9. The Gala #2
I cut through the crowd without hesitation, the weight of my presence shifting the air around me. People moved instinctively, parting without needing to be told. When I reached her, I didn’t speak right away. I just let her feel me there.
Nichole exhaled, slow and controlled, before setting her drink down. Then, with deliberate ease, she turned to face me.
“I was wondering when you’d show up,” she said smoothly, as if this was inevitable.
It was.
I leaned against the bar beside her, my eyes never leaving hers. “You knew I would.”
She studied me for a moment, something flickering behind her gaze. Then, she tilted her head slightly, the corner of her lips curving in amusement. “And what exactly do you want, Damian?”
There was no teasing in my answer. No flirtation. Just truth.
“I want to know why you we keep running into each other.”
The words hung between us, heavy and inescapable.
Nichole’s smirk faltered, her fingers tightening just slightly around her glass. She held my gaze, her expression carefully neutral. But I saw it—the brief flicker of something unreadable beneath the surface. Hesitation. Caution.
She knew exactly what I was talking about.
She was stalling.
I exhaled slowly, my patience hanging by a thread. “Don’t play games with me, bella.” The endearment rolled off my tongue like a warning. “I need the truth.”
Her fingers tightened around her glass before she set it down, deliberate and slow. “And if I don’t have an answer?”
“Then you’re lying.”
A sharp exhale. Her jaw tensed just slightly, a flash of irritation crossing her face before she masked it. “You think I’m controlling whatever this is?” Her voice was even, but I heard the shift in it—the way she wasn’t denying it, just redirecting.
“I think you know more than you’re letting on.” I leaned in slightly, just enough to feel the heat between us, to make sure she felt the weight of my presence. “And I think you’re afraid to admit it.”
Something flickered behind her eyes—anger, maybe. Or something closer to recognition.
Then, she did something unexpected.
She stepped closer.
Not away. Not back. Closer.
Her voice dipped lower, controlled, calculated. “And what about you, Damian? What’s your explanation?”
She was testing me. Looking for cracks.
I let a slow smirk curl at the edge of my lips. “You already know the answer.”
She swallowed, just barely, but I caught it.
Then, just as quickly as she had stepped closer, she turned away, reaching for her drink once more, as if she could push me back by sheer force of will. “You’re relentless.”
The air between us had shifted into something thick, charged, and unrelenting. She was fighting it, fighting me, but we both knew it was useless.
The moment stretched.
Then, finally, she sighed, setting her glass down once more, as if conceding to something neither of us fully understood yet. Her fingers lingered on the rim, tracing the condensation absently, before she finally spoke.
“You want the truth?”
I didn’t move. “Always.”
Her gaze flicked to mine, sharp and assessing. She hesitated, but only for a second.
Then she said the one thing I wasn’t expecting.
“I don’t know why we keep running into each other. But I do know this. You’ve been the only thing on my mind since the moment I met you.”
The weight of her words settled between us, a tether pulling tight, binding us in ways neither of us understood.
My pulse was steady, but beneath it, something else simmered.
A slow, dangerous burn. I had spent my entire life dissecting the games people played, pulling apart their secrets until there was nothing left to hide. But this? This wasn’t a game.
This was something else.
And Nichole was at the center of it.
I tilted my head slightly, studying her in the dim glow of the club. The rhythmic pulse of the music throbbed around us, a slow, hypnotic beat, but it was nothing compared to the tension strung between us like a live wire.
“You’re sure about that?” My voice was quiet, measured.
She didn’t blink. “Yes.”
No hesitation. No uncertainty.
That was what did it.
That was what made my pulse tick higher, my grip on control slipping just slightly. She wasn’t guessing. She wasn’t questioning. She was certain.
And that certainty was dangerous.
I exhaled slowly, my fingers brushing against the bar as I leaned in. “And why do you think that is, tesoro?”
She didn’t waver, her gaze locking onto mine, dark and unreadable. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I don’t think I could stop thinking about you even if I tried.”
Something in my chest tightened, sharp and insistent.
Because for all my control, for all my discipline—I had been thinking about her too.
Since the moment I saw her.
Since the moment I touched her.
Since the moment I heard my name on her lips.
Every second since, even when I should have been thinking about anything else, it had been her.
Not the war.
Not the bloodshed.
Not the Berettis or the battle lines drawn between us.
Just her.
I didn’t respond, didn’t trust myself to.
Because if I said it out loud, it would be real.
And that kind of truth was more dangerous than anything I had ever faced.
The silence stretched between us, thick and charged. Neither of us moved.
And yet, in that moment, something between us shifted.
Something I wasn’t sure either of us would be able to walk away from.