(Damien's POV)
I didn't call again. Not because I didn't want to but because she expected me to. Isla didn't get to dictate the terms of our silence. She ran. Left me like it burned her like I burned her and I let her. I watched the door close behind her with a kind of surgical calm I didn't feel. She thought I wouldn't follow.
She was right. I don't chase. I hunt and there's a difference. One is desperation. The other is inevitable.
The box was a message. Tactile. Intimate. Unmistakable. The scarf — a reminder. The necklace — a symbol. The key card — a choice. That's what this was, at the core: a test. A controlled variable in an otherwise chaotic equation. She thinks she left but Isla has no idea what it means to truly escape me.
She's in the in-between now. Pacing a borrowed apartment like a ghost, haunted by the very thing she pretends she doesn't want. I know her body better than she does. I know her silence. Her tells. Her fractures. She's unravelling and I can feel it from here.
The room was cold. Not just temperature — sterile. Hotel suites always were. Imported marble. Blackout curtains. Dimmed lights. Everything polished to perfection. Everything soulless. Except the seat I left empty. For her.
A single chair across from the bed. Facing it. A small table beside it with a glass of whiskey and a note I didn't sign. I stared at that chair longer than I should've. Imagining her in it. Hair damp from the rain. Scarf twisted in her fist. Legs crossed because she wants to seem composed when she's anything but.
I pictured it all. I hated how much I wanted it. I didn't send the box because I was feeling sentimental. I sent it because I needed to see her. Not just physically — but truly. Stripped of the mask she wears around her sister. The defiance she shows the world. I wanted her raw again. The way she was in my arms. Shaking. Silent. Wanting.
Isla doesn't know what she is to me yet. She thinks I'm just another mistake she regrets in the morning. Another man with too much money and a god complex. Another shadow she can outrun. She has no idea she's already mine and the moment she walks through that hotel door, she'll realize I don't deal in one-night absolutions.
I deal in possession. It's strange. I don't feel guilt. Not in the way she'd hope I might. I feel clarity. What happened between us wasn't a lapse in judgment. It wasn't a crime of passion. It was a revelation. One I've been circling since the moment she spat venom in my face and told me she'd never crawl for me.
But she did and I'll never forget the sound of her breaking. The way her lips trembled when she whispered my name — not with hate, but need. That's the real Isla. The one behind the blade, the glare, the manufactured distance and that's the one I want.
My phone buzzed once. I picked it up without checking the screen. I already knew it wasn't her. She wouldn't reach out. Not yet. She needed to feel like she still had control. I knew her curiosity was already poisoning her resolve. She'd open the box. She'd see the scarf. She'd wonder about the key. She'd stare at that dagger-shaped charm around her neck, trying to convince herself it didn't mean anything.
She'd lose that battle. Because Isla was forged in fire, yes — but even steel can melt under enough pressure. I've only just begun applying heat. I finished my drink, set the glass down, and turned toward the bed. Still made. Still untouched.
I wouldn't sleep in it tonight. Not unless she did. This wasn't about sex. It wasn't even about power anymore. It was about truth and the truth is simple: I want her. Not just her body but her mind. Her loyalty. Her surrender. I want her wrecked and I want to be the one who breaks her.
I didn't wait by the door. That's not who I am. I waited in the silence. In the breath between choices. In the hollow between pain and pull. I waited where she'd feel me most not on her doorstep, but in her thoughts. Isla wasn't the kind of woman you begged. She was the kind you broke open.
Only after she cracked would she realize the splinters were shaped like me. The minutes bled into hours. I stayed in that suite like it was a battlefield. Unmoving. Unflinching. Every surface in here was a stage, and I'd set it with precision. One light dimmed above the bed. No music. No scent. Nothing to disarm her. Nothing to lull her into thinking she had the upper hand.
