Aria woke shaking, sheets tangled around her legs, chest tight with a panic she couldn’t swallow. Navarro’s cages bled into Damian’s interrogation room. Sabrina’s whisper—You’ll regret choosing her—echoed in her ears like a curse.
She couldn’t breathe.
She shoved off the bed, the collar burning against her throat with each desperate breath, and stormed out of her room barefoot, hair wild, heart hammering. The penthouse lights were dim, almost midnight-blue. She didn’t knock on Damian’s door. She didn’t care if she was stupid or reckless or suicidal.
She slammed the door open.
“Damian!” she shouted.
Damian Wolfe jolted upright from his desk. He hadn’t changed out of his black dress shirt; the sleeves were still rolled, the fabric stretched across his chest like it was holding the tension in his body together.
He rose slowly. Too slowly.
“What,” he said, voice low and dangerous, “are you doing in here?”
Aria marched toward him, shaking with rage and sleepless fear. “Why did you do it?”
Damian’s jaw flexed. “Do what.”
“Don’t play with me,” she snapped. “Why did you exile Sabrina? Why would you do that—for me?”
Damian’s eyes sharpened into cold steel. “I did it because she overstepped.”
Aria laughed—a choked, angry sound. “That’s a lie and you know it.”
He stepped closer. “Watch your tone.”
“No,” she fired back, stepping right into the heat of him. “Answer the question.”
His nostrils flared. His voice dropped lower. “Aria, walk out of this room while you still can.”
“Why does it matter if she hurts me?” Aria demanded. “Why does my death matter to you at all?”
Damian moved.
One second he was a few feet away, the next his hand locked around her jaw, fingers digging into her skin as he forced her head up. She gasped at the shock of contact.
He snarled the words through his teeth. “Because you are my responsibility.”
She should’ve flinched. Should’ve backed away. Should’ve lowered her gaze.
Instead, Aria stepped even closer, so close her breath brushed the corner of his mouth.
“Responsibility,” she whispered, “doesn’t make your hands shake when I scream.”
Damian froze.
Every part of him went rigid—his shoulders, his jaw, even his breath.
Aria could feel it. The crack. The unraveling. The truth he’d been throwing stones at for weeks, trying to kill before it grew.
His fingers tightened on her jaw, not enough to bruise—but enough to betray how badly he was losing control. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I do,” she said. Her voice trembled, but she forced the words out anyway. “You can’t stand the thought of me dying.”
Damian’s eyes darkened, pupils blown, chest rising and falling too fast.
“That’s not—” His voice broke. Actually broke. He swallowed hard. “—that’s not why.”
Aria’s heart pounded. She lifted her hands slowly—giving him time to pull back, to stop her—then rested her palms on his chest. His breath hitched her name without speaking it.
Damian’s heartbeat thundered under her fingers.
“Then why?” she whispered. “Why does it matter so much?”
He didn’t answer.
So she pushed again—gently, painfully, like peeling back armor that had been fused to skin. “Tell me what you’re so afraid of.”
Damian’s control snapped.
His hands flew to her hips, gripping hard—too hard at first, then softening instinctively. He dragged her against him, like he couldn’t stop himself, like gravity had finally claimed him after months of resistance.
Aria’s breath caught. Heat shot through her skin. Damian’s forehead nearly touched hers, his breath brushing her lips in shallow, shaky bursts. Her fingers curled in his shirt, clinging.
His voice came out hoarse, ragged. “You think I’m afraid of Sabrina? Or the families? Or the Syndicate?”
His grip tightened.
“I’m afraid of you.”
Aria’s blood turned molten. “Damian…”
“You walk into my life like a spark,” he whispered, voice trembling. “And everything I’ve built starts burning.”
She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
Damian’s gaze dropped to her lips—slow, helpless, hungry.
Aria felt the world tilt.
His thumb brushed the edge of her mouth. A barely-there stroke. So soft it felt violent.
She shuddered.
Damian sucked in a breath—like the sound of her reaction hit him deeper than any bullet. His eyes flicked up to hers, wide and terrified.
“I don’t—” His voice cracked again. “I don’t know how to want something without destroying it.”
Aria whispered, “Maybe you don’t have to destroy everything.”
Damian exhaled sharply, like the words cut him open.
His hands slid up her sides, slow and reverent and furious all at once. His forehead touched hers now—just barely—breath mingling, heat coiling between them like a fuse begging to be lit.
Aria felt him everywhere. Felt him tremble. Felt him crumble.
“Aria,” he rasped, “stop.”
She didn’t. Couldn’t.
“Tell me why it matters,” she whispered again.
He groaned—a broken, tortured sound—and pressed her harder against him.
“Because if something happened to you,” Damian said, voice ragged, “I wouldn’t survive it.”
Aria’s breath faltered.
Her fingers curled tighter in his shirt.
He shook his head violently. “I shouldn’t—I can’t—”
But he didn’t let her go.
He held her like she was the only thing keeping him alive.
Aria swallowed hard. “Damian… look at me.”
He did—slowly. Like it hurt him. Like looking at her was both salvation and ruin. Their lips hovered a breath apart. One move. One inch. One heartbeat.
Then—Damian ripped himself away.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t soft. It was violent—like he feared what would happen if he stayed one more second in her orbit.
He stumbled back, chest heaving, hands shaking.
“Get out,” he whispered.
Aria blinked. “Damian—”
“Get out before I do something I can’t take back.”
His voice was shredded.
His eyes were fire and fear and desire and hatred all twisted into something feral.
Aria stepped back.
Slowly. Painfully.
At the door, she looked back once. Damian stood in the center of the room, fists in his hair, breathing like he was drowning.
Then she left. And the moment the door clicked shut, Damian sagged to his knees, burying his face in his bloody hands, the truth finally breaking him: He didn’t want to own her.
He wanted her. And that was infinitely worse.