CHAPTER FIVE

The car ride is silent except for the soft hum of the radio to fill the weight of the tension. I stare out the window, my eyes tracing the city lights, lost in thought. 

I am sitting in a car with the man that upturned my world when he left me 11 years ago on the day my father died in a car crash. And with the facts I gathered tonight, his earlier conversation with Roman told me that he knew exactly where I was all this time but did nothing. 

My thoughts race—why did I come here? Why did I walk right into his trap? I can feel the weight of my own stupidity pressing against my chest.

With tears still welling up in my eyes I turn my head to look over to him. We’re sitting in the back of his car while his elbow sits casually on the arm rest. With his eyebrows furrowed, it’s clear he’s in deep thought. I take him in then, languid and slow. 

Damon hasn’t changed, not really. 

His dark hair is shorter now, no longer falling over his eyes the way it used to when I’d push it back just to see him better. His face is sharper, all hard angles and a scar now slices down his temple, a thin jagged line against golden-brown skin. His jaw is stronger, his lips pressed into that same unreadable line, but it’s his eyes that strike me the most. Dark, piercing, and knowing. 

All features that had been touched by the trials of time. So different yet still the same. 

His eyes meet mine and just for a second, I see it. Under the jagged edges he was still my Damon.

The Damon that stole cookie dough with me when my mother was baking. The Damon that held me in his tiny arms during thunderstorms, telling me that everything would be okay.  The Damon that took me to homecoming in middle school when my first boyfriend stood me up and broke my heart. That same night he kissed me and told me he loved me.

Yet he put me through the opposite of what love should feel like.

I searched his eyes for a trace of the person he should be now. The evil person I had told myself he was. But all I saw staring back at me was pity.

Fuck this.

“Stop the car.” My voice is shaky but firm.

Damon’s gaze flickers, just a brief flash of surprise before he masks it. He doesn’t move.

I grit my teeth. “Stop the damn car.”

His driver hesitates, looking at him for confirmation. Damon gives a single nod, and the car rolls to a stop. I shove the door open and step out, the night air biting at my skin.

I don’t know where I’m going.

I have nowhere to go.

I’ve lived in an apartment Roman paid for the past two years. Going back would mean surrendering to him again. My mother? She can never know what my life has become. And friends? I have none. The girls at the club hated me for being Roman’s favorite. Outside of that, who would want to befriend a glorified sex worker?

A shudder rakes through me, and I barely notice when the tears start falling.

How did I end up like this?

“Sonia.” Damon’s voice cuts through the cold air, controlled and quiet. “Get back in the car.”

I keep walking. My feet feel heavy, but I push forward, even as exhaustion weighs me down. I am running on fumes—mentally, physically, emotionally.

“You’re in a bikini and six-inch heels, walking alone in the middle of the night.” His voice is still calm, almost lazy. “You’re either going to get raped or catch pneumonia. Get back in the car.”

I freeze.

He’s not wrong, and that infuriates me.

I turn slowly, my fists clenched. “I’d rather take my chances.”

A muscle in his jaw ticks. “You don’t mean that.”

I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “You don’t get to tell me what I mean, Damon. You lost that right a long time ago.”

His lips press into a thin line. “You have nowhere to go.”

And that’s what breaks me.

Because he’s right.

Dread coils in my stomach, squeezing so tightly I feel like I might collapse. My vision blurs with tears, my body trembling from more than just the cold. I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood.

“Sonia.” His voice is softer now.

I don’t want his pity.

I hear his footsteps approaching, slow, calculated. He knows better than to rush me. “Come home with me.”

I shake my head. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

“I’m still me.”

I whip around, anger searing through my veins. “No, you’re not! My Damon wouldn’t have left me! My Damon wouldn’t have abandoned me when I needed him the most!” My voice cracks, and I hate it. I hate how weak I sound. “The person sitting in that car? He’s a stranger to me.”

Something flickers in his gaze—something raw, almost pained. But I don’t care.

He doesn’t get to hurt.

He doesn’t get to feel anything when I spent years drowning in the pain he left behind.

“I had my reasons,” he says, voice tight.

I scoff. “And I’m sure they were good ones, right? Good enough to leave me to rot?”

Silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating. Then, he exhales, running a hand through his hair. “Get in the car, Sonia. We’ll talk at home.”

Home.

I don’t have a home.

I look down at myself—bare legs, trembling hands. The wind is merciless against my exposed skin, but I don’t move.

“I don’t trust you,” I whisper.

Damon steps closer, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him. His voice drops to something low, something intimate. “I don’t expect you to.”

I close my eyes. I hate him.

I hate that he still knows how to get to me, how to say the right things, how to make me feel like maybe, just maybe, I’m not alone.

I open my eyes and take a deep breath.

Then, without a word, I walk back to the car.

Damon follows a second later.

As soon as I settle in my seat, he leans forward. The driver pulls onto the road, but I barely notice. Damon reaches into the compartment and pulls out his jacket, draping it over my shoulders without a word.

I don’t protest.

Not because I want his comfort.

But because I’m too tired to fight anymore.