Chapter Seven

Damon stepped fully into the flickering, jaundiced light of the streetlamp, and for a heartbeat, the world stopped spinning.

He looked nothing like the "Executive Vice President" I had seen in the polished hallways of Hart Global. The tailored Italian wool was gone, replaced by a heavy leather jacket that hung open to reveal a glimpse of his inked chest—a chaotic map of black ink that seemed to pulse under the dim light. He looked dreadful. He looked like a god of wreckage who had just climbed out of a cage he’d been trapped in all day.

He dragged on a cigarette, the cherry-red tip glowing like a predatory eye in the dark. I had never seen him like this. The cold corporate mask hadn't just slipped; it had been incinerated, replaced by the raw, terrifying aura of a man who thrived in the dirt.

"Leave her alone," he said. His voice wasn’t a shout. It was a low, jagged vibration that felt like a blade being drawn across a whetstone.

Jace let out a sharp, forced laugh, though I could feel the tremors in his fingers where they were still clamped around my bicep. He squinted into the gloom, trying to summon the bravado of the street-level thug he was. When he finally recognized the face from the tabloids, his eyes widened, but he doubled down on the arrogance.

"Ooh… the rich boy from the magazines," Jace sneered, though his voice lacked its usual bite. "Look, Prince Charming, just turn around and keep your designer shoes clean. This is family business. It doesn’t concern you."

Damon exhaled a long, slow plume of smoke, the grey cloud curling around his head like a crown of thorns. His green eyes—dark, liquid pits of shadow never left Jace’s throat.

"She’s my asset," Damon murmured, and the way he said asset made my skin crawl and burn at the same time. "And I’ve never liked people touching what I own." He flicked the ash toward Jace’s shoes, a gesture so dismissive it was an insult in itself. "Step away from her. This minute. While I’m still in a mood to be merciful."

"And if I don't?" Jace barked, his face twisting. "She’s mine. I raised her. I.."

The two hefty shadows in the sedan didn’t wait for the conversation to end. They sensed the shift in the air. They jumped out, the metallic clack-clack of handguns being cocked echoing through the narrow alley like thunder. They pointed the barrels straight at Damon’s heart.

My stomach flipped, nausea rising in my throat. "Damon, run!" I screamed, my voice cracking against the brick walls. "He’s got a gun! Get out of here!"

Instead of running, instead of flinching, Damon did something that made my blood turn to ice. He burst into a deep, dark laughter—a sound so devoid of fear, so genuinely amused by the threat of death, that even Jace’s thugs hesitated.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Damon said, dropping the cigarette and crushing it slowly under the heel of his boot.

As if it were a prearranged signal, the shadows moved.

From the dark corners of the alley, from behind the rusted dumpsters and the mouths of the nearby derelict buildings, men began to emerge. They didn't move like street brawlers; they moved like soldiers. They were giants—covered in tattoos that peeked out from the starch-white collars of expensive, charcoal-grey corporate suits.

It was the most jarring, surreal sight I’d ever witnessed. These weren't the "security guards" you saw at a bank. These were professional predators.

In that moment, every rumor I’d ever heard about Damon Hart—the "Black Sheep," the man who handled the "Hart Securities" division with a closed fist—clicked into place. He didn’t just handle security. He was the shadow that kept the empire upright. He was the violence that allowed Lucien to play the part of the refined king.

Jace’s "friends" panicked instantly. The realization that they weren't looking at a billionaire, but at a man who commanded a literal army of wolves, broke them.

"I’m not dying over some girl," one of them hissed, his hand shaking so hard the gun nearly slipped. "I'm out of here, mate! This ain't worth it!"

They scrambled back into the beat-up sedan and floored it, the tires screaming against the asphalt as they fled, leaving Jace standing alone in the center of a closing circle. Jace turned ghost-pale, his grip on me finally going limp.

I didn't think. I didn't wait to see what happened next. I just ran.

I threw myself into Damon’s open arm, burying my face in the cold, salt-and-tobacco scent of his leather jacket. Hot, jagged tears spilled over as the adrenaline finally crashed, leaving me shivering so hard my teeth rattled. I could still feel the heat of Jace’s hands on me, imagining the nightmare of being back in that car, back in that life.

Damon’s arm wrapped around me, hard and unyielding. He didn't offer soft words or comfort. He just held me flush against his side, a solid anchor in a world that had gone completely tilted.

He signaled his men with a slight nod, and they moved in on Jace. Jace tried to stumble back, but he was trapped. He looked at me, his eyes wide with a pathetic, desperate plea, but I couldn't find a shred of pity left in me.

Before Damon turned to lead me toward his own blacked-out SUV, he reached into the small of his back.

CRACK.

The sound of the gunshot was deafening in the narrow alley. Jace screamed, a high, thin sound that cut through the night as the bullet tore through his right hand—the hand that had been bruising my arm only seconds before.

"That’s so you don’t lay your filthy hands on her or any woman ever again," Damon said, his voice as calm as if he were ordering a drink. "Consider this a warning. The next time you even look in her direction or whisper her name, your body will be twenty feet deep in the lake. Do you understand me?"

Jace was curled on the ground, clutching his ruined hand, sobbing in the dirt. Damon didn't even wait for a response. He steered me toward the SUV, shielding my eyes as if I were something fragile, something precious.

As the heavy armored door closed, muffling the sounds of the alley, I sat in the plush leather seat and looked at Damon’s profile in the dim glow of the dashboard. He was calm. He wasn't breathing hard. He looked bored.

I had been sent to the Hart family to "tame" four brothers. I thought I was dealing with arrogant billionaires who just needed to be taught a lesson in humility. But as I watched the cold, calculated way Damon had just dismantled my past, a terrifying realization took root in my chest.

How was I supposed to tame a man who had more darkness in him than the monsters I was running from?

I was safe. I was going home to a penthouse. But for the first time, I realized I wasn't living with men. I was living with the most dangerous apex predators in the city. And Damon Hart had just made it very clear that I was his favorite prize.