Chapter 16

Aria

I woke up with my heart pounding so hard it felt like it wanted to break out of my chest. My hands were cold even though the room wasn’t, and every breath I dragged in felt too thin, like the air had turned heavy while I slept. The chair in the corner was empty. The place where Damien had sat the whole night before was just shadows now. He wasn’t there.

For a moment I stayed very still, clutching the rough blanket against my body like it could shield me from the sudden rush of panic crawling up my throat. My eyes moved to the door. Closed. Silent. No footsteps. No shadow sliding under it. Just stillness that felt wrong.

Where was he?

I pushed myself upright slowly, the wooden floor cold against my feet, the cold running up my legs until my knees shook. My heart kept hammering as my mind replayed last night bullets ripping through glass, the scream I couldn’t swallow, the Riveras’ name ringing in my head like a curse I couldn’t get rid of. And then Mateo. Always Mateo.

What if the Riveras had found this place? What if Damien was gone because they came for him? Or worse because they came for me?

I panicked and my heart almost stopped beating.

I hated how easily my mind believed the worst. I hated how I had learned to expect danger before peace. But when you’ve lived the kind of life I have, you stop believing in safe mornings.

I stood. My knees felt weak, but I forced them to lock. The blanket slipped from my shoulders and dragged along the floor as I made my way to the door. Each step was slow, careful, the boards under my feet creaking like they were warning someone. My heart beat louder with each sound.

The hallway was quiet. Too quiet. I listened. Nothing. Then something faint. A sound that didn’t belong to an empty house. A low hum, the faint scrape of a chair, a clink of glass.

Someone was here.

My throat tightened. I pressed my hand to my chest as if I could hold my heart still. The Riveras could do this they could walk through doors without being heard. They could make men vanish in their own homes. Mateo knew how to leave a trail cold. He knew how to find me.

I moved down the hall, my breath shallow, my fingers gripping the blanket tighter until my knuckles ached. The sound grew clearer. The soft hiss of steam. A mug being set on a counter.

I stepped closer, and the smell hit me bitter, dark, warm. Coffee.

I rounded the corner, and there he was. Damien.

The breath I didn’t know I was holding came out in a shaky rush. Relief slid through me so fast it left my knees weak. I had been ready to see death. I saw him instead.

He stood by the counter, sleeves rolled to his forearms, one hand steady on a steaming mug, the other scrolling through his phone. His shoulders were broad, calm, his movements too casual for a man who had almost been shot to pieces the night before.

He didn’t look at me right away. Just poured another cup, black as the night I couldn’t forget.

“You’re awake,” he said, voice flat.

I swallowed and nodded. My eyes darted around the room. No guards in sight. No Knox. Just him. Just that strange, heavy silence that followed him everywhere.

He slid a cup toward me. “Drink.”

I didn’t reach for it. My fingers twitched against the blanket, the wool scratching my skin.

I didn’t trust him. I never had. Not fully. Damien wasn’t like the others who bought women like me he was worse in ways that were harder to see. He didn’t always shout. He didn’t always hit. He knew how to make his silence louder than a slap, how to make you choke on fear without laying a finger on you.

He was calm this morning. Too calm. No yelling. No punishment for the chaos of the night. No words thrown like knives. That was what made my skin crawl.

I looked at him as he leaned against the counter, phone pressed to his ear now, voice low, words quick and sharp like bullets I couldn’t hear all of. Only faint pieces of the call reached me ; secure, clean the trail.

My stomach twisted. What had he found out? Was this calm because he was planning something worse?

He hung up, grabbed his jacket from the couch, slid it on without looking at me.

“You’ll stay here,” he said. “Don’t open the door for anyone.”

His eyes flicked to me once. Just once. That look cold, unreadable, almost curious. Then he left.

The door closed. The silence came back.

And I stood there in the kitchen, the coffee cooling in front of me, my hands shaking harder now than they had in the dark.

What does he know? What did he find out about me?

The Riveras were not supposed to come after me this soon. Mateo wasn’t supposed to be here not in this city, not at that gala, not aiming guns at my head while I was wrapped in Damien’s world.

I sank onto the chair slowly, pulling the blanket tighter until it bit into my arms. My mind went back, further than the gala, further than Damien. Back to the mistake I made. The one that painted a target on my back long before I ever stepped on that stage to be sold.

I did something I shouldn’t have. Something that cost a man his place in the Rivera chain. Something Mateo would never forgive.

And now he wanted me.

I hated Damien for many things the way he took control, the way he touched me like I was both weapon and wound, the way he turned abuse into punishment, the way he made me forget who I was when he stared too long. But I knew one thing: he could protect me, if he wanted to. If he chose to.

That was the problem. Men like him don’t choose to protect women like me for long. They use you. They play with you. And when they are done, they discard you like smoke on their fingers.

I had lived that story too many times to count.

Damien was different only in degree. Colder. Smarter. Quieter. A monster, yes, but a patient one. One that doesn’t bite until you forget its teeth.

I pressed my forehead against my hands and tried to breathe.

I wanted to hate him more than I feared him. But fear always wins.

Because monsters can touch you even when they’re not in the room.

I looked at the coffee. Steam gone. Surface still dark. I thought of drinking it, but I didn’t. Not because I feared poison. Because I feared what it meant to accept something from him meant to play along with his silence. And this silence felt like a trap.

The sun had started to rise outside, painting the window in soft gray. Somewhere in the city, men were bleeding because of last night. Somewhere, Mateo was watching, waiting.

And here I was wrapped in a blanket that smelled faintly of him, in a house that wasn’t mine, heart beating for a man I hated, praying he didn’t find out the truth before I could run.

I had run before. I could do it again. But not now. Not while his shadow still lingered in the hall.

A noise outside made me flinch. A car door. Heavy boots.

I held my breath, The door didn’t open and the sound faded.

I closed my eyes. Just for a second. And in that second, I made a promise to myself not out loud, not with words, but with the way my fingers dug into the blanket and my teeth bit into my lip.

I will survive this even if Damien doesn’t get tired of me first.

Even if Mateo finds me. Even if the next bullet doesn’t miss.

Because I have to. Because this isn’t the first monster’s house I’ve woken up in.

And it might not be the last.