Chapter Eight His Protection
“Open the door!” Aria shouted, slamming her palm against the heavy mahogany panel.
Damien’s voice came through the thick wood, muffled but entirely unyielding. “When the hospital clears your mother’s bloodwork.”
“You promised this room would be mine!”
“And you are safely inside it.”
“The contract explicitly states you cannot restrict my movement!”
“It permits emergency security protocol during credible threats.”
Aria hated him in that moment—hated him for reading his own legal contract far more carefully than she had.
“How long, Damien?”
“Two hours.”
“If you are not back in two hours, I will break the windows.”
“They are reinforced triple-pane glass.”
“Then I’ll set something on fire.”
A long silence stretched beyond the door.
“Helena will remain inside with you,” Damien finally said.
“Send food,” Helena called out calmly from the sitting room sofa. “Threats always make people hungry.”
The electronic lock engaged with a sharp, heavy click.
Aria spent the next hour pacing the floorboards while Helena quietly poured green tea.
“He cannot do this,” Aria muttered, her blood boiling.
“He just did.”
“You are remarkably unhelpful, Helena.”
“I have always found facts far more useful than comfort.”
At noon, Dr. Patel called the suite’s secure line. Evelyn’s bloodwork revealed traces of a mild sedative that hadn’t been prescribed, but no lethality or poison. It was a message—a shot across the bow.
At twelve-fifteen, the electronic lock chimed and disengaged.
Damien didn’t return until long after sunset.
Aria found him in the kitchen, standing over the marble island with cold water running, washing blood from his hands. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, one cuff soaked crimson, and a fresh cut split the skin across his knuckles.
“Whose blood is that?” she asked, stopping in the doorway.
He turned off the tap. “Not yours.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Then ask one whose answer you can tolerate.”
Aria stepped closer. “Did you kill someone?”
“No.”
Relief hit her chest too quickly. She hesitated before she spoke again. “Did you want to?”
“Yes.” Damien dried his hands on a dark towel. There was no remorse in his face—only a cold, exhausted precision. “The guard was paid to let someone near your mother. He claims he does not know who hired him.”
“And you beat him.”
“Lucien questioned him.”
“That isn’t a denial.”
“No.”
Aria looked down at his injured hand. “You could have called the police.”
“The police would have asked questions. I required answers.”
“Did you get them?”
“He received instructions through an encrypted server,” Damien said. “The payment originated from a Blackthorne logistics subsidiary that Victor controls.”
“So your uncle did it.”
“Or someone wants me to believe he did.”
Damien reached past her for a glass. The movement brought his chest inches from her shoulder. Aria knew she should step away, but her feet remained planted.
“You locked me in my room,” she said softly.
“Yes.”
“Do it again and I will leave. I don’t care what happens to the contract.”
“If the choice is between your anger and your funeral, Aria, I will endure your anger every single time,” he murmured, still reaching for the glass, still in her space.
“That isn’t protection, Damien. It’s control.”
“Protection without control is nothing more than a prayer.”
“I am not something you can lock in a gilded box!”
His gray eyes hardened, dropping to the black diamond on her left hand as he finally pulled away. “You are my wife.”
“For three hundred and sixty-four more days.”
Damien’s hand closed around the crystal glass with violent suddenness. The glass shattered in his palm. Blood welled up around the sharp shards.
Aria caught his wrist before he could pull away. “Stop!”
He stared down at her fingers gripping his skin, his breath heavy and tight.
“Let me see,” she demanded.
“It’s nothing.”
“You’re bleeding all over the floor.”
She pulled him toward the counter, carefully picking out the broken shards of crystal. Helena appeared in the doorway with a first-aid kit, took one silent look at the two of them, set the box down, and withdrew without a word.
Aria cleansed the cut with antiseptics. Damien watched her face the entire time, unblinking.
“Why were you following me fourteen months ago?” she asked softly.
“Your father.”
“That isn’t enough.” Aria refused to let her voice crack. She kept her eyes on his hand as he worked, scared of what she would, or wouldn’t, see in his eyes.
“It is what I can give you tonight.”
“And tomorrow?”
“Perhaps more.”
She wrapped a sterile gauze tightly around his palm. “Celeste told Vivian you gave her a way out.”
“She begged for one.”
“Would you give me one?”
The question froze the air between them.
Damien’s bandaged hand turned beneath hers. His fingers closed gently around her wrist. “Do you want one?”
Aria thought of the locked suite, her mother’s solitary hospital room, the blood on his cuff, and the way his kiss had burned against her lips in the courtroom.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Then no. When you know for certain, ask me again.” He lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to the center of her palm. The touch was feather-light, but his eyes were dark and dangerous. “But understand this, Aria. I let Celeste disappear because I never wanted her.”
His lips moved slowly to her pulse point.
“You will not receive the same mercy.”