Chapter 36 When control replaces love
Damian's pov
I walked through the underground like I owned every inch of it, though I already did.
The screens glowed with security feeds, staff whispered in corners, while papers shifted under my hands.
I kept moving from one desk to another, checking layouts, reviewing reports, and correcting mistakes.
Everything had to run smoothly and feel untouchable.
But none of it mattered, not really.
Because she was in my head and that distracted me.
Her silence, the way she moved around my brother like she belonged to him. She looked calm and untouchable.
She felt like a blade sliding over my chest every time her image flashes in my head.
“Sir,” one of my lieutenants said. “There’s a movement in the northern perimeter.”
I waved him off. “Check it out. No one enters or goes without my permission.”
I moved past, but my focus wasn’t on the camera.
The way she let him adjust his jacket that one morning. The way she moved toward him when he spoke.
Those small gestures, it felt invisible to everyone else but to me, they were everything.
I argued with myself that I wasn’t jealous. I wasn’t the type because I wasn’t even supposed to be in the first place.
My heart just says otherwise. Every time I imagined her smiling at him the way she once smiled at me, my heart ached.
I just wanted to claw the air, rip the world open and drag her back into my arms.
I stopped at the table where Lucia was waiting. She was pretending to read reports, fingers tapping lightly, her eyes moving up at me.
I didn’t need the look on her face to know what she was scheming.
I hated her, and I also hated that I kept her close.
She just reminded me of control and the rules of the world I live in.
I could feel my chest tightening while my hands were shaking. I clenched them into fists.
The staff stayed quiet, my presence was enough to silence them. I had that power, but it didn’t matter. Not when I can’t even keep a woman I love.
Her thoughts kept my mind busy throughout the morning.
How she didn’t ask for any permission from me and just… left my world.
Why didn’t I stop her? I asked myself over and over.
Maybe because I was thinking she’d fight or maybe she’ll just choose me like I expected.
I thought she’d beg or cling to me.
But she didn’t, she ran. Far away from me.
I saw the way she moved softly around him, the way she laughed and the calm on her face.
Then I realized something that hurt more than anger.
I pushed her away from me. And that made her find comfort somewhere else.
A shook my head. It has always been my brother. Despite his imperfections and ruthlessness.
She still embraced him, she still leaned close to him like he wasn’t dangerous.
I slammed my palm onto the nearest desk. Papers scattered. A laptop slid off the desk edge, but I didn’t care. And no one dared to speak.
I walked straight to the map wall, fingers tracing the lines. The city, the networks, and movements.
Everything I controlled, owned, and bent. But her… I couldn’t bend her no matter how hard I tried.
And that panic I had always had in me crept in. The panic that she could choose him.
The panic that she could find warmth where I only offered fire.
And that would love someone who wasn’t me.
I had always believed that control was love. Always believed that jealousy, pressure, keeping someone close, and proving attachment through pain were the only way to hold someone.
And Lucia existed because of that logic. She was just a test, a reminder and a leash that I could tighten anytime.
She just stayed close because she knew the rules and she didn’t challenge too much.
She just played her role, and I had expected Isla to do the same.
But she didn’t.
She fled. She moved like water through my hands and I couldn’t get a hold of her.
I thought about the mornings when she entered my office. The way she tilted her head and walked gracefully.
I thought of how her hands didn’t tremble, and how she didn’t ask for my approval and acted with confidence.
Confidence that had to do with the choice I had failed to give her.
I was crowding the table now, through the underground corridor.
The staff kept their distance like they always did, and the guards watched.
I had thousands of things to do, and yet I couldn’t focus on any of them.
Her absence was louder than any alarm, argent that any threat.
Love was pain and love was control. To me love was fear and only a coward would be in love.
But here I was, the almighty Damian, who had bent and twisted rules… and still couldn’t reach for the woman my heart beats for.
I stopped at the communication table as a map blinked.
I traced the line of activity with my finger, thinking about her, and my mind split between panic and anxiety.
If she was safe, why did I feel awkward?
If she was close to him, why did I feel powerless? And why did I feel abandoned all over?
With so much going through my head, I came to realize something.
I realized that I had become the man I despised.
The man who had always pushed people away and used control as a shield. The one who had been afraid of love and wouldn’t let it grow.
I expected her to fight for me. To argue, and beg. To show me that devotion I always thought I deserved.
But she didn’t and now? Now I’m in panic .
I was aware that every step I had taken to control her, shape her world and secure her loyalty, but only pushed her to the comfort elsewhere.
I taught myself to be feared, but didn’t teach myself to be loved, not by someone like her.
I felt a deep cold ran down my spine.
I started imagining sceneries of her smiling at him, leaning against him, and trusting him without effort.
Her soft laughter, her hands brushing his. Every imagined moments made my heart race.
But I still couldn’t stop myself from thinking about her.
I just wanted to be the person right next to her. The person she trusted. I just wanted to be the only person she runs to when things looked hard.
To be the only person who she comes back home at night to. Not my brother or anyone else, but me.
Not even the power, or the empire I ran and the facts that people feared and respected me in equal measure mattered. None of it meant a thing if I couldn’t reach her.
Lucia, I thought about again, was supposed to keep her close. She he worked but didn’t provide the pull I wanted.
Like making her fight for my attention, not leaving in silence.
I walked to the window and looked over the city.
The city ahead looked alive, busy and beautiful.
Love cannot be replaced with control and can’t be dictated by rules. Love required just two things. Risk and letting go.
And i didn’t know how to do that.
And now, the consequences was right here, in front of me.
And the most terrifying thing was that she hadn’t chosen me, and I hadn’t give a reason to.
I sank back into the chair behind my desk, my fingers gripping the edge.
I regretted that I had been too rigid, too fearful, and too untested in love.
And yet, even as I thought this, I just knew I couldn’t apologize, not yet. Not without understanding what fully happened or seeing if she might come back to me.
The staff sensed the tension. They just worked quietly, no one dared to speak too much to me, not today.
I took a deep breathe and tried to organize the chaos going through my head. Trying to remind myself that I was Damian, the Don’s twin.
That I had the skills and power to bend worlds.
And yet, she bent me.
She moved through my mind, control, through my jealousy and fear, and through everything that defined me, and left me raw and unsettled.
Seeing her calm with him, seeing her seek comfort elsewhere, was proof that she didn’t want me no matter how hard I tried.
I just needed to change. I needed to rethink everything.
Love isn’t anything you could hold by force or fear.
I sank lower into the chair. My fingers twitched at the edge of my desk, heart hammering, mind racing with panic and regret.
Isla, the thought of her repeated like a drumbeat.
I didn’t know how to be the man she deserved.
And I feared losing her.
I knew deep down inside that the mistake I had made before… had already started repeating itself.
I had watched the wrong pattern play.
And she already began to chose another.