Aria plans her escape at dawn.
Her hands shake as she works, but she keeps going—because the alternative is suffocating in Wolfe Tower until the world decides how she’ll die.
She stole the tools days ago: a signal disruptor, a micro-soldering wand, a cracked access chip swiped from the security wing. She sits on the cold maintenance floor, prying open the collar’s underside, her breath sharp as she rewires the internal frequency. Every flickering spark is a prayer.
When the collar light finally turns blue—temporary override—Aria almost sobs with relief.
She slips into the maintenance shaft, climbs down the steel ladder into the darkness, fingers scraping metal, heart pounding. The elevator cables groan above her. She’s halfway down when—
The collar detonates.
A shockwave slams into her spine, knocking every thought out of her skull. Pain rips through her neck, electricity snapping like an exploding star. Her fingers slip from the rung. She collapses on the steel floor of the sublevel landing, limbs twitching, vision fracturing into white static.
Boots pound across the hall.
“Aria!” Jaxon’s voice—panicked, breathless—echoes through the shaft. He drops to his knees beside her, hands shaking as he checks her pulse. “Dammit, kid—Damian’s gonna murder the whole building.”
She tries to speak, but only a broken gasp leaves her lips.
Jaxon scoops her into his arms and runs.
***
Damian is already waiting.
Standing in the center of his office like a storm given human shape. His eyes are molten, jaw locked, fist bruised from punching something—or someone—on the way.
Jaxon barely steps inside before Damian rips Aria out of his hold.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Damian roars, grabbing her face in both hands. “Do you have any idea what that collar does when you tamper with it?”
Aria trembles. Her voice is raw. “I can’t—breathe—here.”
“Bullshit,” he snaps, shaking her once, not hard but desperate. “You can breathe fine. You just don’t want to breathe where I can see you.”
Her tears spill over.
“I can’t live like this,” she chokes. “I can’t just be—owned.”
His expression shatters. Not with softness. With terror. Real, visceral, suffocating fear.
A fear he can’t hide fast enough.
“You tried to climb down an elevator shaft,” he says hoarsely, thumb trembling against her jaw. “You tried to break the signal. You could’ve died down there.”
“Maybe that’s better than being trapped.”
Damian goes still.
Utterly still.
Then his hands move—sliding from her jaw to her arms, to her waist, pulling her into him with sudden, crushing force. Her face hits his chest. His grip tightens like he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he loosens even an inch.
She feels it.
His heartbeat.
Racing violently. Too fast. Too panicked.
Damian Wolfe is shaking.
“You don’t get to leave,” he rasps into her hair, breath splintering. “Not like that. Not ever like that.”
Aria tries to push away, but he holds her harder.
“Damian—”
“No.” His voice breaks. “You don’t see it. You don’t know what’s out there. They’ll kill you. They’ll use you. They’ll destroy you just to hurt me.”
Her breath catches.
“So it is about you,” she whispers bitterly.
He flinches—and then he snaps.
He grabs the back of her neck, forehead pressing to hers, eyes burning inches away.
“It’s about the fact that I can’t lose you,” he says, voice low and violent with truth. “Not to them. Not to fate. Not to a goddamn elevator shaft.”
She blinks through tears. “Then let me go.”
His grip tightens.
“Never.”
Her pulse stutters. His breath shudders. His eyes flick to her lips—then away—then back again like he’s fighting a war with instincts he doesn’t trust.
“I swear to you,” he whispers, voice shaking with something darker than anger, “if you try to run again, I won’t shock the collar.”
Aria holds her breath.
Damian lifts her chin with two fingers.
“I will chain you to my side permanently.”
The vow hangs in the air—threat, promise, obsession. And for the first terrifying time… Aria believes him.