(Damien's POV)
The air in the penthouse felt thick enough to choke on.
Not because it was hot—my apartment was always cold—but because Evelyn Rothwell sat on my bed, stiff-backed, defiant, every inch of her screaming she didn't want to be here. And yet… she was.
I'd carried her here myself. She'd fought at first, but my arms had stayed locked around her until I'd dropped her on the mattress, my hands braced on either side of her hips.
And still, even now, she wouldn't tell me.
She wouldn't tell me how she knew my real name. How she'd seen past Adrian Vale, the polished, perfect lie I'd been wearing for years. She'd looked me dead in the eyes at the seaside and refused.
I could break people. I'd done it before—rivals, enemies, men who thought they could outmaneuver me. It wasn't always with violence. Sometimes, it was just words. Words could slice deeper than any blade.
She wasn't giving me the truth willingly.
So I'd make her want to scream it at me.
I leaned in, letting my height and my shadow swallow hers, my palms sinking into the mattress just enough that she could feel the cage of my body around her. Her breath hitched—quiet, but not quiet enough.
"You're not going to tell me," I said, my voice quiet but edged in steel.
Her jaw tightened, but she said nothing.
I let my eyes run over her face slowly, deliberately, letting her feel every second of my scrutiny. "So maybe I'll give you something worth talking about."
A flicker of suspicion passed through her gaze, but she still didn't look away. Stubborn to the bone.
I let my lips curl into something sharp, cruel. "Maybe I'll take your virginity. Then I'll marry your sister… and make you her maid."
The words came out cold, deliberate, each one chosen for precision. I didn't rush them. I wanted her to feel every syllable.
Her lips parted—shock first, then a slow, burning anger rising in her eyes.
Good. Anger meant she'd stop thinking. Anger meant she'd break.
"Your sister," I continued, my tone dropping lower, "will have the ring, the name, the place at my side. And you—" my gaze dropped briefly to her mouth, then back up, "you'll be the girl who cleans up after her. Who serves at her table. Who stands there every day knowing I could have taken you… but didn't bother."
That's when I saw it.
The flash of something I couldn't name—rage, hurt, maybe even fear—before it exploded.
She moved fast.
One moment I was leaning over her, the next she'd shoved me—hard. My balance broke, and I hit the floor, the jolt rattling up my spine. For a second, I just stayed there, blinking at the ceiling in stunned silence.
She was on her feet now, chest rising and falling rapidly, her hands trembling. But her voice—when it came—wasn't trembling at all. It was raw.
"I saw!"
The words tore out of her like shrapnel.
Something in me stilled, my heartbeat going dangerously slow. "What?"
"I saw how it happened," she said, her voice loud now, sharp with the force of someone finally ripping open a wound. "I saw your girlfriend and your brother make you drink that wine. I saw them laughing—like it was a game."
A coldness spread in my chest, but I didn't move.
Her eyes were glassy now, but she didn't stop. "I saw them push you into the water."
The room around me dimmed, like the city lights outside were pulling away.
She took a shaky step toward me. "I wanted to help you. I really did. But when I saw the fisherman… I—" her voice cracked, but she pushed through it, "I ran."
The silence that followed was deafening.
I stared at her, my mind replaying the images she'd thrown at me without warning. My brother's smirk. Her face—no, her face wasn't there that night, but she was saying it was. The water closing over my head. The burn in my lungs. The weight dragging me down.
My jaw clenched so tightly it hurt.
She'd known. All this time. She'd looked at me, spoken to me, kissed me—and she'd known.
The memory slammed into me like the waves that night, stealing my breath. I remembered the taste of the wine, the dizziness that wasn't just alcohol, the way my body stopped responding as I reached for the dock's edge. I remembered the splash, the shock of cold, the way my legs refused to kick. And the laughter above me.
And now she was telling me she'd been there. Watching.
"You ran," I repeated, my voice low.
She flinched—not because of the volume, but because of what was underneath it.
"You saw them push me. You saw me drowning. And you ran."
Her chin lifted slightly, like she was trying to hold onto whatever courage she had left. "I didn't know what to do—"
"Bullshit." The word was sharp, snapping between us. "You knew. You just didn't want to get pulled under with me."
Her lips pressed into a thin line, and I could see the tears threatening to spill, but she didn't let them fall.
I stood slowly, my height swallowing the space between us until I was close enough to see the rapid pulse in her throat.
"You've been holding this over me," I said, my voice dangerously quiet now. "Knowing exactly who I am. What happened. And you've been waiting. For what, Evelyn? For me to find out on my own? For the right moment to use it?"
Her breath shook. "I wasn't—"
"Don't lie to me."
The air between us was thick, electric, and suffocating all at once. She was still trembling, but she wasn't stepping back.
And I… I couldn't tell if I wanted to pull the truth out of her or just walk away before I said something that would change everything.
Because I wasn't sure which betrayal hurt more—what they'd done to me that night, or that she'd been there to see it… and had run.