Before the building even woke fully, he appeared at her door with two guards behind him and an order sharp enough to bruise.
“You’re working under me today,” he said, watching her with ice-cold precision. “You’re a liability, and liabilities stay where I can see them.”
Aria didn’t argue. She was too tired, too aware of the heat lingering on her wrist from Sabrina’s nails. She followed him into his glass-walled office—high above the city, silent, vast, and cold. The kind of room meant to swallow weakness.
The moment the door closed, Damian locked it.
Aria startled. “Why—”
“So no one interrupts.” His voice cut across hers, tense in a way she couldn’t name. “Or touches what they shouldn’t.”
Her heart stumbled. He didn’t look at her as he paced, jaw tight, shoulders coiled like something dangerous bracing for impact. He moved with sharp, controlled energy—like lightning forced into human form. She could feel it in the air, thick, electric, wrapping around her throat harder than the collar ever had.
Her tasks were spread across the desk in towering stacks—classified contracts, coded messages, financial movements through shell companies linked to the Syndicate’s darkest operations. She organized them silently as Damian stalked around the office, stopping occasionally at the windows, then spinning back toward her with restless fury.
He wasn’t watching the city.
He was watching her.
Every movement. Every breath.
The chain connected to her collar lay coiled beside her elbow—unused, but its presence thickened the air between them. Damian kept glancing at it, as though wrestling with the urge to pick it up again. To remind himself of his own rules. To undo the slip of control he’d shown too many times already.
Hours dragged. Papers blurred. Damian’s steps circled her like weather tightening around a single point. Aria could feel him unraveling—not outwardly, but internally, silently, the way a storm unravels behind clouds before lightning splits the sky.
She tried to steady her breath.
He noticed.
“Don’t do that,” he said sharply.
She blinked. “Do what?”
“Breathe like that.”
“I’m just—”
“Don’t,” he repeated, harsher than necessary. “It’s distracting.”
Her cheeks warmed. “I’m not trying to distract you.”
“That’s the problem,” he snapped.
Before she could answer, a stinging pain shot through her finger—sharp, sudden. She pulled her hand back instinctively, gasping softly as blood welled where a document clip had sliced her.
Damian stopped pacing instantly.
His eyes sharpened. His whole body went still.
Aria pressed her thumb to the cut, breath trembling. “It’s fine—I just—”
Damian was on her before she finished the sentence.
He grabbed her wrist too hard. Too fast. Too much. Aria winced.
His anger cracked. “Don’t pull away,” he ordered, but the command wavered with something raw. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m okay,” she whispered.
“You’re not.” His voice sank, quieter now, as though the words cost him something. “You’re not.”
He dragged her wrist closer, but this time his grip softened—not fully gentle, but no longer punishing. He reached into his drawer, pulling out a cloth. He wiped the blood from her finger with careful, deliberate strokes. He didn’t look like a man tending a wound. He looked like someone fighting himself tooth and nail.
His breath grew uneven. Her skin burned where his fingers touched.
The office fell painfully, almost reverently quiet.
When he reached for her thumb again, Aria’s voice came out barely above a whisper. “Damian… you’re hurting me without meaning to.”
The words hit him like a blow. His fingers froze. His body went rigid. Slowly—too slowly—he let go of her wrist.
Hatred flared in his eyes, but it wasn’t aimed at her. It was a violent, self-directed fury. His hands trembled once before he fisted them at his sides.
He stepped back as though distance were the only thing keeping him sane.
“This,” he muttered under his breath, pacing again in erratic circles, “is exactly why I didn’t want you in this office.”
Aria stared at him, heart pounding. “I didn’t choose this.”
He turned sharply, anger and conflict fighting across his face. “I know.”
The admission startled both of them.
He dragged a hand through his hair, breaking the careful composure he clung to so tightly. “Get out,” he said finally, voice low but shaking. “Go to your room. Before I say something I can’t take back.”
Aria hesitated. “Damian—”
“Go.” His voice cracked. “Now.”
She gathered her papers and moved toward the door, pulse racing. As she stepped out, she glanced back once.
Damian Wolfe stood alone in the center of the office—shoulders heaving, fists tight, every part of him shaking with the war he was losing against himself.
Aria closed the door softly behind her.
Neither of them worked for the rest of the day. Neither of them knew who they feared more—each other or the versions of themselves they were becoming.