Chapter Thirty-Five
Lily
Damiano lifts me out of the car like I weigh nothing, his arms strong and sure around me.
I don’t protest. I am too drained, too hollowed out to even try.
My head rests against his chest, cheek pressed to the steady beat of his heart.
That sound alone is enough to stop my spiraling.
The elevator ride up to his penthouse is silent, save for the subtle hum of the mechanics and the occasional hiss of his breath.
He is angry, still coiled with violence.
I can sense it in the way his jaw tics, in the white-knuckle grip he has around me and the protective way his body shields mine from the world.
He didn’t say a word as he ran his hands over me in the car, checking for injuries with silent, intense focus.
His touch was firm, clinical, but the storm in his eyes told another story entirely.
Only when I whispered that I felt okay and that I didn’t need a hospital did he finally speak to order the driver to take us home.
Home. That single word cracked something open in me…and somehow began to stitch me back together again. Now it echoes inside me, low and steady, as his arms wrap around me, warm and solid, inescapable.
Maybe home isn’t a place. Maybe home is him.
When the elevator doors slide open, the scent of his penthouse hits me, clean cedar, leather, and something that’s purely him.
It’s familiar, anchoring. The door shuts behind us with a soft click.
He doesn’t speak as he carries me through the sleek, modern space, past floor-to-ceiling windows veiled in heavy drapes, past quiet shadows that seem to hold their breath.
Everything is dim but warm. As if by shutting out the daylight, he is trying to keep the world away…
to keep me safe inside the dark. We enter the bedroom, but he doesn’t stop there.
Instead, he carries me straight into the bathroom.
The soft rustle of him setting me down on the marble bench near the shower echoes in the stillness.
I blink up at him, unsure what to say, but he has already turned to the tub.
My mind is sluggish, as if wrapped in cotton.
I can’t hold onto a single thought, and soon I am mesmerized by the light of the bathroom.
Warm and golden, it dances across the brass fixtures and polished stone, flickering like candlelight beneath the floating mirror.
I stare, transfixed. The world narrows to the soft glow and shifting shapes.
Damiano fills the bath in silence, checking the temperature with his hand. Only when the steam begins to rise does he come back to me and kneel down, his hands gentle at the lapels of his jacket.
“Let me?” he asks, voice hoarse with restraint.
I nod.
One by one, he peels off the remnants of the day, the fabric torn and dirtied, the skin beneath marked with bruises that make his breath catch.
He never looks away, never flinches. I should feel vulnerable bare like this, but his touch is anchoring me, soothing my frayed nerves.
He helps me into the tub and sinks down beside it, rolling up his sleeves.
The water is hot and encompassing, swallowing me whole like safety itself.
I close my eyes as he wets a cloth and begins to clean me with slow, careful strokes, over my neck, my arms, my bruised ribs.
He pauses at the split on my lip, his thumb brushing beneath it as if he could erase the pain with his tenderness.
“I didn’t run from you,” I whisper, eyes still closed.
His hand stills. Then he rasps, “I know, love.”
I open my eyes and find him watching me, his expression unreadable, but I see the storm beneath. Guilt… Fury… And something I don’t want to name.
“I’m done running, Dark,” I whisper, voice breaking. “I’m done being scared. I’m done hiding from you.” Something in his gaze softens, crumbles then reforms all at once. He leans forward and presses a kiss to my temple.
“I’ll never let anything or anyone hurt you again,” he murmurs. “I swear it. Not while I breathe.”
By the time I step out of the bath, wrapped in one of Damiano’s thick, dark towels, something in me has settled.
Not healed, but steadied. A fracture made solid again by his care and the way he saw every broken part of me and didn’t flinch.
He now watches me quietly from where he leans against the bathroom door frame.
His shirt sleeves are still rolled up, his inked forearms tense, his expression unreadable. But his eyes never leave mine.
I walk to him slowly, barefoot, water still clinging to my skin. I reach for his hand, curling my fingers around his. “I need…” My voice falters.
“You don’t have to say it,” he says gently, voice low and warm. “Whatever you need, it’s yours.”
I nod. “I need to feel in control again. I need you to let me have that, just this time.”
His gaze darkens, not with dominance, but with surrender.
“Take it,” he says. “Take all of me.”
He lets me lead him to the bedroom, where soft light and shadows dance across the wide bed.
The curtains are drawn, sealing us off from the outside world.
And somehow, that makes me even more aware of him, of us.
He sits as I guide him by the hand. There is something raw in the way he looks at me, like I’m the single thing anchoring him to this world.
I let the towel fall to the floor and watch how his breath catches, but he doesn’t move.
He doesn’t reach for me. He waits, like a beast on a leash, like my monster tamed for me alone.
I climb into his lap, straddling him. His hands stay at his sides, his body locked beneath mine.
I cup his face with trembling fingers and press my forehead to his.
“I want to be the one who takes,” I whisper. “Just this once. I need to.”
His eyes close, lashes brushing against my skin as he exhales. “Then take,” he murmurs. “Ruin me, little flower.”
