The Beretti of His Dreams

Prologue From Nightmare

Damian

My eyes snap open.

The shift between worlds slams into me, a violent jolt that leaves my body rigid, breath ragged. My chest rises and falls in sharp, uneven pulls, the weight of something unseen pressing down on me.

My heart pounds against my ribs, fast, unrelenting, like I’ve just been wrenched from something I wasn’t supposed to leave behind.

Nichole.

Her touch lingers—a phantom warmth against my skin where her fingers had rested. My hand clamps over the spot, desperate to hold onto the sensation before it disappears completely.

But it’s already fading. The fire’s glow against her skin. The way she looked at me, eyes full of something unspoken. The whisper of my name, soft, lingering, like a promise. Gone.

I inhale sharply, but the air feels wrong. Cold. Empty. No firewood, no warmth curling around me. Only the distant hum of the city outside my penthouse windows, the sterile scent of leather and cologne grounding me in a reality that suddenly feels like the dream.

I’m back. But for the first time, it doesn’t feel real.

Pressing my fingers against my pulse, I try to steady the brutal rhythm pounding beneath my skin. This world—the one I was born into, the one I built with my own hands—has always been the only reality that mattered.

But now, something else has buried itself deep in my bones, cutting through logic, through reason, through every certainty I once held.

She’s real. She has to be.

I throw the covers back and swing my legs over the edge of the bed, muscles tensing as if ready for a fight. My mind is already racing, dissecting, strategizing, turning the impossible into something I can control.

Nichole isn’t just some figment of my subconscious. She isn’t just a dream. She’s out there. Somewhere. Waiting.

Dragging a hand through my hair, I try to push back the storm inside me, but the memory of what she found won’t let go. The book. The passage she read to me. When the heart of a dream beats strong enough, it searches for its place in the waking world.

My heart is still beating for her. Hard. Fast. Unrelenting.

She’s waiting for me.

And I will find her.

No matter what it takes.