Chapter 20 Daisy #3
Gasping, I lay on the floor as uncontrollable tremors shook me from the inside out.
My pale hands looked like they belonged to someone else.
Ference’s face flashed before my eyes—his gaze, his last attempt to reach me, his broken voice.
A whimper broke from my throat. Curling onto my side, I pulled my knees tight against my chest, as if I could protect myself from what had happened, from what was yet to come.
But the pain stayed, relentless, and it wouldn’t stop.
Time bled away, meaningless. Minutes, hours—it didn’t matter.
I remained curled on the tiles, motionless, a heap of misery.
My limbs felt numb, foreign, as though they were no longer part of me.
My throat burned with suppressed sobs, each breath shallow and ragged, but I didn’t move.
I should have done something. Anything. Screamed, fought, run.
Instead, I lay there, useless, pathetic, while Ference. ..
A violent shudder ripped through me. Because of me, he was out there. Because of me, he was dead. My fingers clawed at my dress as if I could dig the pain out of myself, but nothing worked. The thought cut deeper and deeper: I should have saved him. I should have stopped it. But I had failed.
Suddenly, sounds shattered the silence. The door flung open, and I stared straight into the barrel of a gun. Mason’s hand fisted in my hair and yanked me out of the bathroom. With a vicious jerk, he threw me onto the couch and pinned me down, his grip cruel and unyielding.
“Your boyfriend is here,” he hissed, calm and venomous, eyes glittering with delight.
The elevator doors opened. Damian stepped inside. For a heartbeat, the world froze. He stared directly into the barrel of a gun. My heart pounded up into my throat, each breath sharp and jagged. Mason sat beside me, his grip brutal. Another man aimed his gun at my head, the cold metal inches away.
Damian’s gaze landed on Ference’s body. For a heartbeat, he went utterly still.
Then something broke. Not loud, not visible-but I felt it.
His eyes widened, as if the world had just split open in front of him.
Every muscle in his face locked; pain and disbelief flashed through him, raw and violent, before his jaw tightened hard enough to tremble.
His breath hitched. His hands shook-barely-but I saw it, And in that single, shattering second, I was afraid.
Afraid he might lose control. Afraid he’d make one wrong move—one that could cost him everything.The man I loved, the man who could command a room with a glance, looked suddenly… human. Broken.
It wasn’t rage that froze him. It was grief. A deep, unbearable kind of grief that hollowed out the space between us. I wanted to run to him—to say I’m sorry, even though the words would have meant nothing. But before I could move, it happened.
Something shifted.The pain vanished behind a wall of steel. His fury iced over into deadly calm.When he finally spoke, his voice was steady, but every word pulsed with restrained violence.
“Let her go.”
Mason grinned and pressed me harder into the couch.
“Or what?” he sneered, leaning closer. “If you move, little lioness, I’ll order my men to put a bullet in his head. Do you understand?” He yanked my hair until tears pricked my eyes. “Do. You. Understand.”
“Yes,” I stammered, trembling.
Mason’s hand slid down my body and shoved my dress upward until my underwear was exposed.
“I like black,” he murmured. “I’ll take my pleasure first—right in front of you, Damian. Then I’ll let my men have her.”
I turned my face toward Damian. His lips parted slightly, as if the air had been ripped from him. Fire blazed in his eyes—untamable, volcanic, ready to erupt. I knew he would risk everything, even his life, to get me out of here. And that terrified me.
“That’s low, even for you,” Damian spat.
Mason straightened, pulled himself from his pants, and stroked himself.
“Mason, I swear—I’ll kill you if you touch her!” Damian roared.
Mason grabbed me roughly, shoving me in front of him. I screamed and fought, but his grip was a vise.
“Be quiet,” he hissed, just as he ripped at my panties—when, at that exact moment, the elevator doors slid open.
Damian’s bodyguards stormed in, and chaos exploded. Gunshots cracked through the air. Men clashed in a blur of violence. I caught one last glimpse of Damian—moving with lightning speed.
With a swift, practiced motion, he tore the weapon from his opponent and struck him down with the butt.
At the same instant, a bullet caught Karl, and he collapsed.
Mason released me and pushed to his feet.
Damian didn’t hesitate. Two to the chest, one to the head.
Then silence learned a new shape. Mason crumpled, hitting the floor hard.
Without a flicker of hesitation, Damian stood over his body and fired again.
The gunshot shattered the silence, its echo ringing in my ears as the bullet tore into Mason’s corpse. Another shot followed. And another.
I froze, my breath lodged in my throat. It wasn’t the gunfire that paralyzed me—it was Damian himself.
The effortless precision with which he held the weapon.
The frost in his eyes. No pause. No hint of remorse.
He moved as if this act were nothing. Routine.
Part of his daily life. And deep inside, I felt it—the undeniable truth. This wasn’t Damian Miller’s first kill.
I tried to rise, but my knees buckled, the weight of reality crashing down.
Damian’s gaze stayed icy, his movements steady, measured, as he lowered the gun like it was just a tool.
Routine. Not his first kill. The coldness of it hit me harder than the gunfire itself.
I had always known he was dangerous, but this was something else entirely. Another caliber.
He turned and fired again. A bodyguard staggered back, crying out before collapsing. Damian moved with a terrifying fluidity, as though violence lived in him—something he could summon at will. A chill raced through me.
I pushed myself upright on trembling legs, but the ground pitched beneath me while my eyes stayed locked on him.
For a fleeting second, his gaze met mine.
