Chapter 23
LYRA
My stomach knots at the soft rustle of fabric and the muted clink of metal as he slips his watch onto his wrist. It’s early. The pale light outside my window tells me that much. We fell asleep curled around each other last night with a brand-new understanding of a possible future together.
But in the cold light of day, I wonder if our promises still stand.
I sit up and pull the blanket tighter around me. The words are out before I can talk myself out of them. “Are you really going to kill that man?”
Damien’s head turns just enough for his gaze to find mine, and for a moment it’s unreadable, those icy blue eyes giving nothing away.
“Lyra,” he says slowly, like he’s testing how much I can take before I break. “He’s a dangerous man, and he threatens everything that I love. I’ve killed many men. He deserves it more than any of them did.”
I grip the blanket harder, my throat tightening.
“I don’t care what he deserves. I care about you. I’m scared something will happen to you, and you need to be here for us.”
His jaw flexes, and he exhales through his nose, stepping closer until he’s standing at the side of the bed.
“I will be here, I promise you that. That is precisely why I need to do this.”
The way he says it makes me feel as if there’s no way around it, as if it’s already set in stone. My mind races with all the ways things could go wrong, but I know he won’t be swayed by fear alone. I take a breath, forcing my voice steady.
“Then at least spend the day with me. Please.”
Something in his expression shifts. The hardness doesn’t disappear, but it cracks just enough for me to see the man underneath.
“All right,” he says finally, and that single promise is enough to ease the tension coiled in my chest.
A little over an hour later, his warm hand rests firmly at the small of my back as we step into a shop, its window dressed in pale blues and soft creams. I’ve passed this store a million times, but I’ve been too afraid to walk in until now.
The bell over the entrance gives a polite chime as we walk in, and I’m instantly swallowed by the smell of freshly laundered cotton and something faintly sweet, like vanilla.
Everything is impossibly tiny, including delicate knit hats, soft blankets folded in perfect squares, and rows of tiny shoes lined up.
I touch one of the little hats, and it’s softer than anything I’ve ever owned.
The thought of our baby wearing it makes me tear up again.
Damien watches me, one brow lifting slightly. “Do you like it?”
I nod, and before I can say more, he waves over a saleswoman.
“We’ll take everything in this section,” he says, voice casual but commanding.
My eyes widen. “Damien,” I warn. “That’s too much.”
He glances at me briefly and shrugs. “You’ll need it.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “I don’t want our baby to be a spoiled brat.”
“Our baby won’t be a brat,” he answers, moving deeper into the store. “He or she will just have lots of options.”
He points out blankets, swings, bouncy chairs, a stroller that looks like a luxury car. He makes every choice in the same decisive tone. For the first time, I’m thinking about all the advantages our baby will have with Damien as the father.
When he turns toward the counter, I follow, the small swell of my stomach brushing his arm as I step closer. He tells the saleswoman to send everything to his place.
“You know,” I murmur, “I don’t even live with you.”
His lips curve slightly, a flash of amusement in his eyes. “You do now.”
There’s no hesitation in his voice, no question.
I realize that somewhere between last night’s fear and this morning’s argument, something has shifted.
We are officially a couple. He was absolutely serious about marrying me, and this is just the beginning of what will likely be a very extravagant life.
We wander into another shop, this one filled with maternity clothes.
I’ve been avoiding the thought of buying any, wearing oversized sweaters and stretchy leggings instead, but Damien takes one look at the display and steers me inside.
I find dresses, soft cardigans, and even a silk robe I can’t imagine wearing anywhere but behind closed doors.
Each time I look at a price tag, he silences me with a look that holds the same mix of stubbornness and care.
At some point, I catch him watching me in the mirror as I try on a pale blue dress that drapes over my growing stomach. He looks proud and possessive. It sends a shiver through me that I try to hide as I smooth the fabric over my hips.
When I step out of the dressing room, he’s already talking to the saleswoman about having everything delivered. I don’t even bother arguing this time.
