Damian Knight didn’t like distractions.
He didn’t allow noise. He didn’t allow mistakes.
Distractions were dangerous. Distractions bled into weakness. And weakness invited betrayal.
He’d built an empire by cutting through lies faster than anyone else could spin them. But Isabella Volkov…
She wasn’t lying with her mouth.
She was lying with her silence.
And yet… for the third time in ten minutes, he caught himself glancing through the glass toward the girl sitting at the desk outside his door.
Her fingers hovered above the keyboard but didn’t type. Her body was still, but her shoulders were rigid.
Something was wrong.
He tapped the intercom. “Inside. Now.”
The door clicked open seconds later.
Isabella entered like she was walking into a lion’s den.
But Damian wasn’t watching her walk. He was watching her eyes.
She looked startled. Nervous. Too quiet even for her.
Not the usual nervous—the kind you get when you mess up an email. This was the kind of silence that came with trauma. The kind people wore like armor when they’d already learned what screaming earned them.
He gestured to the seat across from him. “Sit.”
She obeyed.
He didn’t say anything for a moment. Just leaned back, studying her like a man breaking down a code.
“I run a company with over three thousand employees,” he said. “And yet in this building—on this floor—people fear speaking without permission.”
She said nothing.
“I allow that fear. Because it keeps things clean.”
Still, she didn’t speak. Her hands folded on her lap, thumbs brushing each other in rhythm.
“I’ve only seen two people look the way you look right now,” he continued. “One of them died five years ago. The other changed her name and vanished.”
Her eyes widened.
“Which are you?”
She blinked rapidly. “Sir?”
He tilted his head, voice colder. “Don’t lie to me.”
Her breath hitched.
But before she could answer, his voice lowered another notch. “Something happened.”
She looked down. “I’m fine.”
Liar.
He could smell fear. He’d learned to in boardrooms, in backroom deals, in hostile takeovers. And she was swimming in it.
He stood and walked around the desk slowly.
She tensed.
“I saw you open the drawer,” he said quietly. “You weren’t looking for a pen.”
Her lips parted.
“You found something.”
Silence.
“Give it to me.”
She hesitated.
Then, with trembling fingers, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the note.
Damian took it. Opened it. Read the two words.
LEAVE NOW.
He stared at it for several seconds.
Then… something shifted in his expression. A flash of something dark.
His grip tightened on the paper. “Who gave this to you?”
“I don’t know.”
He turned away from her and walked to the window. Stared down at the street below like he could spot a threat in the crowd.From this angle, the city below looked harmless—tiny and ordinary. But he knew better.
He didn’t see her drawer. He saw blood on a bathroom tile. Screams in foreign tongues. Faces he buried but never forgot.
Whoever planted this wasn’t just watching her.
They were watching him.
“You should’ve told me immediately.”
“I didn’t want to lose the job.”
He turned.
“You think that piece of paper can do what I can’t?”
Her breath caught.
He stepped closer, slowly, until he was right in front of her.
His voice dropped to a growl.
“Whoever put this in your drawer thinks you’re weak.”
She looked down.
“You’re not,” he said. “But you act like it. And that makes you vulnerable. That makes you a target.”
A pause.
“Not on my watch.”
Her head snapped up.
His eyes burned into hers.
“If anyone touches you…” he leaned in just slightly, his voice rough and low, “they’ll wish they hadn’t.”
Later that day, Isabella returned from the break room with a paper cup of tea in her hand. The hallway was quiet again, like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t handed a warning note to a billionaire with a temper forged in steel.
But when she reached her desk, something was different.
The drawer, the same one that had held the note was locked.
On top of it was another note.
Written in clean, sharp pen strokes:
“No one gets near what’s mine.”
Her pulse stuttered.
Beside it sat a sleek black access card with her name carved in gold.
Isabella Volkov – Executive Level Clearance
She stared at it.
Then her eyes flicked to the signature at the bottom of the note.
D. Knight.
Her hands trembled slightly as she picked up the keycard.
She wasn’t just an assistant anymore.
She was marked.
Protected.
Or maybe claimed.
But just as she turned it over in her palm, the elevator behind her pinged open.
A man stepped out. Unfamiliar.
Tall. Smiling.
Gray jacket. Smooth shoes. Casual,too casual for her liking.
He didn’t belong.
His eyes scanned the hallway slowly… until they landed on Isabella.
He didn’t look surprised.
He looked satisfied.
He walked past her desk, fingers trailing across the corner of it lightly.
And as he passed…
He smiled.
Not like a stranger.
Like a man who knew exactly what drawer she’d opened.
Then the elevator doors slid closed again. .
And then… he was gone.
But the smell of his cologne lingered—bitter citrus, and something else beneath it. Smoke.
She gripped the desk to steady her breath.
Inside the office, Damian looked up from his call. His eyes found her through the glass. She was pale again. Too pale.
His jaw locked.
“I’ll call you back,” he told the person on the other end.
He hung up and rose from his desk.
He didn’t hesitate.
He walked straight to security.
At security, Damian leaned over the shoulder of his lead tech.
