The storm didn't roll in, it attacked. One second, the sky was bruised and heavy; the next, it was ripping itself apart.
Wipers screeched back and forth in a losing battle against sheets of rain, and the world beyond my headlights was just a smudged smear of darkness. The steering wheel was slick under my hands, my knuckles pale as I leaned forward, squinting into the blur.
"Great," I muttered to myself. "Die in the mountains chasing a mobster story. Pulitzer material, Lyra."
The GPS had ghosted me ten miles back, my phone screen stubbornly reading No Service. Just endless, twisting roads. Woods that swallowed light. And that itch between my shoulder blades, the one that whispered, 'You're not alone.'
Stupid, so damn stupid.
I knew Damian Beaumont's name wasn't one to mess with. A myth, a monster. A man who turned rivals into rumors, but I'd wanted truth. I'd wanted the story that would make me more than another broke city reporter. Instead, I got silence and a black SUV with its headlights off tailing me for the past six miles.
My pulse slammed against my ribs. I flicked a glance in the rearview mirror. The SUV kept a perfect distance.
"Oh no," I whispered. "No, no, no."
I pressed the accelerator; tires hissed over wet asphalt. The engine growled, and so did the sky.
Then in front of me were headlights.
I screamed, and tires shrieked louder. The car fishtailed, the world spun, glass exploded, metal screamed, and then gravity forgot what to do with me. The world came crashing back, upside down and sideways. Pain bloomed in my shoulder. Something warm trickled down my temple. I tried to move, but everything felt numb and sharp all at once. Rain slipped through shattered glass and kissed my face cold.
Then came the footsteps, each footfall a muffled slosh of water, each thud cutting the rain's roar and drawing closer.
"Shit," I wheezed, fumbling at the seatbelt. It wouldn't move.
The driver's door was ripped open, wind howled in, and then rough, gloved hands grabbed me and hauled me out like I was nothing but a soaked rag doll.
I fought back on instinct. "Let me go!"
My boot connected with a shin, satisfying but not enough. I was spun and slammed against the hood. The metal was freezing, my cheek pressed to it, rain soaking through my blouse.
"I said," I snapped my head toward him, shoulders squaring as I grew an inch taller with fury. "Do you even know who I am?"
A voice slid down my spine like a blade wrapped in silk. "I know exactly who you are."
I froze, the cold rain suddenly feeling like lead.
That voice was calm and lethal. I'd heard it once in a leaked recording. The kind of voice that could make violence sound like a love song. And then, through the blur of headlights and rain, I saw him.
Damian Beaumont.
If sin had a face, it would've been his.
Rain kissed his dark hair, sliding down the sharp planes of his face. Even soaked to the bone, he looked like sin in a suit, tailored for murder and temptation. But those eyes are cold, gray-blue, and merciless. The kind of eyes that make you forget how to breathe, the kind that make every warning in your body scream "run" while your thighs press tighter.
"You've been a very bad girl, Lyra." The amusement in his voice remained flat and predatory, tracking the frantic pulse in my neck.
My skin crawled, a thousand tiny needles of dread prickling beneath the surface. "Let me go." I forced the words past a throat that felt like it was filled with glass, my eyes burning into his.
He cocked his head, water dripping down his cheek like tears he'd never admit to. "You really are as reckless as they say."
"I wasn't doing anything illegal."
"No," he said softly, stepping closer, "just suicidal."
He brushed a strand of wet hair off my face. That light touch felt like a burn, like lightning choosing where to strike.
"Brave little reporter," he spat. "You came looking for the devil, and now you've found him."
"Go to hell."
He smiled wickedly. "Darling, I live there."
Before I could throw a punch or a curse, he snapped his fingers, and just like that, I was yanked off my feet.
"Hey! Put me down, you psycho!" I thrashed, my voice cracking into a jagged edge as the world tilted upside down. One of his men had snatched me up, hoisting me over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
My voice bounced uselessly against the storm. The SUV door opened, and I was shoved inside, then Damian slid in after me like a shadow taking human shape.
The doors locked, and the engine hummed.
I scrambled to the far side, breath ragged. "What the hell do you want from me?"
He didn't answer. Just watched me, expression unreadable, eyes glinting like the storm outside was inside him.
"You crossed into my territory," he said finally. "Followed my men, wrote about my family. That makes you mine to deal with."
"I'm not afraid of you," I lied. My stomach, however, was currently attempting to exit through my throat, and my bladder was tentatively suggesting we start negotiations for a surrender.
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, sharp and terrifyingly handsome. It was the look of a man who had already won a game I didn't even know I was playing.
"You will be," he said, his eyes tracking the frantic jump of my heart.
God, I hated that my pulse jumped. That his voice did things to my body, my brain refused to admit.
"I'm not some plaything you can just."
"Can't I?" he cut in, leaning forward. "Who's going to stop me?"
"The police!" I shot back.
He laughed. "Sweetheart, I own half of them."
My stomach twisted. "You're insane."
He chuckled, like I'd just told a private joke only he understood.
"Insane? No, little mouse, this is me on my best behavior."
He leaned in, trapping me against the seat until the scent of rain and expensive gin filled my lungs. His breath brushed my cheek, a warm, dangerous caress in the freezing dark.
"You kept digging, little bird," he purred, sharp enough to draw blood.
"You've seen my monsters. Now it's my time to find yours."
The hush of the storm inside the SUV was more terrifying than the roar outside. His words threaded through the air like a weaving noose I hadn't seen coming. Terror, sharp and jagged, finally sliced through my paralysis; every nerve ending sparked with a single electric command. 'Run.' I didn't care about the speed or the rain-slicked road. I just needed to jump off and be anywhere else, but here I was under the weight of his gaze.
The SUV slowed, and gravel crunched beneath the tires. Outside, through the rain-blurred window, an iron gate creaked open, revealing a mansion that looked carved out of midnight. Stone walls, flickering lights. A silhouette of something vast and dangerous.
My heart pounded so hard it drowned out the storm. "Where are you taking me?"
Damian opened his door, the storm now just a drizzle, a ghost of its former rage. He looked back, eyes unreadable, and extended his hand.
"Home," he said simply.