We spend the afternoon moving through stores. He continues at the same unhurried, unbothered pace, spending money like water. The longer we shop together, the more public our relationship becomes.
We hold hands as we cross the street. He kisses me when we pick out a bassinet. He slips his arm around my shoulders when we stop for coffee, pulling me close against his side. I’m his, not a possession but something more precious.
By the time we head back to the penthouse, the city is painted in shades of gold, the sun catching on glass and steel. The back of the car is filled with shopping bags, though most of the purchases are already on their way to his place.
I lean into him, my head resting against his shoulder, and for the first time in a long time, I let myself believe that we might actually get to have a beautiful future together.
By the end of the day, we’re both exhausted and starving. Damien keeps one hand loose on the wheel and the other resting over my knee as we drive down a narrow road toward some local hole-in-the-wall he swears by.
The city behind us keeps humming, but here the sound falls away until there is only the faint whistle of wind sneaking along the seams of the doors.
The hedges start to press in, the pavement narrows, the light ahead dies, and the part of me that has learned to listen to silence sits up and looks around.
Damien’s fingers flex once against my knee.
He has already seen it, whatever it is. The car slows by a few miles an hour.
I feel the shift in him long before anything else changes.
His attention sharpens, the easy conversation from a minute ago folding away.
I reach for my seatbelt and drag it tighter across my chest, and he notices and gives a small nod that says good.
Headlights appear behind us, then drop back, then appear again. The movement has a rhythm that is wrong. Damien flicks his gaze to the rearview and checks the side mirror. A second pair of lights slides into view ahead, parked across a side lane, and the angle makes my skin tighten along my arms.
The road narrows again. The hedges press closer.
The streetlamps thin out until the space between them feels like a tunnel.
Damien eases off the gas and glances once at the phone in the console.
He unlocks it without looking. The screen lights up his knuckles as he opens an unfamiliar app and holds it low against his thigh.
The road bends left, and that is where the van waits. Its paint is the color of wet concrete, windows blacked out, back doors shut tight. It is parked crosswise like a fallen tree. We are already too close. Damien brakes, smooth and controlled. I feel the car’s weight shift forward and settle.
The headlights smear across the van’s side and catch on something metallic stacked near the rear bumper.
The shape registers a beat later. A generator.
Coiled cords. A saw with a blade that looks like a bright silver coin.
The streetlight above us hums and flickers.
Somewhere in the hedges, a trapped bird rustles and goes still.
Damien’s voice drops to that low register that cuts through noise.
“Hold onto the belt,” he says. “Head down, hands over your ears if glass breaks. Do not open the door unless I tell you.”
He keeps his phone open with one hand and presses a button I know will call his men. The line connects before the first man appears.
Figures step from the hedges and from the mouth of a side alley, shapes in heavy jackets with hoods up and tools in their hands.
The hiss of a generator lifts into a grind as someone yanks a cord.
Sparks twitch in the distance as a blade tests metal.
The curve of the street behind us blooms with light when another van switches on its beams and rolls forward just enough to close our path back.
Damien speaks into the phone, fast and clipped.
“Ambush on Kettleman, south approach to the docks. Two vans and at least ten on foot and more in vehicles. I need a wall and I need it now.” He listens for two seconds, nods once, and drops the phone into my lap. “If I go down, you talk to Alek,” he says. “You say where we are. You keep talking.”
I lock my fingers around the phone and push it under my thigh.
The first blade bites the metal near my door, a screech that slices through me like wire pulled thin and tight.
Sparks fan up and spit against the glass.
Damien opens the small compartment by his knee with a smooth, practiced motion and draws two guns, one heavy and one compact.
He hands me the compact by the grip without looking away from the men moving toward his side.
“Do not use it unless they break the window,” he says. “If they do, aim and fire.”
I wrap both hands around the gun and try to steady my breathing.
It smells like oil and cold metal. The generator’s drone deepens.
Another blade hits the car near the back wheel with a sound like a scream being torn in half.
The windshield blooms with a spidered crack when a pry bar kisses it too hard.