“Rewind ten minutes.”
The screen showed the unfamiliar man. The walk. The pause. The smile.
“Zoom in,” Damian said.
The man’s smile widened as he passed Isabella’s desk.
Someone had been on his floor.
And if they’d touched her again
There would be hell to pay.
The city stretched beneath them like a galaxy of lights, Manhattan alive with its endless pulse. From the balcony of their penthouse, the night air carried a soft breeze, warm against Isabella’s skin. She leaned into the railing, her hand drifting instinctively to the gentle curve of her belly. The glow of the skyline seemed to mirror the quiet radiance within her, as if the universe itself was bowing to the life that was growing inside her.Behind her, Damian stepped out. His presence filled the space before he even spoke, that silent command he carried everywhere he went, but tonight there was something different. The edges of his dominance had been tempered by something richer, something deeper, as though the hard lines of the man had been softened by the very love he once believed he was unworthy of.He slipped his arms around her waist, pulling her back into the steel warmth of his chest. His hand covered hers, protective and sure, resting where their child grew. The simple gestu
The applause from her speech still echoed in Isabella’s mind hours later as she sat in the quiet warmth of the penthouse. She hadn’t stopped smiling all evening. Damian had wrapped her in his arms after the gala, murmuring words of pride against her hair, and for once she truly believed she belonged in the world he had given her.The city glowed outside the floor to ceiling windows, skyscrapers shimmering like a galaxy of stars scattered across the earth. Cars below moved in glittering streams of red and white, the city alive, but in their home there was a cocoon of stillness. The penthouse felt like another world entirely, a world where she could breathe freely.Yet even here, the gnawing sensation in her stomach refused to let go. The dizziness. The waves of nausea she had been dismissing as nerves. The way her body felt both exhausted and alive at once. It all made too much sense, and the truth pressed closer with each passing breath.Her reflection in the mirror earlier had startl
The ballroom shimmered with light. Crystal chandeliers hung above rows of tables filled with reporters, philanthropists, and officials. Cameras clicked endlessly, their lenses drinking in every second. The air itself seemed charged, every breath heavy with expectation, every whispered conversation drowned out by the echo of what was about to unfold.At the center of the stage stood Isabella knight.Her palms were damp against the wooden podium, and she could feel her heart beating against her ribs as though it wanted to escape. She almost swayed under the weight of so many eyes upon her, but she didn’t retreat. Retreat was the one thing she had promised herself she would never do again. For weeks she had dreamed of this moment, and for years she had been silenced by fear, shame, and the poisonous whispers of others. Tonight, that ended.Damian sat in the front row, his shoulders broad and imposing, his presence like a mountain no one dared climb. He had been her shield in private batt
The boardroom was silent, but not with peace. It was the kind of silence that had weight, pressing against the chest, filling the lungs with unease. The tall windows behind Damian knight spilled morning light across polished oak and glass, yet the brightness only seemed to highlight the uncertainty in the air. Rows of executives sat in their high backed chairs, some leaning forward with carefully veiled interest, others reclined with arms crossed, their faces schooled into polite blankness. They had followed Damian for years. They had obeyed his every directive, carried out his vision with unquestioned loyalty.But this morning, they waited for something different.Damian rose first. His chair slid back with the sound of leather against stone flooring. Every pair of eyes tracked his movement. He was a man who rarely wasted words, and when he spoke, the world listened. That was the way of Damian knight. Yet today, he did not stand alone.Isabella rose with him.It was not a small gestu
The ink on her inheritance papers was barely dry, yet Isabella’s thoughts were already far from wealth. The lawyer’s words still echoed faintly in her ears, but she was no longer listening to numbers or percentages. Wealth had once been something distant, almost abstract, belonging to other people. Now it sat heavily in her hands, yet her mind wandered elsewhere, toward memories of cold nights, trembling hands, and a girl who had once felt invisible in the vast world.She sat at the long oak table in Damian’s office, blueprints spread before her like a sea of possibilities. The smell of parchment and ink filled the air, mingling with the faint scent of the fire burning in the hearth. Buildings. Walls. Empty spaces waiting for purpose. Accounts with numbers that once felt untouchable, now hers to direct with a single word, a single decision. For the first time, the power did not frighten her, it filled her with determination.“I don’t want palaces,” she said firmly, her voice carrying
The lawyer’s office smelled faintly of polished wood and old paper, the kind of place where legacies were written and rewritten. The scent was not merely from furniture polish or the brittle pages of case files, but from generations of decisions and battles that had been fought within these walls. Every shelf lined with law books seemed to whisper of fortunes defended, of empires crumbling, of heirs who walked in defeated or triumphant. The heavy curtains filtered the afternoon sunlight into soft amber, painting the room with an air of solemn reverence. Isabella could almost imagine her father sitting here once, long before betrayal touched their lives, discussing estates and future plans with that same calm determination he had always carried. The thought pressed into her chest, bittersweet and sharp.Isabella sat between Damian and Eleanor, her palms pressed flat against the table as the final document was slid toward her. The cool surface beneath her fingers grounded her, though he