And I do. I kiss him first, slow and bold. It’s not a question or a plea, but a claiming.
He opens for me like he’s been waiting his whole life for this moment.
I slide my fingers through his hair, tugging him closer, and his hands rise to rest gently on my thighs, but they don’t move.
He lets me guide everything. I push his shirt from his shoulders, tracing every line of muscle, every scar, every mark that makes him mine.
I kiss down his throat, his chest, the flower etched over his heart, and he trembles beneath me.
My monster. My protector.
When I sink down onto him, it’s not frantic or desperate. It’s grounding. I ride him slowly, drawing pleasure from him like a slow-burn vengeance against the world that tried to take me. Against the hands that touched me without permission.
But this…this is mine.
Damiano’s head falls back, a strangled sound leaving his throat. He holds back, trembling under my control, letting me push him to the edge. And when I bring us both over, it’s like reclaiming every piece of myself that fear tried to steal.
Afterward, he pulls me into his chest, his breath ragged against my temple. He runs his hand through my hair and whispers into the quiet, “You own me, little flower. Body, soul…darkness and all.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t have to. I already know.
* * * *
Damiano
She only spent one night in that goddamn place, thank fucking God. But it was enough to light hellfire in my veins. One night, and I will burn the entire world down for what they did.
Lily hasn’t said much about it. She won’t let me coddle her. She doesn’t cry, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t beg for space. She moves through the days with quiet defiance in her eyes, her chin held high even when the shadows circle under her lashes.
But I still hear the nightmares. I wake to her soft, gasping breaths, the tension vibrating through her as she curls closer in our bed.
She never asks for comfort but she still reaches for it in the dark.
I hold her without saying a word, anchoring her to the present, to me. And she never pulls away.
During the day, she carries herself like she is fine.
But I see the way her fingers twitch when she passes a dark hallway.
The way she hesitates and scans a room before she steps inside.
The way she keeps her back to the wall when she thinks I’m not watching.
She is strong, fierce, even in pain. But I know what damage looks like when it hides beneath armor.
And I won’t let it fester. So while she pretends not to be haunted, I do what I do best.
I hunt.
Gian Mancini’s trafficking network wasn’t a local operation—it stretched like rot through multiple cities. I’ve pulled every string, threatened every coward in a tailored suit who thought hiding behind money would protect them. It didn’t.
By the end of the week, every man connected to Gian is either dead, missing or begging for mercy they won’t get. Lucas handles the logistics. Matteo runs the cleanup. I oversee every single strike. And when it’s done, I stand over the ashes of the Mancini empire and know I’ve only begun.
Lily doesn’t ask about it, but her eyes soften when I come home, sometimes covered in blood that isn’t mine. She never asks me to stop, though.
Tonight, after the last deal has been crushed and the last safe house breached, I come back to the penthouse and find her on the balcony, barefoot, wrapped in one of my shirts, hair dancing in the wind like liquid silk. “You’re home,” she says, her voice calm, steady.
“I always come back to you.” She gives me a small smile and leans against me when I wrap my arms around her from behind. We stand there for a while, silent. The city glows below, and for once, it doesn’t feel like it’s on fire. She tilts her head to look at me. “You got them all, didn’t you?”
I nod. “Every last one.”
She doesn’t flinch. “Good.”
Her gaze wanders back to the view, assessing the city in the glowing light. Her kingdom. Does she know that all of this is hers if only she wanted?
“My mother was my father’s mistress.” Her voice is barely a whisper.
I tighten my arms around her, wanting to shield her from her past, but I know she needs to tell me.
I kiss her temple to urge her to go on. “She was miserable as long as I could remember. I watched her light fade day by day. It was as if she was a shadow posing as a human. In… In the end when she knew she was…” Her voice breaks and she takes a steadying breath.
“She warned me away. From this life, from the famiglia. From men like Father, like Gian.”
She raises her face to mine, eyes burning. “From men like you.”
And just like that, my breath rushes out of my lungs, a sick, gut-wrenching feeling claws up my throat and I can’t breathe.
“Little flower…” I rasp.
She turns around in my arms and puts her hands on my chest, eyes locked on mine. “But I am not my mother. And you are not like Gian or Father.” She slides her small hands up my neck to the back of my head and pulls my head down to her. My heart starts to beat again when our lips connect.
Later that night, when we lie in bed, her body soft against mine, I brush her hair back from her face and kiss her temple. “You’re safe,” I murmur. “No one will ever touch you again.”
“I know,” she whispers, nestling closer.
But I hear the faint tremble in her voice.
I feel the tension in her back. I know she’s still not sleeping through the night.
She’s healing, yes. But even the strongest hearts can bruise.
I press a kiss to her shoulder and say, “I want to bring someone in to talk with you. A therapist, someone we trust. You don’t have to say yes right away. Just think about it.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Then she asks, “You think I need fixing?”
“No,” I say without hesitation. “I think you’ve been carrying everything alone, and maybe…maybe you don’t have to.”