CHAPTER 14: You Are Mine Alone

DAMIAN

Luis was talking, but I wasn't listening. His voice buzzed in the background like a broken radio as I stared down at the screen of my phone.

There she was my Isa in his arms.

Matteo.

My younger brother. My blood.

His hand lingered at the small of her back, and she was smiling like she had no idea how dangerous that was. My jaw clenched so hard my molars could’ve cracked. My fingers tightened around the phone, and for a split second, I thought of smashing it into the conference table.

“Dios mío…” I muttered under my breath, pulse spiking. I had just thought of sending Joy to keep Isa company. Someone harmless. Someone I could trust.

But no, I forgot Matteo was back from France.

That bastard.

He’s always wanted her. Even when we were younger, I saw the way he looked at her like she was something he wanted to steal, to conquer. That’s why I faked his death. That’s why I took him away from the world. She was mine, and no one no one gets to touch what belongs to me.

“Looks like someone else is enjoying your little pet,” Luis said with a laugh that grated on my nerves. “Your brother’s back, huh? Might want to keep an eye on that. If you’re not careful, he’ll be the first to taste her, and you’ll be left with the leftovers.”

He was smiling when he said it smiling like he hadn’t just signed his own fucking death sentence.

My chair scraped back as I stood, calm and cold. I turned to him slowly, meeting his gaze with a look that had frozen stronger men in their tracks. My voice was low, steady. Deadly.

“You watched my cameras?”

Luis shrugged like it didn’t matter. "Just keeping an eye out for my business partner."

A signal was all it took.

My men moved at once guns drawn and pointed.

Luis’s smug grin faltered.

His guards reacted instantly mirroring mine guns raised in a sharp, synchronized motion. The room pulsed with danger. Fingers hovered over triggers. Sweat gathered at temples. No one dared breathe too loud.

Tension didn’t just settle it suffocated.

Still, I didn’t blink.

Didn’t flinch.

Instead, I leaned back in my leather chair, slow and deliberate, crossing one leg over the other like I was lounging in a fucking lounge not in a room one wrong move away from bloodshed.

A smirk tugged at the corner of my lips.

“This entire building belongs to me,” I said, voice low and smooth. “From the bulletproof windows down to the floor you’re standing on. Even the air you’re breathing... is mine.”

My eyes found his, cold and unyielding.

“If your men twitch, they’ll leave this room zipped in plastic.”

Luis’s jaw twitched. A bead of sweat rolled down from his temple, disappearing into his collar.

Then his hand rose. A silent order.

His guards hesitated for half a heartbeat before slowly lowering their weapons. One of them exhaled shakily, trying to mask it behind a cough.

Luis forced a chuckle, the sound dry and empty. “Damian,” he said, with a too-familiar tone, “we’ve known each other for years. I was just”

“Joking?” I cut in.

I stood. Slowly.

Each step I took toward him echoed in the room, the sound of polished soles on marble sharp enough to draw blood. My eyes never left his.

By the time I reached him, the room had shrunk to the size of my shadow.

He didn’t move.

Couldn’t.

I leaned in, close enough that my breath ghosted against his ear. He smelled of expensive cologne and fear.

His pulse stuttered beneath the skin of his neck.

“I killed Vincent,” I whispered. “And he was family. My blood. Closer to me than you’ll ever be.”

I let that hang in the air for a moment, watching his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

Then I stepped back and looked down.

The dark patch spreading on the front of his designer trousers said it all.

Pathetic.

“You don’t speak about Isa,” I said, voice now sharper, a blade disguised as a whisper. “You don’t look at her. You don’t even think her name.”

My hand brushed over the gun holstered at my hip barely but Luis flinched anyway.

“She’s mine,” I said. “Only mine. If anyone makes her cry, it’ll be because I chose to.”

I turned, giving a sharp nod to my men. They immediately fell in line behind me as I made my way to the door.

But just before I stepped through, I paused.

Didn’t even look back.

