LOGINElara's POV
The words from the stranger's mouth hung in the air like a death threat.
His gun was gleaming dangerously under the pool house light, pointed straight at Damien's heart.
I pressed my back against the wall. Even my leggings was still bunched around my thighs. I felt exposed and vulnerable, completely afraud.
What the fuck was going on?
My heart was pounding hard from the fear now mixing with the leftover ache from Damien's teasing cock at my entrance just seconds ago.
I had been ready to let him fuck me deep few seconds ago. I would have let his thick length fill my wet pussy, and pound me right until I broke.
Now, this.
Damien stood firmly, blocking the intruder's path to me.
"Who sent you?"
His voice stayed low, controlled, but I saw the tension in his shoulders.
The man stepped closer. I noted a scar running down his cheek. The suit he wore was rumpled like he had come straight from some back-alley deal.
"Marcus Kane. He knows you have been sniffing around for Victor's dirt.”
My heart jumped in my chest.
“The debts, the laundering—it is all out now baby CEO."
He pulled his phone out of his pocket with one hand, the other steady in the gun and the trigger, ready to pull it if need be—if we acted funny.
When he waved it us, the screen was glowing with that message, the one I had seen on Damien's phone.
"We have proof on the girl too. You either back off, or she pays."
This was the person who had sent that message to Damien?
What did they have on me? Probably photos from the lounge? Of Damien and I tangled in that booth, his cock thrusting into my virgin heat while I was moaning like a slut?
Heat flushed my face even as the shame was twisting the components of my stomach with unbridled terror.
If that got out, it would ruin me.
There would be whispers at school and my Mom's heart would break. And maybe Victor would even rage.
Who knew?
The fact still remained that I wouldn't want such coming to light.
"Put the gun down."
Damien raised his hands up in a slow motion. His eyes were trained on the gun. I shivered in fear behind him.
"We can talk about this."
The intruder laughed.
"Talk?” He made a pft sound. “Marcus only wants the files you stole. Hand them over, or I start with her."
His eyes flickered to me, standing in the shadows, leggings bunched around my thighs, pussy leaking.
They lingered on my bare legs, a dirty smirk crossing his face.
Could he see how wet I was? Could he tell that Damien had been at the verge of sliding into my heat? Could he—
Damien chose them to act, lunging at the stranger, fast as a shadow. He grabbed the arm with the gun.
The stranger let out a yelp, stunned as Damien instantly twisted it up.
A shot was fired in the struggle. The sound echoed in the space, the bullet hitting the ceiling of the pool house.
I screamed, ducking instantly as the white plaster from the ceiling began to fall down to the floor in fragments.
My hands reached down to pull my legging all the way up to my waist.
They grappled, bodies slamming into the lounge chair, knocking it over. But Damien punched him hard.
Blood sprayed across in slow motion when his fist connected with the man's jaw with murderous intent.
The stranger's gun skittered across the floor toward me, and I scrambled for it, my fingers closing around it.
The cold metal was heavy, and it felt absolutely real in my palms. My hands shook as I have never held one before.
The men were still rolling around in the ground, struggling. But Damien was on top now, bis knee pinning the intruder's chest to the ground after a punch.
“Bastard,” he grunted.
He delivered a few more punch to the stranger’s face till I heard something crack in the deafening silence.
Probably his nose.
"Who has the fucking proof?" Damien growled at him, fist raised.
The man spat blood.
"Wouldn't you like to know that too, CEO Blackwood?” His voice was movking. “It's juicy. Your little stepsis spreading her easy legs for you."
Damien's punch landed again, harder this time, hard enough for the intruder's head to snap back.
The sick sound it made when it hit the gravel made my blood congeal.
Would Damien kill him?
The lights flicked on outside.
“Damien!!!!” I heard Victor's voice from outside, nearing the pool house.
I shoved the gun into my waistband just before Victor burst in with his eyes wide in suprise at the scene.
Victor had come running from the house with his robe flapping.
"What the hell?"
Damien hauled the man up by his collar. "Call the cops, Dad."
Victor hesitated. The way face went pale didn't escape my notice.
"No cops. Not yet." He glanced at me briefly, then at the intruder. "What on earth does he want with you?"
I swallowed.
"Files," Damien said.
His voice was tight.
Victor's brows rose.
“What files?”
Damien avoided his gaze.
"He needs specific files, the files on every of your deals with Marcus."
Victor's jaw clenched.
"Let him go. I'll handle it."
Damien shoved the man against the wall. The intruder e slumped to the floor, thoroughly weakened.
"Handle it?” Damien barked, his eyes meeting his father's fiercely.
The tension rose.
“Just like you handled everything and it resulted in Mom's death?” He added with a hiss. “No! This ends now."
He was shaking his head.
Someone chuckled.
Looking towards the sound, the culprit was the intruder. He stopped and just smirked with his bursted lips.
"Listen to Daddy, baby CEO, or the girl's pics hit the net."
Damien grabbed the intruder and delivered two heavy blows.
His head hung low.
My stomach dropped. Victor's eyes narrowed on me.
"What pics?" He asked.
