Chapter 6 - The Lion's Den
“Clear this room,” Damian commanded without looking away from Elena.
Gerald Chen stepped forward, signaling the tactical unit. Two men pulled the sobbing, maimed Victor Kesler from the desk, dragging him down the service hallway toward the basement holding cells, while the rest of the unit began securing the perimeter and bagging the bodies of the fallen operatives.
Damian fell to his knees in front of Elena.
His hands, stained with blood and gunpowder, hovered inches from her face, trembling slightly. For the first time since she had met him, the indomitable Damian Blackwood looked terrified.
“Don't touch me yet,” she whispered hoarsely, offering him a faint, tear-stained smile. “You’ll ruin your second suit of the week.”
A ragged, choking breath escaped Damian’s chest. Ignoring her words, he pulled her into his arms, wrapping his massive frame around her small, trembling body. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent of vanilla and lavender, his uninjured arm holding her so tightly she could feel the thunderous beating of his heart against her ribs.
“I have you,” he whispered fiercely, his voice cracking. “I have you, Elena. Nobody touches you. Nobody ever touches you again.”
Elena closed her eyes and rested her forehead against his bloody shoulder. The fear that had kept her paralyzed for months finally broke, melting away into the warmth of his embrace. She knew who he was. She knew he was a monster to the rest of the world. But in his arms, sixty floors above a cruel and indifferent city, she was safer than she had ever been in her life.
Within an hour, Damian’s private medical team arrived, converting the penthouse master bedroom into an emergency trauma suite. A private physician stitched the bullet wound in Damian’s shoulder under local anesthesia, while another treated the bruises on Elena’s throat with soothing topical creams and administered a mild sedative.
Damian refused to leave the room. He sat in an armchair beside her bed, his left arm in a sling, watching her with vigilant, protective intensity.
“You should have let me go when you had the chance, Damian,” Elena said softly from the pillows, her voice quiet in the dimly lit bedroom. “I bring trouble with me.”
“You didn't bring Kesler,” Damian replied coldly. “Kesler was an old debt I should have settled months ago. You brought something else entirely.”
“What did I bring?”
Damian looked down at his scarred palms. “A reason to look forward to tomorrow morning.”
May you like
Elena’s heart fluttered. She reached across the sheets, placing her small hand over his bruised knuckles. Damian turned his hand over, entwining his long, calloused fingers through hers.
“Sleep, Elena,” he murmured, leaning down to press a soft, lingering kiss to her forehead. “Tomorrow, I dismantle Kesler’s empire piece by piece. And when I return, this city will belong to you.”
