Chapter 39 Chapter 39
I could not stop looking at him. Damien stood by the window with his back to me and the morning light cut across his shoulders like a blade. He had been quiet since we arrived at the cabin and the silence between us felt different now. Heavier. Like it was waiting for something to break. My chest ached with feelings I did not want to name, and every time he turned to look at me, my heart betrayed me by racing faster.
"Why did you really bring me here?" I asked. My voice sounded too loud in the small space.
He turned slowly, and his eyes found mine. "To keep you safe."
"From Victor or from yourself?"
The question hung between us, and I watched something shift in his expression. Pain flickered across his face before he could hide it. He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight, and suddenly, he looked tired. Human. Nothing like the monster everyone feared.
"Maybe both," he said quietly. "I am not good at this, Lisa. At caring about someone. Every time I let myself feel something, it gets used against me. Twisted into a weapon."
I moved closer without thinking. My feet carried me to him like they had a will of their own. "What happened to you?"
He looked up at me and the vulnerability in his eyes made my throat tight. "When I was younger, I trusted the wrong people. My father's business partner. A woman I thought I loved. Even my own brother." He paused and his hands curled into fists. "They all betrayed me. Took everything I had and left me with nothing but scars and a reputation built on their lies."
"Your brother?" The word came out as a whisper.
"Marcus." His jaw tightened. "We were not blood brothers but we grew up together. Trained together. I would have died for him and I thought he felt the same. Until I found out he had been feeding information to my enemies for years. Using me to climb higher while I bled for every inch of ground I gained."
My stomach dropped. Marcus. The same Marcus who worked for him now. The same Marcus I had seen on the flash drive working with The Syndicate. "Why did you keep him close?"
"Because keeping your enemies closer means you control when they strike." He stood and the movement brought him so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body. "But you are different, Lisa. You make me want to trust again and that terrifies me more than any bullet or blade."
My breath caught. The way he looked at me made my skin burn and my resolve crumble. I should have stepped back. Should have remembered all the reasons this was wrong. But instead I reached up and touched his face. My fingers traced the line of his jaw and he closed his eyes like my touch hurt him.
"I am scared too," I whispered. "Scared of what I feel when I look at you. Scared that caring about you will destroy me."
His hand came up to cover mine, and his thumb brushed across my knuckles. "It probably will," he said. "But I cannot seem to stay away from you."
The confession broke something inside me. All the walls I had built came crashing down, and suddenly his mouth was on mine. The kiss was desperate and raw and tasted like all the pain we had both been carrying. His hands tangled in my hair, and I pressed closer, needing to feel something real in a world that kept shifting beneath my feet.
When we finally pulled apart, we were both breathing hard. His forehead rested against mine, and his fingers traced patterns on my spine. "This changes everything," he said.
"I know."
"If Victor finds out I care about you, he will use it against me. He will hurt you just to watch me break."
"Then we do not let him find out." I pulled back enough to look into his eyes. "We keep this between us until we figure out how to end this war."
He kissed me again, softer this time, and I felt the shift in him. The way he held me like I was something precious. Something worth protecting. For the first time since this nightmare began, I felt like maybe we could survive this. Like maybe there was a future where we both made it out alive.
His phone shattered the moment. The harsh ring cut through the cabin and Damien pulled away with a curse. He grabbed the device from the table and his expression darkened as he read the screen. "What is it?" I asked.
"Victor." He answered the call and put it on speaker. "What do you want?"
Victor's laugh came through cold and sharp. "I have something that belongs to you, Damien. One of your men. Jacob, I believe his name is. Loyal to a fault. Been screaming your name for the past hour."
Damien's whole body went rigid. "If you hurt him—"
"Oh, I have already hurt him plenty. But I am willing to make a trade. Your friend Jacob for the woman you are hiding. Claudia, was it? The one you stashed away after the party." Victor paused and I could hear the smile in his voice. "Bring her to the old warehouse on Fifth Street tomorrow at noon. Come alone or Jacob dies screaming."
"Claudia has nothing to do with this."
"She has everything to do with this. She saw something she should not have and now she needs to answer for it. You have twenty-four hours, Damien. Do not disappoint me."
The line went dead. Damien stood frozen with the phone still in his hand and his knuckles white from gripping it too hard. I watched the conflict play across his face. Jacob was one of his men. Someone who had been loyal when loyalty was rare. But trading Claudia meant putting an innocent woman in Victor's hands.
"We are not doing this," I said. "We are not trading her life for his."
"I do not have a choice." He turned to look at me and the pain in his eyes was unbearable. "Jacob has a family. A wife and two kids who are counting on him to come home. If I let him die, their blood is on my hands."
"And if you give Victor Claudia, her blood is on your hands instead." I crossed my arms. "There has to be another way."
"There is not." He moved around the room gathering weapons and supplies. "Victor knows exactly what he is doing. He is forcing me to choose between two people I am responsible for and either way I lose."
"Then let me talk to her." The words came out before I could stop them. "Let me convince Claudia to cooperate. Maybe if she understands what is at stake, she will agree to help us set a trap for Victor instead."
Damien stopped moving and looked at me like I had lost my mind. "You want to use Claudia as bait?"
"I want to save both of them. Jacob and Claudia. But that only works if we are smart about this."
He studied my face for a long moment. Then he crossed the room and gripped my shoulders. "If we do this, you need to understand something. Victor does not play fair, and if this goes wrong, people will die. Maybe even you."
"I understand."
"No, I do not think you do." His fingers tightened. "But I am out of options and out of time. So we are going to meet Victor tomorrow, and you are going to convince Claudia to cooperate or face the consequences."