“Lock it down. Now.”
Damian’s voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to. The words cut through the security feed room like a blade dipped in ice. Every guard, every tech, every executive clustered near the monitors went still.
Jaxon cleared his throat carefully. “Boss, if we lock the tower at this level, we’ll strangle every—”
Damian snapped his gaze to him, eyes gone flat and dead like something had finally switched off inside. “I said,” he repeated, enunciating each syllable, “lock. It. Down.”
Jaxon’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. “Full lockdown. No one in, no one out.”
Sirens began wailing through Wolfe Tower—low, pulsing, bone-deep. Metal shutters slid over the lower entrance feeds on the monitors. Red lights strobed in the hall cameras. People on elevators flinched, stumbling as the cars froze between floors.
Aria watched all of it from the corner of the control room, Damian’s hand still wrapped around her wrist. He hadn’t let go of her since he shot the assassin who almost found her behind his desk. His fingers were bruising her skin, but he didn’t seem to notice.
She didn’t remind him.
The body had been dragged away. The blood in his office was already being cleaned. But Aria could still see the assassin’s eyes as he fell—calm, resigned, like dying was just an occupational hazard.
Because killing her had been the mission.
Her chest tightened. She looked up at Damian.
He looked like slaughter.
“Reroute every external feed to this room,” Damian said. “I want facial scans on every guard, every cleaner, every vendor that stepped foot in here in the last seventy-two hours. Anyone without clearance disappears from my building by dawn.”
One of the security techs swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“And triple patrol rotations on the executive floors,” Damian added. “If anyone besides me, Jaxon, or Rina so much as breathes in the direction of the seventy-eighth floor, I want a gun in their mouth before they finish the exhale.”
There was no argument. There never was when he spoke like that.
Aria’s heart hammered. “Damian—”
That finally made him look down at her. Just a fraction. Just enough.
“You’re shaking,” he said.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
His jaw flexed. “No,” he said quietly. “You’re not.”
He turned back to Jaxon. “She goes nowhere without me. Not to the bathroom. Not to the damn balcony. If I’m not physically touching her, one of your men is within arm’s reach. Understood?”
Jaxon opened his mouth, saw the look in Damian’s eyes, and pivoted. “Understood.”
Aria’s throat tightened. “I don’t need—”
Damian spun, closing the distance between them so fast the words died on her tongue. He cupped her face between both hands, tilting her head up until she had no choice but to meet his stare.
“Don’t you dare tell me what you need right now,” he said, voice low, ragged. “You almost died. Again. In my building. In my office.”
His thumbs pressed lightly against her cheekbones. His fingers shook.
“I’m still breathing,” she whispered.
“For how long?” he shot back. “Until the next elevator opens? Until the next guard turns out to be a hired gun? Until the next bomb someone slides under a stairwell while you’re walking past?”
The sirens continued to pulse around them. Monitors flickered with camera views—a blur of armed men, sealed doors, confused executives. The entire empire reorienting itself around one single directive: protect the Navarro girl.
Protect her for him.
“Damian,” Jaxon said carefully, “we should—”
Damian didn’t look away from Aria. “We’re done here.”
Jaxon hesitated. “I’ll coordinate from downstairs.”
He left, shutting the control room door behind him.
The moment they were alone, Damian’s hold tightened. “You’re coming with me.”
Aria swallowed. “Where?”
“Somewhere no one touches you unless they die for the privilege,” he ground out.
He didn’t wait for agreement. He laced his fingers with hers so suddenly she startled and pulled her through the hall, his stride long and lethal, his body language screaming get in my way and I’ll cut you in half.
The elevator doors opened on the penthouse floor with a soft chime that felt obscene after everything that had just happened. The corridor was empty—likely cleared on purpose. Damian walked her straight to his suite, pressing his palm to the biometric scanner.
The locks hissed. The door slid open.
He shoved her inside, followed, and slammed it shut with a force that rattled the frame.
Aria spun, heart pounding. “You can’t just—”
“Sit.” His voice cracked like a whip.
She flinched.
Damian’s chest rose and fell too fast. He dragged a hand through his hair, then pointed to the couch. “Sit down, Aria. Before I lose what little control I have left.”
The rawness in his tone made her knees weaken more than the command. She sank onto the edge of the couch, fingers twisting in the fabric of her borrowed shirt.
Damian paced once, twice, like a caged animal, then stopped in front of her. The tension in him was a living thing—coiled, dangerous, barely leashed.
“You think this is a game?” he asked quietly.
She looked up. “No.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” he said. “You hide behind desks, you scream my name with a bomb under the stairs, you almost get your throat opened in my office—”
“I didn’t ask to be hunted!” she burst out. “I didn’t ask to be here at all!”
Something flashed across his face. “You think I don’t know that?”
“Then stop acting like all of this is my fault,” she said, voice shaking. “Like I wanted your enemies and my father’s enemies to merge into one nightmare with my name on it.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Then, without warning, he dropped to a crouch in front of her, bringing his eyes level with hers.
Her breath stuttered.
His hands came up again—one bracing on the couch beside her hip, the other gripping her chin, not cruel but unyielding, forcing her to look at him, really look.
“Listen to me,” he said, voice raw. “I ordered a lockdown of an entire empire tonight. Do you know how many people I’ve inconvenienced? How many deals I’ve frozen? How many men are about to lose money and power because I told them my tower is closed?”
Aria swallowed. “A lot, I’m guessing.”