She won't. Not tonight. If she comes, when she comes she'll find nothing soft to land on. Only me. Only truth. I walked to the window as dusk sank its claws into the skyline. The city looked like it always does before something unholy happens golden from afar, rotting up close. Isla belonged to it in the same way I did: by force.
Neither of us was built for peace. She could try to hide behind borrowed walls and soft sisters, but the violence in her wouldn't sleep for long. I saw it that night — how she kissed me like revenge. How she moaned like confession. She thinks she left with her power intact. She didn't. She left a piece of herself with me and I keep pieces. I collect them.
A knock, sharp and sudden, broke the silence. I didn't move. Let her wait. Let her question whether walking through that door would damn her or save her. Either answer worked for me. The knock came again. One beat longer. One heartbeat louder. Then silence. A card slid through the doorframe.
The key. My smile was slow. Not because I was pleased but because she passed the first test. She came. The lock clicked. Quiet. Almost reverent. Then she stepped in not all at once, not bold but careful, like a girl walking barefoot across a minefield she chose to enter.
She was in the same oversized tee. Her hair still braided. No makeup. No armor. Good. I wanted her naked before I undressed her. She saw me. Didn't speak. Didn't breathe. Just stood there. Her hand still on the doorknob like it might save her from what came next. But it wouldn't because Isla Camille had just stepped back into my world and I wasn't going to let her leave the same.
"Close the door." I said it low. Command, not invitation.
She obeyed because she always would. Even when she hated herself for it. Especially then. I watched her walk in. Watched her eyes track the room the chair, the table, the untouched glass. Then she looked at me. Not like a lover. Not like an enemy. Like a woman who knew she was standing at the edge of something irreversible.
I Let her know this wasn't about comfort. This was the point of no return.
"You sent a key," she said.
Her voice was thin, but steady.
"I did."
"You expected me to use it."
I stood. Slowly.
Walked toward her like she was prey too proud to run.
"No, Isla," I murmured. "I expected you to want to."
Her throat bobbed. Her fingers flexed but she didn't back away. Of course she didn't. Some part of her the part she tries to strangle in her sleep — wants this more than anything else. Wants me. Wants to see what happens when she stops pretending she doesn't.
I stopped in front of her Close enough to feel her breath change. Close enough to see the weight of her choices in her eyes. I didn't touch her. I didn't have to. That wasn't what tonight was about. This wasn't another night of fucking like fury. This was about submission. About her deciding to stay. About letting the war in her lose.
So I asked her only one thing:
"Why did you come?"
She didn't answer. Not at first. Her silence screamed everything. She didn't come for closure. She didn't come to scold me, or ask for meaning. She came because the part of her that still trembled when she thought of my hands never left. She came because she was still mine. Whether she admits it or not.
When she finally did speak, it wasn't a defense. It wasn't defiance. It was the softest truth I've never heard fall from her mouth.
"I don't know how to stop."
I let her words hang in the air. I don't know how to stop. Not an apology. Not a confession but a crack. The kind of crack you wedge your fingers into. The kind you pull wider until it becomes a chasm. That's what she'd just handed me a fracture I could widen into surrender.
I didn't speak. I only looked at her. Let her feel the weight of her admission. Let her squirm in the silence she created. People think silence is empty. But between us? It's the sharpest blade.
"Take off the necklace." My voice was calm. Unyielding.
She blinked. Confused. A hint of resistance flickered in her eyes — automatic. Instinctive. I saw her fingers twitch. Not from hesitation but from recognition. The necklace had never been a gift. It was a claim.
A symbol of what I saw in her that she refused to name. The dagger-shaped charm shimmered like a threat against her chest. She reached for it slowly. Brushed it with her fingertips like it might bite.
"I didn't say hesitate."
I watched her throat tighten. Her breathing shift. Then she obeyed. The chain slipped through her fingers. She held it out, unsure if she was offering it or begging me to take it. I didn't move.
"If you're giving it back, say so."
Her jaw clenched.
"No."
"Then keep it."