My voice cut through the silence like a knife dipped in acid.

“Oh... and Luis?” I said casually. “If I were you, I’d keep a closer eye on your woman.”

A beat.

“She seemed to enjoy fucking your father.”

Behind me, I heard a strangled gasp. Then the roar.

Furniture scraped. Something shattered.

But I was already walking away, slipping on my black gloves like nothing had happened.

Let him scream.

Let him rage.

I had more important things to do.

Isa was waiting.

And I was going to remind her exactly who she belonged to.

ISABELLA

I lay curled up on the bed, wrapped in silence and dread. The room was dim, shadows stretching long across the walls. My stomach had been growling for hours, but food was the last thing on my mind.

Damian was coming home.

I could feel it. Like a storm rolling in.

I hadn’t meant to smile at Matteo. God, I hadn’t meant for anything to happen. It was just a hug. A stupid hug.

But I should’ve known. Damian sees everything. Watches everything.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to disappear into the sheets. Maybe if I looked small enough, still enough, he would pass me by.

The door creaked.

My breath caught.

Then I smelled it his cologne. That sharp, masculine scent that clung to him like smoke and sin.

He was here.

Every nerve in my body went taut. My hands trembled beneath the blanket. I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

His footsteps thudded softly against the wooden floor, slow and methodical. Each one sent a jolt through my chest, like the tick of a countdown I couldn’t stop. He wasn’t rushing. He didn’t need to.

Predators don’t chase when they know their prey is trapped.

The scent of his cologne hit first dark spice and smoke, the same smell that clung to my pillows no matter how many times I washed the sheets. My fingers clutched the blanket tighter, fists balled beneath it, nails digging into my palms.

Maybe… maybe if I kept still, he’d think I was asleep. Maybe he’d walk away.

But I knew better.

Then came his voice low and sharp, a blade wrapped in velvet.

“Still pretending to sleep, little princess?”

I froze.

His tone was nothing like the Damian I remembered from quiet mornings and stolen kisses. There was no warmth. No tenderness. Just ice.

My eyes snapped open before I could stop them.

He stood over me, tall and terrifying, his shadow swallowing the light from the hallway behind him. There was a smirk on his face but his eyes… his eyes were fire under frozen glass. Deadly. Possessive.

I forced myself upright, back ramrod straight, heart punching against my ribs like it wanted to escape.

His gaze didn’t waver.

He reached down, fingers brushing a strand of hair off my cheek so softly, like a lover. But the illusion shattered the moment his hand slid into my hair and yanked.

A sharp gasp tore from my throat as my head snapped back. My lips parted, stunned. My spine curved under his grip, my body betraying my fear with a flicker of something darker something I hated myself for feeling.

Why… why is my body doing this?

My breath hitched.

A pulse throbbed low in my stomach, spreading heat between my legs. I clenched my thighs together, furious with myself. But it was too late. My skin buzzed where he touched me, every nerve exposed.

“You like that, don’t you?” he whispered.

His voice was close closer than it should’ve been and laced with wicked amusement.

He leaned down, and his breath ghosted against my ear, hot and unrelenting. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Then his tongue.

It traced the delicate curve of my ear, slow, wet, deliberate.

A sound slipped from my lips before I could catch it a breathless, shameful moan. I slapped a hand over my mouth, face burning.

His chuckle vibrated against my skin.

“There she is,” he breathed. “The real Isa. Wet and shaking for the man who destroyed her world.”

I wanted to scream. To slap him. To run until my legs gave out. But I couldn’t move.

My body was locked in place, trembling beneath the weight of him. My heart was breaking and burning all at once.

His fingers slid down the side of my neck, grazing the dip above my collarbone. I shivered, not from cold but from the treacherous heat pooling beneath my skin.

He didn’t need to say what he wanted.

I already knew.

Tonight, he wouldn’t stop.

Tonight, I would break.

And the worst part?

Some small, fractured part of me wanted to be broken by him.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE

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