“All of them.” His thumb brushed the corner of her mouth without thinking, then stilled. “Every single one of them. For you.”
Her lips parted. “Damian—”
“No,” he cut in. “You need to understand this. You were right, earlier. When you called me a predator with a different leash. When you said I trap you. When you accused me of treating you like a possession.”
“Because you do,” she whispered.
His eyes darkened. “Because I kill for you now.”
The words were so quiet she thought she’d imagined them.
He leaned in, their foreheads almost touching, breath hot against her face. “Do you have any idea what that means in this world, Aria? In my world? I don’t put my body in front of bullets. I don’t run toward bombs. I don’t storm through hallways because someone whispered your name in the wrong tone.” His jaw clenched. “I don’t do that. For anyone.”
Her heartbeat lurched. “Then why—”
“Because you changed the rules,” he bit out. “Because somewhere between hating you and wanting you gone, I started hearing your scream louder than everything else. Louder than gunfire. Louder than orders. Louder than my own damn survival.”
Tears blurred her vision. “That’s not my fault.”
“I know,” he said. “And I still want to tear this tower down every time you walk into danger like you don’t know what you do to me.”
Her throat closed. “I didn’t ask you to care.”
His fingers tightened on her chin, not enough to hurt, just enough to hold. “I know that too.”
They stared at each other, breathing the same uneven air.
Slowly, Damian’s grip shifted. One hand slid from her chin to cradle her jaw more gently. The other lifted to cup the back of her head, thumb brushing the edge of the faint bruise still circling her throat where the collar had been.
“You don’t leave this floor without me,” he said, each word deliberate. “You don’t step into a hallway alone. You don’t answer doors, phones, calls, anything. You want to breathe different air, I’m in the room when you do it.”
Anger flared in her chest. “So I’m your prisoner again.”
His eyes flashed. “You’re alive again.”
“That’s not living,” she whispered. “That’s just… existing in a cage with better carpet.”
Something wounded crossed his face. He leaned closer, until there was nowhere left for her to retreat.
“I am trying,” he said, voice breaking around the word, “to keep you alive, damn you.”
Silence crashed between them.
Her chest ached. “And I’m trying not to drown under you.”
His fingers flexed against her skin. “You think I don’t know I’m too much? That I don’t see the way you flinch when I raise my voice? I was built to crush people, Aria. This—” he gestured between them with a small, helpless movement of his head “—I don’t know how to do this softly.”
Her eyes burned. “Then learn.”
The demand was a whisper, but it hit him like a gunshot. He sucked in a breath, eyes closing for half a second.
When he opened them, something had settled there. Not calm. Never calm. But a kind of brutal resolve.
“I’ll try,” he said, so quietly she almost missed it.
Her ribs hurt with how hard her heart slammed. “You don’t get to say that if you don’t mean it.”
He held her gaze, unflinching. “I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
For a moment, he just looked at her, thumbs tracing invisible patterns along her cheekbones like he was memorizing the shape of her.
Then he exhaled and pushed to his feet, the loss of contact leaving her skin cold and buzzing.
“Get in the bed,” he said.
Her cheeks flared. “Excuse me?”
His mouth twitched, almost like a humorless ghost of a smile. “To sleep, princesa,” he said, voice rougher on the pet name. “You’re shaking and you keep zoning out like you’re about to hit the floor. You’re not spending the night on my couch.”
“What about you?” she asked before she could stop herself.
He moved to the closet, grabbing a blanket. “I’ll be here.”
“On the couch?” she pressed.
He shook his head and nodded toward the side of the bed. “On the floor.”
Her chest tightened. “Damian—”
“Don’t argue with me tonight,” he said, turning back, blanket over one arm, pain flickering across his features as his injured shoulder protested. “I’m not… stable enough for it.”
Something in his honesty made her legs move. She stood on shaky knees and crossed to the bed, sliding under the covers. The sheets smelled like him—smoke, cedar, something darker underneath. It should have terrified her.
It didn’t.
He turned off the main lights, leaving only the faint glow of the city seeping through the curtains. Then he lay down on the floor beside the bed, one arm folded under his head, the other resting near the mattress like a silent reassurance.
For a long time, neither spoke.
“Damian?” she whispered into the dark.
“Yeah.”
“You said you kill for me now.”
The words hung between them, heavier than the night.
“Yeah,” he said again.
Her fingers curled in the sheet. “What does that make me?”
There was a pause. When he answered, his voice was quieter than she had ever heard it.
“Mine,” he said. “Whether I deserve you or not.”
Her eyes stung. “I’m still scared of you.”
“I know.”
Another beat of silence.
“I’m more scared of losing you,” she breathed.
His hand shifted, fingers brushing the edge of the mattress, like he wanted to reach up and take hers but didn’t dare.
“Sleep, Aria,” he murmured. “I’ll be here if the monsters come.”
“You are the monster,” she whispered, a faint tremor in her voice.
His low exhale almost sounded like a laugh. “Exactly.”
Her lashes fluttered. “Good.”
It made no sense. None of this did. But as exhaustion finally dragged her under, the last thing she felt was the warmth of his body radiating up from the floor, and the last thing she heard was his rough, quiet promise.
“I’m not letting anyone touch you,” he said into the dark. “Not them. Not the past. Not even me… unless you ask.”
For the first time in longer than she could remember, Aria slept through the night.
Damian didn’t sleep at all. He lay on the floor beside her bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to her steady breathing, and realizing with cold, terrifying clarity:
He had already gone to war for her.
The only question left was how much of himself he would burn before it was over.