Chapter 8 OUR HISTORY.
\~~~DAMIEN
I shouldn’t be doing this.
All of this.
She is sitting beside me, pressed close but still a world away, staring out the window like the city out there can save her.
And I am watching her reflection in the glass like a man who has already lost the battle he never meant to fight.
This woman is everything I’ve spent my life running from.
She is small.
Naïve.
Too young.
Too pure and too damn real.
Too untouched by the kind of rot that stains people like me.
She doesn’t belong in my world, and I sure as hell shouldn’t have let her into it. She should be far from me… from the parts of myself I’ve kept buried under power, control, and the silence of survival.
Every instinct I have screams to keep her at a distance, to remember what I am and what I’ve done. But she walks in like she owns the right to break my rules. Every one of them.
And here she is.
In my car, beside me.
Her small frame doesn’t fit the chaos that follows me.
Hell, I should’ve never let her cross that line.
But she did. And now she’s here, sitting in the ruins of my self-control like she was meant to be.
She shifted beside me suddenly, pulling her gaze from the window to look at me fully.
A small frown creased her forehead. I looked away, my eyes dropping to the phone in my hand.
“We’re not going there, are we?” she asked.
“We are,” I answered simply, not bothering to look up.
“I thought you were going to drop me home! Why are we… Why are we going there?”
We were heading straight to Ryan’s house. The same place she’d been just two days ago. Where she had met every single member of the family.
“I want the rest of the family to see you,” I said, keeping my tone calm. “My soon-to-be wife.”
“No. No, no, no. I don’t want to see any of them! I bet they’re still around. All of them. I can’t. No, I can’t stomach it!” she blurted, waving her hands as if she could jump out of the car at any second.
“What are you so afraid of, moonlight?” I finally looked up from my screen, my breath slow, and deliberate.
“Everything! Just two days ago, I was… ”
“You are my fiancée now,” I cut in, my voice sharper. “End of discussion.”
“No way this is the end of it!” she fired back. “What if they insult me right there? There will be a lot of people. What if they gang up on me? Mock me? Chase me out?”
“No one will do such a thing.”
“Well, they can! Given our history. We’re going to their house to do what?”
“It is my house, moonlight.” My voice dropped lower, the air between us tightening. “The house they live in belongs to me. It is under my name. And unless they want to be thrown out, no one…” I leaned closer, eyes locked on hers. “…will disrespect you.”
Serena didn’t look convinced at all. Her eyes gleamed with defiance. She looked like she had a dozen more arguments lined up, desperate to make me see her side, to make me bend.
I didn’t spare her another glance.
All she could do was fume quietly, her breath uneven, and her hands twisting in her lap.
“How about we come back later tonight? Or tomorrow?” she finally tried again, her voice almost pleading. “I should at least gather myself and…”
Her words died when she realized she wasn’t going to get an answer.
The rest of the ride unfolded in silence.
I didn’t mind. In fact, I welcomed it. Silence has always been my sanctuary. Hers, however, was anything but. She fidgeted beside me, every small movement a declaration of her uneasiness.
Aside from the sharp glares she kept throwing my way as if she could burn a hole through me with just her eyes, everything else was fine.
Finally, the car slowed, and the towering black gates of the Hale mansion came into view.
They slid open with a low mechanical hum, the same way they always had, except this time, the woman beside me stiffened like she was being led into enemy territory.
The car rolled to a stop in the wide, marble-paved driveway. I stepped out first, the cool air brushing against my face. Turning slightly, I extended a hand toward her.
She hesitated, staring at my hand as though it were a trap. Still, after a moment’s pause, she placed her smaller one in mine. I closed my fingers around hers firmly and grounded.
“Let’s go,” I said quietly.
Her steps were small, reluctant, but she followed.
And there they were.
The grand doors of the mansion stood open, and the inside? Exactly as I’d expected. Every member of the Hale family was gathered. Ryan. His wife. His mother. My siblings. And the others.
They were all there, like they’d been waiting. The atmosphere was so thick that even a knife could cut through it. And it was fucking evident that they had been talking, as they might have seen the news.
But then again, this was supposed to be Ryan and his wife’s anniversary celebration.
Now it was about to become something else entirely.
“Y… You’re here.”
Melissa, Ryan’s mother was the first to speak, stepping forward with a strained smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Her voice carried a nervous tremor, and I could almost smell the discomfort rolling off her.
“You’re all here. I am glad.”
My lips curved into a smirk as I let my gaze sweep across the room.
And then I saw him.
Ryan.
The golden boy of the Hale family.
He looked like he could punch straight through a wall. His jaw was tight, his fists clenched, and his eyes. Oh, he couldn’t stop looking at her. At Serena.
“I take it you’ve all seen the news,” I began, my tone smooth and deliberate.
I released Serena’s hand only to rest it possessively at her waist, pulling her a fraction closer to me. I felt her tense, but I didn’t care.
“But we are family, aren’t we?” I continued, my voice dropping into something darker, almost mocking. “So, I should announce it properly.”
A ripple of unease moved through the room.
Soft murmurs and groans but none of them dared to speak up. None of them ever did.
“This,” I said, pausing just long enough to let their discomfort deepen, “is my fiancée, Serena Evans.”
Gasps rippled through the room. No one spoke, but every pair of eyes screamed disbelief.
I let the moment hang, then my smirk deepened.
“And as fate would have it,” I continued smoothly, “she’s now part of this family. Officially.”
My gaze swept over each of them and Ryan last.
“We’ll be getting married in two weeks. So I suggest you all start preparing.”
The room fell into stunned, suffocating silence.
And fuck, I loved every second of it.