She didn't put it back on.
She clutched it Like a weapon. Like a tether. Like she knew it was the only thing anchoring her to this moment to me.
"You think this is a mistake," I said, moving toward her again.
She didn't answer.
"But here you are."
Another step. She tensed — not from fear, but from the unbearable pressure of proximity. Her pupils flared. Her breath caught. I smelled the shift in her before I felt it that unmistakable mix of want and war. She hated me for this and still… she hadn't walked away.
"You think I corrupted you."
I paused right in front of her.
"You were already ruined, Isla."
My fingers brushed her cheek not soft, not tender. Just enough to remind her how easily I could take.
"How else could you want me the way you do?"
Her hand shot up, grabbing my wrist. Not to stop me. To hold me. The same way people hold blades when they're ready to bleed. I leaned in, my voice dark against her ear.
"You want to be good. But you crave destruction."
She shuddered.
"And you came to the only man who knows how to give it to you."
She didn't deny it. Didn't run. Didn't flinch when I slid my hand down her neck, tracing the curve of her collarbone like a threat dressed in reverence. Then she kissed me.
Hard. Wild. Like a woman dying of thirst and furious about it. There was no grace in it. No apology. Just teeth and heat and months of friction exploding all at once. I didn't resist. I devoured.
One hand tangled in her braid, the other fisting the hem of her oversized shirt. She whimpered when I pulled not her hair, but her control unravelling it with every drag of my mouth against hers. We collided like weather. Violent. Predictable. Necessary and it still wasn't enough.
I shoved her back a step, letting the cold air snap between us. Her lips were swollen. Her breath ragged. Her fingers already trembling from a hunger she couldn't name.
"Take it off."
She knew what I meant. The shirt. Her last layer. Her illusion of comfort. She hesitated but not because she didn't want to. Because once it was off, there'd be no pretending she wasn't exactly where she wanted to be. Still, she lifted it. Slow. Agonizing. A show of control I let her keep — for now.
She stood in front of me in nothing but a pair of black underwear and that necklace, still clenched in her fist like a lifeline. Beautiful. Ruined. Mine.
I moved to the chair I'd set out earlier and sat. Spread my legs.
"Come here."
She didn't move. But her eyes did — down my chest, my hands, my lap. She wanted to crawl into my fire and pretend it wouldn't burn but she knew better.
"Isla," I said quietly. "You've already lost the war. Don't embarrass yourself by fighting the funeral."
Her jaw tightened and then… she came. Not timid. Like a queen walking to the guillotine and I welcomed her execution.
When she reached me, I didn't touch her. I just looked. Let her feel what it meant to be seen — not as a woman, but as a hunger. She knelt between my legs without being told. Set the necklace on the table beside us. Then looked up. Eyes blazing. Mouth parted. Pride cracked. Perfect.
"Say it," I told her.
She swallowed. My hand went to her jaw — not rough. Not yet.
"I need to hear it, Isla."
Her voice shook.
"I'm yours."
I didn't kiss her. I didn't say a word. I only let the silence swallow the moment whole — let it echo in her bones until she knew it wasn't lust. It was fate and it had already chosen her.
She didn't look away. Didn't flinch. Didn't beg and that made it all the more dangerous because this wasn't about sex anymore. It wasn't even about power. This was about claiming the last part of her she'd kept hidden the piece she thought she could keep untouched by me.
I leaned forward, just enough for her breath to catch again. My thumb traced her lower lip. Slow. Possessive. A reminder of who she was now — not Isla, not the girl who ran, but the woman who crawled back and chose to kneel.
"You don't get to take that back," I murmured.
"Not tomorrow. Not in a week. Not when it gets hard. Not when you hate me for how easy it is to obey."
"I know," she whispered.
Her voice was hoarse. Raw. Like saying it out loud scraped something loose inside her. Good. Let it scrape. Let her bleed. Let her feel what it's like to be alive again.