chest and his arm is around her waist.
Her breath stutters.
This is different from the times he’s dragged her, chained her, used his body as a shield. This is… quiet. Deliberate. Intimate.
“Damian,” she whispers, fingers trembling where they’ve landed against his sternum. “I—I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.” His heartbeat thunders under her ear, faster than it should be. “You’re not in that warehouse. You’re here. With me.” His hand spreads over her stomach, anchoring her. “What did you see?”
She swallows. The memory claws back up her throat.
“You,” she says hoarsely. “The video. Navarro… the chair. The blood. I could hear him laughing. I could hear you—” Her voice cracks on the last word. “Begging.”
He goes still.
For a second, she wonders if she pushed too far, if he’ll shove her away, snarl at her, throw up the walls he always hides behind when his past is mentioned. Instead, his chest rises under her cheek on a long, slow inhale.
“And what were you doing there alone?” he asks, voice quiet, as if afraid anything louder will make her shatter. “I told you not to watch that without me.”
“You were busy trying to stop a war,” she mutters. “I thought I could handle it.”
His arm tightens around her, just a fraction.
“You shouldn’t have to handle it,” he says. “Not his sins. Not mine.”
They fall into silence. Not empty—heavy. Rain taps against the glass like impatient fingers. Somewhere in the tower, a generator hums.
Aria realizes she’s still shaking. She tries to pull away, embarrassed at how small she feels, but Damian’s grip only firms.
“Stop,” he murmurs, mouth close enough that she feels the word against her hair. “You’re safe.”
“You keep saying that,” she whispers, eyes burning. “But you can’t promise it.”
His jaw flexes against the top of her head. “Watch me.”
She huffs a weak, broken almost-laugh. “You can’t control everything, Damian.”
“I don’t need to control everything,” he says. “Just whatever comes near you.”
That shouldn’t make her feel calmer. It should scare her. Maybe it does—some part deep, logical, distant. But the part of her that just woke up in Navarro’s hell cares about one thing: the steady weight of his arm, the solid line of his body pressed along hers, the way his hand rubs small circles into her side like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it.
Her eyes finally begin to sting with exhaustion instead of terror.
“What if the war takes you?” she asks, the thought spilling out before she can bite it back. “What if they take you like they took—” Her voice trips over his father’s name. Over the children in the cages. “What happens to me then?”
He’s quiet for a long moment.
“I don’t plan on dying,” he says eventually, tone flat in that terrifying Damian way. “Not before I finish tearing Navarro’s legacy out by the roots. Not before I make sure no one can ever touch you without losing a hand.”
“That’s not an answer,” she murmurs.
His chest rumbles under her, something like a grim laugh. “You’ll lead,” he says. “You’ll survive. You’re built for it more than you think.” Then, softer, almost like a confession, “But I’m not giving the universe that chance.”
She feels heat crawl up her throat. “You can’t say things like that.”
“Truth?” he asks. “Or the part where I meant every word?”
“Both.”
His hand slides up, resting between her ribs and her heart. “You wanted honesty,” he reminds her. “You asked for all of it when you walked into my war and refused to leave.”
She closes her eyes, focusing on the way his fingertips trace slow, grounding patterns on her skin through the thin fabric of her shirt. Her breathing syncs with his without her permission.
“Damian?”
“Mm.”
“I’m sorry you went through that,” she whispers, the words catching on her tongue. “The cages. My father. All of it. I know sorry doesn’t help, but… I am.”
He’s silent long enough that she wonders if he’s going to reject the apology outright.
“Don’t be,” he says at last. “You were a victim of him too. Different cage. Same architect.”
Her throat tightens. “Sometimes I think I can still feel his hand on my shoulder,” she admits. “Ordering me to smile. Telling me which dress to wear, which men to charm. I didn’t even know half of what he was doing, and I still feel dirty for the parts I did.”
His arm locks around her, sudden and fierce. “You were a child in his house,” he growls softly. “You did what you had to to survive. That doesn’t stain you. It stains him.”
She swallows back another wave of emotion. “And you?” she asks. “Do you feel it? Still? His hands. His… voice.”
His chest rises and falls under her cheek.
“Every night,” he says simply. “Every time I close my eyes, I hear doors locking. I smell bleach. I feel his men’s boots on my ribs.” A pause. “And lately, I hear your voice trying to drag me out of it.”
Her heart stutters.
“Damian—”
“Sleep, Aria.” His palm slides up to cup the back of her head, guiding her cheek closer to his heart. “I’ll keep watch.”
“You can’t stay awake all night,” she protests weakly, already drifting.
“Yes, I can.” She hears the ghost of a smirk in his voice. “I’m very good at not sleeping.”
She wants to argue. Tell him that’s not healthy. That he’s human whether he admits it or not. But the warmth, the steady heartbeat, the low rumble of his voice wrapping around her pull her down, down, down.
“For what it’s worth,” she murmurs, words slurring with exhaustion, “I sleep better when you’re here.”
His fingers thread into her hair, slow and careful. “For what it’s worth,” he answers, voice barely above a breath, “I only breathe right when you do.”
She doesn’t hear that part. She’s already gone.
Damian lies there, staring at the ceiling, his arm locked around her like a band of steel. Every instinct he honed in Navarro’s hell screams at him to move, to patrol, to check the doors, the cameras, the shadows.
He ignores all of them.
He watches the way her lashes rest on her cheeks, the faint crease in her brow slowly smoothing out. He traces a strand of hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear with a tenderness that would get him killed if anyone saw.
He shouldn’t touch her like this.
He does it anyway.
Hours pass. The city shifts from ink-black to deep blue to the first hints of gray dawn. His body aches, shoulder throbbing, head heavy—but he doesn’t close his eyes. Every time she twitches in her sleep, whimpers, or clutches at his chest, he murmurs something low and steady.
“You’re safe.”
“He’s gone.”
“He’ll never touch you again.”
“I won’t let him.”
At some point, his hand finds its way to her jaw, thumb brushing softly along her cheekbone. His throat tightens painfully.
He hasn’t protected someone like this since—
He cuts the thought off before it can fully form. Before the memory of a little brother’s face, of small hands, of a promise he failed to keep can claw its way back into his skull.
He looks at Aria instead.
“This time,” he whispers into her hair, voice raw, “I don’t fail.”
The sun finally nudges over the edge of the skyline, painting the room in cold, early light. Aria stirs. Her lashes flutter, eyes blinking open slowly. She lifts her head, confusion flickering into awareness as she realizes exactly where she is.
Exactly who is holding her.
She looks up at him.
He’s still there. Same position. Same arm around her, same exhaustion carved into the lines of his face. His eyes are dark, rimmed with the kind of red that only comes from a night without sleep—but they’re focused entirely on her.
“You stayed,” she whispers, voice rough.
His mouth curves into something too soft to be a smirk, too broken to be a real smile. “Told you,” he says quietly. “Nothing hurts you here.”
Her chest aches.
“Damian…”
He lifts a hand, brushing his knuckles along her cheek. “Go back to sleep,” he orders gently. “For once, let me be the one who keeps watch.”
She studies him for a long second, seeing the man beneath the monster. The boy beneath the king.
And for the first time since this all began, she lets herself believe him.
She settles back down, head on his chest, arm curling around his waist. His heartbeat stutters, then steadies, like he’s found his anchor again.
He holds her closer.
Outside, Manhattan gears up for another day of war.
Inside Damian Wolfe’s bed, the most dangerous man in the city lies awake, guarding the one person who could break him—and the one person he’ll burn the world to keep.