"Nothing," I said. My eyes widened at the sharp look he gave me. I realized I had defended myself a bit too fast.
Suspicion was creeping in now. I facepalmed internally. Damien just released the man and stepped back.
"Get out. Tell Marcus I'll meet him tomorrow on neutral grounds."
The intruder wiped the blood from his mouth and straightened his jacket.
"Smart boy. Bring the files or she pays for the sins of you both." He slipped out and vanished into the night.
Elara's POVThe house was quiet by nine. Mom had gone to bed early, the particular tiredness of someone who had made a significant phone call and was still sitting with what it had cost and what it had given back. I had heard her on the phone with Daniel from the hallway. Not the words. Just the tone of it. Careful and then less careful as the hour went on.Damien was on the couch with his laptop when I came downstairs. He looked up. I held up the envelope.He closed the laptop.I sat beside him and held the envelope for a moment. The date in the corner. My mother's handwriting, younger and slightly unsteady compared to what I knew now. The cafe had been bright and busy when Daniel handed it to me and I had held it all the way home on the train without opening it because some things needed the right room.This was the right room.I opened it carefully. One page, both sides, the paper gone slightly soft with age. I read it once through withou
Elara's POVHe was already at the table when we arrived, both of us this time. He stood when he saw Damien come through the door behind me and something in his face recalibrated quickly, the way it did when he was adjusting to something he had prepared for but not quite anticipated.We sat down, and the waitress came to take our orders. We ordered the same coffee as always, and Daniel ordered tea, which I had not seen him do before and filed away."You both came," he said."We both came," I said. "There is something we need to tell you, and it was easier than explaining why Damien knew and you did not."He looked between us. Not alarmed. More like the careful attention of someone who had learned not to brace too early. "All right," he said.Damien told him. Clean and direct, the way he did everything. Tobias Farr. The monitoring list. The conclusion Walsh had reached. He did not soften it, and he did not inflate it. He gave Daniel the accurate version and then stopped talking.Daniel
Damien's POVThe Hartley call ran long, not badly. Just thoroughly. Their operations director had gone through the amended contract line by line and had questions about three clauses, all reasonable, all the kind of questions that meant someone was actually reading rather than signing blind. I answered each one, and Elara sat across the desk taking notes without being asked. When the operations director raised a concern about the regional route timeline, she leaned forward and gave him a three-sentence answer that closed it cleanly.He said he would have the signed contract back by Friday.When the call ended I looked at her across the desk. She was already writing up the notes."The timeline answer," I said."It was accurate.""I know it was accurate. You did not check anything. You just knew it."She looked up. "I built the timeline. I should know it."I looked at her for a moment. Three weeks ago she had asked for a defined role. In three weeks she had restructured a payment clause
Damien's POV"You are nervous," Elara said.I poured coffee and did not answer."You checked the time three times in the last ten minutes.""I am not nervous."She leaned against the counter and looked at me with the particular expression she used when she had already decided she was right and was waiting for me to catch up. "You are meeting my biological father for the first time. You are allowed to be nervous.""I am not nervous about meeting him. I am thinking about the Hartley follow up call.""The Hartley call is not until three."I drank my coffee.She smiled and pushed off the counter and went to answer the door.I heard them in the hallway. Her voice easy and familiar, his slightly more careful, the particular register of someone still learning the acoustics of a new relationship. Then they came into the kitchen and Daniel Voss looked at me across the room and I looked at him and we both did the thing people do when they are assessing each other and trying not to be obvious ab
Elara's POV"Remember what you said on the beach," Damien said from the doorway.I picked up my bag. "I remember.""All of it. Not just the easy parts."I looked at him. "I know what I said, Damien."He held my gaze for a second. Then he nodded and stepped aside and I went down the stairs and out the front door into the grey morning.The train was quieter than last time. A Tuesday crowd, unhurried, people with newspapers and coffee and nowhere urgent to be. I found a window seat and watched the city thin out and tried to do what I had told myself I would do. Show up without a prepared version. Let it be what it actually was.The call between Mom and Daniel had lasted forty minutes. She had not told me everything that was said and I had not asked. What I knew was that she had told him the truth about the letters and he had listened and at the end he had asked only about Thursday. That told me enough about the shape of him.The cafe was the same as last week. He was already there, same t
Damien's POVMom was in the kitchen when we got home. She looked up when we came in and read Elara's face the way she had learned to do over the past weeks. Not invasive. Just attentive."Sit down," she said. "I will put the kettle on."Elara sat. I stayed by the door for a moment. "I will give you two some space."Elara looked at me. "Stay," she said. "Please."I sat.Mom set three cups on the table and joined us. She looked at Elara and waited."Daniel kept letters," Elara said. "Letters you wrote him after you ended things. He has had them for twenty-three years." She held her mother's gaze. "He wants to give them to me. I said yes. I wanted to tell you before Thursday."The kitchen was quiet. Mom wrapped both hands around her cup. Something moved through her face that was too layered to read quickly. Not shame. Not quite. Something older and more complicated."How many," she said finally."I do not know yet."Mom looked at the table. "I wrote to him for almost a year after I ended







