Damian didn’t summon her politely.
He commanded her presence with a single message that shook her collar.
The elevator hadn’t even finished opening when Damian seized Aria’s arm and dragged her into the penthouse office. The door slammed behind them so violently the glass rattled in its frame. His rage filled the room like smoke—thick, suffocating, impossible to ignore.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Damian snapped, pacing in jagged lines, a man carved out of fury. “Do you enjoy provoking Sabrina? Do you enjoy testing how fast I lose my temper? Or are you just that reckless?”
Aria’s chest tightened. “I didn’t provoke her—”
“Bullshit.” Damian spun toward her, eyes blazing. “You keep inserting yourself into danger like you want attention.”
Aria stared at him, something inside her cracking under the pressure. “I’m trying,” she whispered first—but it wasn’t enough. Her voice rose, trembling, breaking. “I am trying my best to survive in a world that wants me dead! You think this is easy for me? You think I asked for any of this?”
Damian closed the distance in three furious strides.
His palm slammed into the wall beside her head with a crack that made her jump. He caged her in with his body—towering over her, chest rising and falling like he was struggling not to explode.
“You belong to me,” Damian growled, low and lethal. “No one else gets to terrorize you. No one else gets to touch you. No one else gets to break you.”
Aria swallowed hard. His breath brushed her cheek. His voice shook—not from fear, but from something far more dangerous.
Ownership. Obsession. Something he didn’t want to feel.
“Ownership isn’t protection,” Aria whispered.
Those four words seemed to slice him open.
Damian’s jaw tightened. His eyes flicked down to her lips—slow, lingering, unwilling. His hand slid to her waist, fingers clutching the fabric of her shirt, dragging her even closer. Their bodies pressed together. Heat surged between them—anger, attraction, hatred tangled into something combustible.
Her breath hitched.
His stuttered.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Damian muttered, voice cracking under the weight of something he refused to name.
“How am I looking at you?” Aria whispered back, unable to pull away.
“Like you see something in me that shouldn’t exist.”
He leaned in—too close, too intimate, too dangerous. His thumb brushed her hip. His breath ghosted across her lips. Their mouths were inches apart, hatred melting into hunger so fast it frightened them both.
Aria’s pulse pounded in her ears. Damian’s eyes darkened, the walls he built cracking, collapsing, failing.
For a heartbeat, he almost kissed her.
For a heartbeat, he wanted to.
Then Damian inhaled sharply—a raw, panicked sound—and shoved her away as if she were made of fire.
He stumbled back a step, horrified, chest rising and falling too quickly. He dragged a hand over his face, shaking his head as if trying to tear the moment out of existence.
“Get out,” he said, voice hoarse and uneven. “Now.”
Aria didn’t move at first, shocked by how violently the moment shifted.
Damian tore his gaze from her and shouted into the comm device on his desk:
“Jaxon—if you ever let Aria near Sabrina again, I swear to God, I’ll put a bullet through your skull. Don’t test me.”
The line went silent.
Damian’s shoulders dropped, breath ragged, the fire in him still burning uncontrollably. He wouldn’t look at her—couldn’t look at her.
Aria backed toward the door, shaken to her bones.
He hated her.
He wanted her.
He feared her.
And he had no idea how to survive any of that.
She slipped out of the room quietly, the collar warm around her throat, her heart racing with the truth neither of them dared say out loud:
Damian Wolfe was losing control—
and she was the reason why.