Aria runs through the cold night air barefoot, her feet slapping against concrete as if chased by ghosts. The wind cuts her skin, but the pain inside her chest is worse—raw, choking, unbearable. Every word Damian said echoes inside her ribs like shrapnel. Weakness. Manipulation. Liability.
She makes it two blocks before she collapses against a brick wall, sliding down until her knees scrape the pavement. She doesn’t feel it. She doesn’t feel anything except the hollow ache of betrayal.
She whispers to herself that she should have known better, that monsters don’t grow hearts no matter how gently they touch you in the dark. Aria forces herself up and stumbles into the city’s shadows, disappearing.
Back in Wolfe Tower, Damian tears open her door. The sight destroys him. The collar lies on the floor, cracked. Blood smears the chain where she ripped it off with her own hands.
The window is open, the curtains blowing gently in the cold breeze. For the first time in years, Damian can’t breathe. His chest tightens until he almost chokes.
He steps into the room slowly, like he’s walking through the aftermath of a massacre. In many ways, he is. Aria’s scent is fading fast. Her presence is gone. Damian presses his palm to the shattered collar piece, jaw trembling, fury and terror slicing through him in one violent wave.
Jaxon arrives, wide-eyed. Damian spins around with murder in his eyes. He demands security footage, street scans, all units mobilized. Alarms blare across Wolfe Tower. Jaxon tries to calm him, but Damian shoves him into the wall, snarling that this is his fault—that he should never have let Aria out of his sight, that every second she’s gone is another second someone could be hurting her. His voice cracks.
Jaxon has never heard that sound from Damian before.
He storms into the control room, ripping off monitors, demanding every camera angle, every street feed, every thermal scan within a ten-block radius.
Security teams scatter in panic. Damian’s fury is absolute—cold, lethal, and trembling with a terror he doesn’t know how to name.
He sees the footage: Aria climbing out the window, collapsing once, getting back up, and disappearing into the dark. Damian grabs the edge of the desk until his knuckles split and blood smears across the metal. He whispers her name as if saying it might summon her back. It doesn’t.
Outside, rain begins to fall—heavy, merciless.
Damian shoves past the guards and stalks into the night himself, ignoring every plea, every warning. He searches alleys, rooftops, hidden tunnels, rival territories. He threatens every informant he finds. He shakes down entire blocks. He tears apart a safehouse used by Navarro loyalists. He doesn’t care about his wound reopening, blood soaking his shirt. He doesn’t care about the Syndicate. He cares about one thing.
Aria Navarro.
Everywhere he turns, she isn’t there.
Back at the tower, Jaxon receives intel—rumors that a rival group saw a girl matching Aria’s description running toward the old subway tunnels. Damian sprints back inside, drenched, wild-eyed, shaking. He grabs weapons, keys, a tracker unit. His fury is a living thing now, a monster with his face.
Jaxon hesitates, saying gently, “Damian… if she left because of what you said—”
Damian’s roar shakes the room.
“I KNOW.”
Silence.
Damian runs a bloody hand through his hair, breath ragged. His voice breaks when he whispers:
“If she dies thinking I meant any of it… I’ll never forgive myself.”
Jaxon swallows hard. He has never seen Damian like this. Not even after Navarro. Not even after the cages.
Damian storms toward the exit, shoulders trembling, voice low with a promise that chills everyone who hears it:
“Find her. If she dies, I swear I’ll burn this entire city to ash.”