Then another shot cracked—another man dropped.
And suddenly, the space between us stretched vast and unreachable, as though an invisible wall of shadow and ice had risen to divide us.
Damian wasn’t only the controlled, magnetic man I thought I knew; he was also a man who killed without conscience.
The air thickened with screams, sweat, blood, and the acrid sting of gunpowder.
I stumbled toward Ference and dropped to my knees beside him, but before I could reach for him, Damian yanked me back to my feet.
I fought against him, but he hoisted me into his arms and carried me into his bedroom. Another gunshot rang out behind us.
“You stay in here!” he ordered, his voice hard.
“No, Damian!”
“You stay in here!” he barked again, slamming the door shut.
I crouched on the bed, every nerve screaming, praying with all I had that I’d wake from this nightmare.
Minutes later, the door opened. Damian stepped inside. “It’s over,” he said, pulling me into his arms and pressing a kiss to my hair. His hands cupped my cheeks, his voice raw. “I’m so sorry, Daisy.” He held me tight as the rising wail of police sirens sliced through the silence.
He said it was over—but the way he held me felt like a man who had just crossed a line he’d never come back from.
I stepped out of the shower, steam curling around me. The hot water had eased the tension in my muscles, but it couldn’t wash away the restless weight pressing on my chest. Wrapping a towel around my body, I moved into the bedroom and pulled clothes from the closet.
Damian’s voice carried softly from the living room. He was on the phone—almost certainly with his lawyer. His tone was calm, composed, but the cold undercurrent in it reminded me how close we had been to the darkness these last days.
Yesterday had been consumed at the police station.
Damian and the two surviving bodyguards were arrested, questioned, held under the suffocating pressure of suspicion.
The investigation was still unfolding, and every move we made was being watched.
Karl and Marlon lay in the hospital, fighting their injuries.
So did the only two survivors of Mason’s men.
And Ference...
My chest constricted at the thought of him.
He would never come back. Not ever. Because of me.
The guilt pressed heavier than any wound, turning each breath into punishment.
It had been my choice to go with Mason. My choice to play his game.
If I had fought back then—if I had chosen differently—Ference would still be alive. His blood was on my hands.
And Damian... Damian hadn’t just lost a bodyguard. He had lost a friend—a man he trusted with his life. That wound would never heal. Not for him. And not for me.
Damian entered the bedroom, his expression unreadable.
“The lawyer has everything under control,” he said evenly, setting the phone aside. “The investigation is ongoing, but they have nothing that could endanger us. Not if we’re careful.”
“Nothing except the incident in Mason’s office.”
Damian gave a short, dry snort, his gaze cold and calculating. “Mason made sure there were no records of it. He was too terrified of the fallout.”
“But the bodyguards, the assistants... they saw you.”
“Don’t worry about them. They were compensated—generously. The matter is closed.”
The chill in his words sent a shiver racing down my spine.
I wanted to ask how far that compensation had really gone, but I swallowed the question.
The ice between us was too thin, and silence felt safer.
Still, the memory pressed down on me. Damian had killed Mason—and two of his men—without hesitation.
He could have shot to wound, but instead he had aimed for their chests, their heads. Straight for the kill.
“Are you almost done?” he asked.
I flinched as his voice cut through my thoughts, his finger pointing at the towel still wrapped around me.
“How much longer will you need?”
“We should end this,” I whispered, my voice trembling.
My heart pounded against my ribs as I looked at him—looked at the grief and violence he carried like a second skin.
“You see what comes of this. Everything I touch breaks. Everyone close to me gets hurt. Ference...” His name scraped from my throat like broken glass.
A searing ache tore through my chest, and tears pricked my eyes. “He’s dead.”
The words slashed the air between us, but it felt like they cut deeper into me than into him. Because the guilt never stopped eating me alive.
Damian stepped closer, his eyes shadowed with pain and fierce resolve.
“It’s not your fault, Daisy. None of this is your fault.”
He leaned in.
The kiss was so tender it burned, aching worse than a slap.
His lips seared against mine, and for one devastating heartbeat, my body wanted nothing more than to collapse into that heat.
But the guilt, the fear, the pain inside me were stronger.
My fingers dug into the sleeves of his shirt as if I meant to hold on—yet it was a farewell.
“I have to go,” I breathed against his mouth. A violent tremor shuddered through me, making it hard to stand. With the last of my strength, I tore myself from him, grabbed my things off the bed, and pushed past.
My hand had just closed on the handle when his arm slammed against the door beside my head. The door shook under the impact, and a strangled cry escaped me. The bang rang in my ears like thunder.
His hand clamped around my neck, unyielding, merciless.
My breath caught as he yanked me back, pinning me to the cold wood.
His fist tangled in my hair, forcing my head back.
A soft cry slipped from my lips—more shock than pain.
His eyes locked on mine, blazing with everything at once: anger, fear, despair, an unbridled hunger that threatened to rip him apart.
For an instant, I thought he’d chain me to him.
He was fighting the impulse to never let me go.
His grip tightened, every line of his body thrumming as though one wrong breath would set off an explosion.
Then something shifted—something that gutted me even more.
Slowly, as if it cost him every shred of willpower, he peeled each finger away from my throat and turned to the window.
His back strained under the fabric of his shirt, rigid with the force of what he was holding in.
He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. Yet everything in his posture screamed this wasn’t finished, that it would never be finished.
“Go,” he said at last, his voice raw.
Not a threat.
Not a plea.
So I went.