Chapter 13 AFTER.

Chapter 13 AFTER.
Isabel’s POV.

The ride home was a blur of neon streaks reflected in the cab window, but the true light show was happening inside my head. The frantic, happy adrenaline of the dance floor had curdled into a  churning sadness. Every beat of the music I’d absorbed now felt like a drumroll before an execution.

“Izzy? You still with me?” Lena’s voice was soft, pulled back from the volume of the club. She squeezed my hand, her touch grounding.

I managed to shake my head, feeling the wild, loose strands of my hair catch against my cheek. “He saw me, Lena. He saw me.”

“So what? He saw you dancing. It’s not a confession of treason.”

“It is when it’s Damian,” I whispered, the name tasting like ash. “He saw the break. He saw the crack in the façade I spend eighteen hours a day cementing. He saw that I was happy and that I was completely unsupervised.”

Lena sighed, leaning her head back against the taxi seat. “He is not your jailer, Izzy. Adrian is your husband.”

I laughed, a brittle, humorless sound. “Adrian doesn’t matter to Damian.  I’m a piece of property he refused, but still needs to inspect. He saw me in the club”

I closed my eyes, the image of his face burning behind my lids—those  eyes, fixed and unwavering. It wasn't anger I had seen; it was worse. 

The taxi slowed, turning down the long, private drive of the Sterling estate. The imposing limestone walls rose before us, looking less like a home and more like a mausoleum built for people with too much money and no soul.

“I’m coming in with you,” Lena said firmly.

“No, absolutely not.” I fumbled in my purse for my keycard. “If Mother finds out you were here, she’ll ruin your life, too. I’m the only one who takes the full force of this storm.”

I paid the driver quickly, hugged Lena and slid out of the car before she could protest.

The  wooden door, carved with the Sterling crest, felt heavier than normal. I slid the keycard into the lock, the sharp click echoing.

I slipped inside, pulling the heavy door shut behind me with care.

My heels, even walking on tiptoe, sounded deafening. I imagined the sound waves traveling through the polished floor, up the walls, and into the bedrooms of the house's  occupants.

Adrian. He wouldn’t be awake. Adrian slept the deep, untroubled sleep often fueled by too much expensive liquor. He wouldn’t know I was gone. He wouldn’t notice until morning, if ever.

But Damien.

My heart was a frantic, trapped thing against my ribs. I knew, with the kind of terrible certainty that only comes from deep, shared guilt, that he hadn’t stayed at the club. He was likely already here, perhaps waiting in his library, or even his bed, expecting my return.

I needed to get to the guest wing, strip out of these forbidden clothes, and scrub every trace of the club—the scent, the slight stickiness, the rebellious flush from my skin before I was caught.

I passed the grand staircase, my gaze flicking upward. His rooms were on the top floor, far from Adrian's wing. Yet, the house felt small tonight, suffocatingly so.

I finally reached the small, discreet door to the service hall leading to my wing, letting out a shaky breath. Almost safe.

Then, I heard it. A faint creak of a leather chair moving in the drawing room off the main hall.

My blood ran cold. I froze, plastered against the wall, every muscle locked.

The drawing room was never used. It was too formal. But it offered a direct, unobstructed view of the main entry and the staircase. 

A shadow shifted in the doorway.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I was trapped.

He didn't step out. He didn’t need to.

Damien was just standing in the frame of the doorway, backlit by the distant hall light. He wasn't wearing the black suit from the club, but a simple, dark dressing gown tied at the waist, somehow making him look taller, more lethal, and  unbound. His dark hair was slightly rumpled.

He was waiting. He had known exactly when I would return.

My face, which had been burning with defiance just an hour ago, was now hot with hame. I was caught, dirty, and irrevocably guilty. 

I couldn’t speak. I couldn't offer an excuse. He had seen the truth in the neon lights of the club.

He didn’t move towards me. He didn’t say a single word. He didn’t need to raise his voice like my mother or grip my arm like my father.

He simply stood there, in the doorway. Those crystal green eyes traveled slowly, deliberately, over me. From my mussed hair, down the curve of my shoulder exposed by the top, to the borrowed, inappropriate heels, and back up to meet my terrified gaze.

It wasn’t admiration. He was marking down the evidence. Every single choice I had made tonight was now logged in his memory.

I felt  tears prick my eyes, not out of fear of Mother or Adrian, but out of a paralyzing humiliation before him. He had seen my desperate attempt at freedom, and now he was watching me return, broken and caught, to the cage.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity under his inspection, his lips curved into the barest, slightest of smiles. It wasn’t kind, or even amused. It was predatory. A satisfied, chilling acknowledgment.

He had won. I had fled the club, thinking I was escaping his gaze. But I had only managed to run straight into his house, into his trap, confirming every suspicion he already held about me.

He broke the contact first, a slight turn of his head. He stepped back into the shadows of the drawing room, leaving the heavy scent of his expensive cologne hanging in the air—proof that he was real, and that the moment had truly happened.

He was gone, but the pressure was still there, crushing me. He hadn't demanded an answer, hadn't issued a warning. He had simply let me know that I belonged to him now, in a way Adrian would never understand. And in this house, under his constant surveillance, there would be no more nights of untamed laughter.