Chapter 20

Damien’s POV

It had been days. Days of silence.

Aria moved through my penthouse like she didn’t exist, like a shadow clinging to the corners of my walls, brushing past my life without touching it. She ate when I told her to, slept when I told her to, breathed when I allowed it. But she didn’t speak. Not to me. Not to anyone.

And it was driving me fucking insane.

The first day, I told myself she was scared. After the warehouse, after seeing Mateo’s blood drying under the dull light while I stood over him like a goddamn king of the city, she went stiff and pale. I gave her space. I didn’t push.

By the second day, her silence was choice.

By the third, it was defiance.

I’d tried everything a gentleman would even though I was never one. soft words, hard ones, threats, promises, my hands on her face, my lips on her throat, dragging out words from her like I was ripping truth from a corpse. I kissed her like I wanted to taste the lies from her mouth, but all I got was emptiness. Nothing. She looked at me with eyes that said she was listening, but her lips stayed sealed, sewn shut with invisible threads just to spite me.

She thought she could survive me with quiet. Silence only makes me hungrier.

I knew silence. I grew up with it. Rooms where men whispered instead of talked, houses where secrets piled higher than money. Silence is power. Silence is a weapon. And she was cutting me open with it, deep and slow.

She wanted me unsteady. She wanted me restless. She wanted me to burn.

I came into the living room that night and found her curled on the sofa, legs tucked under her, wearing one of the silk slips I’d had sent up. She wasn’t reading, wasn’t watching TV, wasn’t doing a goddamn thing. Just sitting, staring at nothing, like she was waiting for death to knock politely.

City lights stretched across the glass walls, painting her skin in stripes of gold and shadow. She didn’t move when I walked in. Didn’t look up.

“Say something,” I said.

Nothing.

My jaw clenched. “Aria.”

Her head tilted just slightly, hair falling over her cheek. Nothing.

I crossed the room in three long steps and grabbed her chin, forcing her face up to mine. Her skin was warm, soft, trembling just a little under my grip. Her lips parted like she might speak, and then pressed shut again.

“Since you came into my life, everything’s crumbling,” I growled, voice low, sharp enough to cut glass. “The Riveras are bleeding my men, every cartel with half a brain is circling me like vultures. You think that’s a coincidence? You think I don’t see what the fuck you’re doing?”

Her eyes flickered fear, guilt, something but her mouth stayed shut.

I shook my head, laughing under my breath, bitter and sharp. “You’re killing me without lifting a finger, and I’m about ready to snap your pretty little silence into pieces myself.”

Still nothing.

I gripped her harder, thumb pressing into her jaw, leaning in close enough to taste her fear. “Talk.”

She blinked. Silent.

The coil in my chest snapped. My hand moved before I even thought about it.

The slap cracked through the room, sharp, violent, final. Her head snapped to the side, hair spilling across her face. Breath caught, but no scream. She didn’t fight. Didn’t speak.

The sound echoed, bouncing off glass and steel, and for a second the whole apartment felt like it held its breath.

“You think this is a game?” I spat, leaning down, teeth gritted. “You think silence will save you? You want to play martyr, little angel, I’ll show you martyrdom my way.”

Her lip trembled. Her eyes glassed over. Mouth still shut.

I hated her for it. I fucking admired her for it and wanted to break her for it.

“Fine,” I muttered, voice low and dangerous.

I yanked her up by the wrist, dragging her down the hall. She stumbled, bare feet slipping, hand gripping my arm but not hard enough to stop me. Didn’t resist. Didn’t say a word. That pisses me off worse than any fight ever could.

Her silence wasn’t surrender. It was control in disguise and I couldn’t fucking stand it.

At the bedroom door, I shoved it open, threw her onto the bed. She landed hard, curling instinctively, hair falling across her face. She looked small, too small, like the sheets might swallow her whole.

I stood over her, fists aching from clenching, chest tight with rage I couldn’t let go.

“You want silence?” I said, voice shaking with fury and lust. “Fine. Stay silent. Rot in it. Fucking rot while I watch.”

She looked up at me, lips parting just slightly. Nothing. Not a fucking sound.

That was the last straw.

I stepped back, slammed the door, locked it from the outside. Echoed down the hall like a hammer on steel.

I leaned against the wall, hand still burning from where I’d struck her, chest tight, stomach knotting like her silence had crawled inside me and made a home there.

I should’ve felt relief. Power. Victory.

Instead, all I felt was empty.

Inside that room, she was shambles and shattered. Outside, I wasn’t much better.

I could feel the heat of the apartment pressing on me, the city alive with noise, sirens, horns but it all faded. Only her silence mattered. Only her broken presence. Only the way she sat there, her small frame trembling under the silk, hiding nothing, holding everything.

And I knew I knew she was mine. Mine to break, mine to drive insane, mine to claim until every trace of her independence bled out and she’d look at me like she needed me. Needed me the way I’d needed this, needed her, every second she’d been quiet and daring me to go too far and the low ache of wanting to undo her, wanting to undo everything just to hear her cry out my name.

I didn’t go back in. Not yet. I didn’t have to. I had already won. She was already mine, and she didn’t even know it.

The thought made my chest tighten. Made my hands shake. Made me curse under my breath.

And I would let her sit with that until she cracked.

Until she begged.

Until she became exactly what I wanted her to be.