The iron gates slammed shut behind them with a hollow clang, locking the world out. Yet Isabella felt no safer.
The weight of the night pressed on her, thick with unspoken threats that will follow.
The car barely stopped before Damian was out, yanking the door open for her. His hand extended not as a gentleman's courtesy, but as an unspoken order was clearly spoken even if not said.
She hesitated.
His jaw tightened. "Isabella."
Her name on his lips was a warning, dark and irresistible all at once.
With trembling fingers, she placed her hand in his, and he pulled her out, his grip was unyielding.
The mansion loomed ahead, its marble columns lit with golden lanterns, but the glow only deepened the shadows stretching across its walls.
Guards moved around the grounds. Luca sent orders, his voice sharp and efficiently.
Damian didn't slow until they were inside, the heavy doors shutting out the chaos.
The silence was worse than the noise outside.
Only then did he release her, turning on his heel and tossing his jacket aside. The veins in his hands stood out.
Isabella's voice broke the silence.
"Damian… the man who called you out said there was a traitor. What if…"
"Enough." His voice cracked like a whip.
He spun to look at her, a storm raging in his eyes. "Do you think I don't know? Do you think I don't see the knives pointed at my back every day?"
She flinched, but her chin lifted a little out of stubbornness. "Then why keep me here? Why parade me around if I'm just going to be in the crossfire?" and a target to your enemies.
His steps were deliberate as he closed the distance between them. She backed up until her spine hit the cold wall, her breath catching.
His hand braced beside her head, caging her in. The other slid dangerously close to her waist, not quite touching , but close enough that her skin burned with the heat coming from his body.
"Because," he murmured, his voice molten steel, "they need to see you at my side.
They need to know you're untouchable. That you belong to me."
Her pulse hammered. "I'm not… I'm not yours."
A smirk appeared on his lips, but his eyes were deadly serious. "Say that again, Bella. I dare you."
The silence stretched for an unbearable period of time , charged. She wanted to fight, to scream, but her body betrayed her….her breath shallow, her cheeks flushed, her eyes locked on his.
Finally, she forced the words out, barely a whisper.
"You're a monster."
His smirk deepened upon hearing what she said. "And you're mine ,mine forever…."
Before she could respond, the door to the hall burst open. Luca entered, his face grim. "Boss. We have a problem."
Damian's body went taut, his attention snapping away from her. "What is it?"
Luca's eyes flicked to Isabella, then back to Damian. "One of our men is missing. Vanished after the chaos at the gathering."
The room chilled.
"Who?" Damian demanded.
"Adrian," Luca said, his voice flat. "Your cousin."
Isabella's stomach dropped.
Damian's gaze darkened, his shadow stretching across the room. "Then the traitor wasn't just in the room, Luca." His voice was lethal. "He was my blood, my own cousin ."
The moment Luca's words sank in, the air in the room turned suffocating.
Adrian.
Isabella didn't know him, but the way Damian's expression hardened, the way his jaw clenched like granite, told her this wasn't just another soldier. This was family.
"Find him." Damian's voice was low, almost too calm, and that scared her more than if he had shouted. "Alive or dead,bring him to me."
"Yes, boss." Luca nodded sharply, but there was tension in his eyes. He hesitated before adding, "If Adrian really betrayed us…"
Damian cut him off with a glare. "Don't finish that sentence. Not here, not now."
Luca gave a curt nod and left, shutting the door behind him.
For a moment, the silence was unbearable.
Damian turned away, pacing the length of the room like a caged beast.
His hands ran through his hair, his usually composed posture unraveling by the second.
Isabella couldn't stop herself. "He's your cousin. If he's gone, maybe he's in danger maybe it's not betrayal."
Damian turned to look at her, fury flashing in his eyes. "Don't… Don't defend him."
She swallowed, but her voice trembled with stubbornness.
"You don't know if he's guilty. You assume the worst because it's easier than facing the truth that someone you trusted might not have been your enemy."
His steps thundered toward her again, and before she knew it, he had her pinned against the wall, his hand gripping her chin firmly, forcing her to meet his storm-dark gaze.
"You think you understand this world?"
His voice was a growl, his breath hot against her lips. "You don't. Betrayal isn't a maybe. It's a poison. And once it's in, it kills everything and everyone in it."
Her heart pounded, but she didn't back down. "Then maybe you're already poisoned, Damian. Because all I see is a man who doesn't trust anyone even himself."
For a heartbeat, their eyes locked, the air between them burning. His grip softened almost slowly, his thumb brushing her jaw in a gesture far too tender for a man built on ruthlessness.
His voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. "Careful, Bella.
One more word like that, and I won't know whether to punish you… or kiss you."
The tension was unbearable, and just when Isabella thought he might close the distance, a knock shattered the moment.
Luca's voice came through the door. "Boss. We found something."
Damian tore his gaze from her, his face hardening into stone again. He released her without warning and she nearly tripped from the sudden freedom.
"Stay here," he ordered, his tone accepting no argument.
But as he went out, Isabella's pulse raced with a new fear and a dangerous curiosity. Because she knew she wouldn't stay put. Not this time.
Not when secrets were cracking open all around her.
The heavy oak door closed shut behind Damian, leaving Isabella in a silence that pressed down on her like a weight.
"Stay here," he had said.
But her pulse ached in her throat, a frantic drumbeat that drowned out reason. Every instinct screamed at her to obey but another voice, sharper, fiercer, whispered that obedience was exactly how Damian kept her blind master shut off from what was happening.
She couldn't let him keep her in the dark. Not anymore.
Slipping off her heels, Isabella went across the polished marble floor and cracked the door open.
The hallway stretched long and dim, the shadows broken only by the faint glow of lantern sconces. Damian's footsteps echoed in the distance, steady, controlled, predatory. Luca's lower murmur followed close behind.
Heart pounding, Isabella slipped into the hall, hugging the wall as she trailed after them.
They led her deeper into the mansion, into wings she had never seen before corridors lined with locked doors, guarded men shifting uneasily as their boss passed.
None dared to look Damian in the eye.
At the end of the hall, a steel door waited. Luca opened it , and they stepped inside.
Isabella stepped closer, pressing her back to the wall just outside, listening.
Inside, Luca's voice carried first. "Boss… we found his car abandoned at the docks. Blood on the driver's seat."
Isabella's breath caught. Blood.
Damian didn't answer right away. The pause stretched, heavy and suffocating. When he finally spoke, his voice was iron. "And the cargo?"
"Gone," Luca admitted, with a voice low. "Whoever took Adrian… or whatever he planned it was clean. Too clean. Someone on the inside helped him."
Isabella's chest tightened. Another betrayal. Another fracture in the empire Damian held together with nothing but his rage and will.
Damian's next words were colder than ice. "Then Adrian's either a traitor… or a dead man . Either way, I'll find out."
Isabella's hand pressed to her mouth to suppress a gasp, but the sound of her trembling breath still echoed too loud in her own ears.
And then…silence.
Too much silence.
Slowly, her eyes widened as realization hit her.
The voices inside had stopped.
The air in the corridor grew heavier.
Then Damian's voice, low and lethal, slid through the crack of the door directed not at Luca, but at her.
"You can come out now, Isabella."
Her blood ran cold.
He knew. He had known all along.