“Sit her down before someone shoots her.”
The command erupted the moment Aria stumbled into the boardroom, shoved forward by a guard who clearly didn’t care if she fell on her face.
Her knees buckled, her palms slapped against the cold marble table, and a dozen male voices filled the air with low laughter and cruel murmurs. Damian didn’t help her up. He didn’t offer a hand.
He simply grabbed her arm, hauled her upright, and shoved her into the empty chair at the center of the room like she was nothing more than an object placed on display.
The boardroom was massive—forty-foot windows, obsidian table, twelve crime-family CEOs lounging in designer suits with the quiet arrogance of men who had bought their power in blood.
All twelve pairs of eyes slid toward the glowing collar around Aria’s throat. Some smirked with appreciation, others with disgust, and two looked at her with the same hunger men reserved for meat hanging in a butcher shop.
One man elbowed the other and whispered loudly enough for Aria to hear, “Wolfe finally got himself a Navarro trophy. About time he collected overdue interest.”
Damian didn’t take a seat.
He stayed behind her chair, arms crossed over his chest, jaw tight, posture rigid—a silent warning that no one should step closer, even though his entire presence radiated a hatred so sharp it felt like a physical blade pressed against the back of her neck.
The contradiction made her skin crawl. Every second she breathed in his shadow felt like a battle between being shielded from the wolves and being owned by the wolf standing directly behind her.
A gray-haired boss leaned forward, fingers steepled beneath his chin. His voice sliced through the room with cutting confidence.
“Wolfe, the girl should be presented at Tribute Night. Navarro always honored tradition. You should too.”
Aria felt the blood drain from her face.
Tribute Night—the nightmare whispered through the halls of her father’s estate. A night of masks, auctions, bodies offered like wine.
Her father had hidden it from her, but she had heard enough to know it was not a place where innocence survived.
Damian’s jaw flexed hard enough she heard the grind of teeth. “No.”
A man across the table laughed, leaning back in his leather chair as if amused.
“No? She’s perfect. Navarro’s own daughter? Young. Untouched. Putting her on that stage would erase every grudge in this room. Every family here lost blood to her father.”
Aria’s stomach twisted into a knot. The collar hummed anxiously against her skin as panic threatened to rise. She stared down at her hands to hide the shaking, but the room did not allow her any mercy.
Damian didn’t allow them a second breath.
Before she even saw him move, Damian’s hand shot out, closing around the man’s throat with the speed of a viper strike.
The man’s chair screeched back against the marble as Damian slammed him down onto the table with a force that rattled the silver water pitchers. His gloved fingers pressed so tightly into the man’s skin that Aria saw the pulse stop beneath them.
“You think touching her erases anything?” Damian growled, leaning in so close his breath fogged against the man’s cheek. “All it ensures is that I put a bullet in your skull next.”
Gasps ricocheted around the room.
Several chairs scraped back in instinctive retreat. Half the table reached for the guns holstered at their sides. Aria flinched so hard her chair nearly toppled.
The man under Damian’s hand choked and clawed at his wrist, face turning a violent shade of red. Damian did not ease his grip.
His hatred didn’t flicker—it burned hotter. Aria could feel it radiating from him, saturating the air, suffocating her. Every breath she took tasted of danger.
Finally—only when the man’s eyes rolled back—Damian released him.
The man collapsed into his chair, wheezing, trembling, clutching his bruised throat. No one offered him help. Damian straightened. His voice when he spoke was colder than ice.
“She is off limits.”
The room erupted instantly.
Shouting. Fists slamming. Words like bullets shot across the table—accusations, curses, outrage that Damian would dare defy their system. A system built long before Aria was born. A system her father enforced with iron fists and secret deaths. A system that Damian should have been loyal to.
But he wasn’t.
And Aria saw the truth in the rage twisting his features.
Protecting her didn’t come from care. It came from fury. From possessiveness. From a deep, brutal claim forged in hate and vengeance.
And defying the table meant declaring war.
The arguments grew louder, chaos crashing like waves. Hands slapped onto the table. Men rose from their seats. One shouted that Damian was losing control. Another demanded she be delivered to Tribute Night regardless of Wolfe’s claim. Another sneered that Damian must be enjoying Navarro’s daughter more than he admitted.
Damian silenced them without speaking.
He leaned down until his mouth hovered inches from Aria’s ear. His voice slid into her like venom, soft and catastrophic.
“Do not mistake this for kindness.”
Her breath hitched. She didn’t dare move. “No one uses what belongs to me.”
A violent shiver raced beneath her skin, sinking into her bones. It wasn’t a promise. It wasn’t protection.
It was possession.
“But you,” he whispered, his lips grazing dangerously close to her cheek, “you are the only one I hate enough to keep.”
Something inside her broke. A fragile, trembling part of her that still wanted to be seen as human. As innocent. As anything other than a living ghost of her father’s sins.
Her heartbeat shattered like glass.
The meeting erupted back into explosive argument, but Damian had already turned his back to them, one hand clamping onto her arm as he dragged her toward the exit. The guards opened the heavy double doors, and the two of them stepped out into the quiet hallway.
Aria tried to steady herself, but her legs were weak, her breath shaking, her mind spinning with images of the meeting—the hatred, the voices, Damian’s grip on that man’s throat.
Her foot slipped on the polished marble. She stumbled—falling forward.
And before she even realized what had happened, Damian’s hand shot out.
Not roughly or painfully. A firm grip caught her by the waist, fingers digging lightly into her hip as he pulled her back upright. Her body pressed against his chest for a single, burning second. His breath brushed her hair. His heartbeat thudded once, hard, against her shoulder.
A ghost of concern flickered across his face. Then it vanished.
His hand dropped from her like she was contaminated. His jaw tightened, hatred snapping back into place with violent precision.
“Pull yourself together,” Damian said, voice sharp and cold enough to cut skin. “I won’t catch you twice.”