The house wasn't quiet anymore.
It throbbed with tension, with heavy footsteps echoing against marble floors, with clipped conversations cut off the second Elara came into view. Guards leaned into corners with their hands on weapons, and Marco's voice barked orders more often than she could count.
She didn't need anyone to tell her—the air itself screamed it. Damian was hunting, and the prey was inside his own walls.
By nightfall, Marco came for her again.
"Boss wants you downstairs."
Her heart lurched. "Downstairs?"
He didn't answer, just gestured. His face gave nothing away.
Her legs carried her down the steel stairs before her mind caught up. The cold basement stung her skin, the air thick with bleach, sweat, and something coppery she refused to name.
The room was the same as before, but the tension was worse.
Two chairs stood in the center. Two men sat bound to them. Nico—face swollen, lip split, eyes wide with desperation—and Lorenzo, older, harder, his face stoic despite the bruises forming along his jaw.
Damian stood between them. Dark suit this time, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up. He looked like a man carved out of stone, but Elara saw the storm underneath—the twitch in his jaw, the way his hands kept flexing as though aching for violence.
Her breath caught. "Damian…"
He didn't look at her. His voice was razor sharp. "Sit."
She sank into a chair at the far end of the room, heart pounding.
Damian's gaze slid between the two men. "One of you has been feeding Petrov information. One of you is lying to my face. And tonight, we end it."
Lorenzo sneered. "Boss, you've known me fifteen years. I've bled for you. I've buried men for you. You think I'd risk all that for scraps of cash from Russians?"
Nico's voice cracked. "It wasn't me! I swear, I didn't tell Petrov anything! You know me, boss, I'm loyal—"
Damian's fist lashed out faster than Elara could blink. Nico's head snapped sideways, blood spraying.
"Don't beg," Damian hissed. "It makes you look guilty."
Elara shot to her feet. "Stop!"
His eyes cut to her, burning. "Sit down."
"No," she said, voice shaking. "This isn't justice—it's slaughter."
Something flickered in his gaze, but he didn't argue. He just turned back to the men, pacing slowly.
"Petrov's attack last night wasn't random," he said. "He knew the exact time, the exact shipment. And both of you had access to that schedule."
Silence.
Damian's voice dropped. "So here's how this works. You talk, you walk out alive. You stay silent…" His hand slid the gun from his holster, metal gleaming under the bulb. "…you don't."
Nico sobbed, shaking. Lorenzo sat stiff, breathing slow.
Elara's hands trembled in her lap. She wanted to scream, to tear the gun from Damian's hand, but something in his eyes rooted her still. He wasn't bluffing. He never bluffed.
Minutes stretched like hours.
Then Lorenzo's jaw ticked. "You're wasting your time, boss. Kid's been nervous for weeks. Always disappearing, always asking questions he shouldn't. He's the rat, not me."
Nico's eyes widened, frantic. "That's a lie! He's setting me up!" His gaze darted to Elara, desperate. "Miss—please, you've seen me, you know I wouldn't—"
Her heart twisted painfully. She had seen him. The little kindnesses, the quiet smile when he passed her in the hall. But she'd also seen the photos Damian threw on the table—Nico in the shadows, cash changing hands.
Her voice broke. "Damian, there has to be another way—"
"No." His voice cut like glass. "There's only truth and lies. And only one of them walks out of this room."
The next hour blurred into chaos. Damian questioned, pressed, tore through timelines and stories with brutal precision. Lorenzo's calm began to crack. Nico's pleas grew hoarse.
And then Marco entered, handing Damian a thin folder.
Damian flipped it open. His eyes darkened.
He slammed it onto the table, papers spilling—bank statements, photographs, phone logs.
Every one of them tied to Lorenzo.
Elara's breath caught.
Nico sobbed with relief. "See? I told you—I told you—"
But Damian wasn't looking at Nico. He was staring at Lorenzo with an expression that made Elara's blood run cold.
"You've been with me fifteen years," Damian said quietly. "And this is how you repay me?"
For the first time, Lorenzo's mask cracked. His lips curled. "You think you're untouchable, boss. But the Russians—they're bigger. Stronger. You won't last. And I'll be on the winning side when you fall."
The shot rang out before Elara could blink.
Lorenzo's head snapped back, blood painting the wall behind him. His body slumped forward, lifeless.
Elara's scream ripped through the room.
Damian lowered the gun, face expressionless, though his chest rose and fell like a storm was raging inside.
Nico cried openly now, shaking in his chair. "Thank you, boss—thank you, I swear, I'd never—"
"Get him out of my sight," Damian muttered.
The guards untied Nico and dragged him away.
Silence followed, thick and suffocating.
Elara trembled, hands pressed to her mouth. "You didn't even hesitate."
Damian turned to her, eyes flat. "Hesitation gets you killed."
Tears stung her eyes. "And what about me, Damian? Do I survive in your world if I don't learn to pull a trigger?"
His jaw tightened. "You survive because I say you do."
Her voice cracked. "That's not survival. That's a cage."
His hand twitched like he wanted to reach for her—but instead, he turned away.
Later, in her room, Elara couldn't shake the image of Lorenzo's blood spreading across the concrete.
But worse than that… she couldn't shake the image of Damian's face when he pulled the trigger. Not rage. Not cruelty. Just emptiness.
And maybe, deep down, she feared that emptiness more than the violence itself.
At dawn, she found him on the balcony again, glass in hand, city spread beneath him like a battlefield.
"Don't say it," he muttered when she approached.
"Say what?"
"That you hate me. That you can't look at me. That you want to run."
Her chest ached. "If I wanted to run, I would have already."
He turned, eyes raw. "Then what the hell are you still doing here?"
She swallowed hard. "Maybe I'm waiting to see if there's still a man under all that blood."
His breath hitched. For one brief, fleeting second, his mask cracked.
"Elara…"
And though he didn't touch her, though no kiss passed between them this time, she felt it—that invisible tether pulling them closer, binding them tighter, as the world around them burned.