I look like a total mess.
The steam fogged the mirror, but I couldn't stop staring at the ghost of myself behind the glass. Still trembling.
My fingers rested on the sink, slick with condensation, knuckles pale from how tightly I was gripping the edge.
I didn't even realize I'd been holding my breath until I let it go all at once.The shot was long over. The servant had left. Tino, too. And yet, my body hadn't caught up.
I looked at my reflection again—hair damp with sweat, mascara smudged under my eyes, a thin red line across my shoulder where I'd scraped the wall on the way down. A mess. A living, breathing mess who still had to play the part of Mrs. Solano by morning.
I reached for the faucet, turning it just enough to make the water hotter.
I dipped in, my skin screaming at the initial touch. I sank deeper into the water, my thoughts dissolving with it. For a moment, the world outside the tub didn't exist — just heat, breath, and silence.
grabbed the book and opened it, fingers brushing across the worn pages like a ritual I'd done a hundred times before. It wasn't just a story—it was the only place left untouched by blood, by tension, by the quiet fear that lived in the corners of every room. In here, no one followed me. No one watched. No one bled. Just ink and silence.
As I flipped through the familiar pages, my thoughts drifted—to him.Why hasn't he come yet? Why hasn't he asked if I'm okay?He's the reason I'm in this mess, torn between blood and love, between loyalty and survival. Between the version of myself I was before him… and whatever this is now.
The ache in my chest pulled me back—back to the night we met.That night when everything changed.
The club was a blur of pounding bass and swirling smoke—an unforgiving world where the night swallowed everything whole. I wasn't meant to be there. But somehow, I ended up under those flickering lights, trying to disappear into the crowd.
Then I saw him.
Damian.
He didn't fit with the reckless abandon around us. His presence was like a cold shadow cutting through the heat of the room—calm, commanding, and utterly unreadable. Our eyes met from across the floor, and suddenly the music, the noise, the chaos—all of it faded away.
He moved toward me with a deliberate grace, every step measured like he was weighing the world in his hands. When he stopped in front of me, the heat from the crowd was nothing compared to the chill radiating off him.
"You shouldn't be here," he said, his voice low and smooth, carrying a weight that pressed against my skin.
I forced a shrug, refusing to let the nerves show. "Neither should you."
A slow, almost amused smile played at the corners of his mouth. "Maybe we both like danger."
There was something about the way he said it—a promise and a warning wrapped in one.
That night, as the world spun out of control around us, I realized danger had many faces. His was the one I couldn't turn away from.