Chapter 64 – The First Test (Extended)The second morning came with a restless night behind it. Isabella had barely slept.She had gone to bed early, telling herself she needed the rest, but the moment her head touched the pillow, her mind betrayed her, flashing back to Damian Knight’s voice, the weight of his stare, the deliberate way he spoke as if every word had been chosen to test her.She rolled over, tugged the blanket higher, and stared at the faint strip of city light cutting across her ceiling. A siren wailed somewhere far below. The tick of her small wall clock seemed louder in the quiet. She closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep, but her thoughts kept circling back to him, his precise movements, the way he had dismissed her with a few cool words yesterday, as though she were still a question he hadn’t decided how to answer.She wondered why it mattered so much.Why he mattered so much.When dawn finally crept in, she sat at her small kitchen table with a mug of coffee s
The next morning, Isabella stood in front of Jaxon Corp’s towering glass building, her thin coat doing little against the early New York chill. Frost clung faintly to the edges of the pavement, shimmering in the pale light. The street smelled of roasted chestnuts from a cart a block away, mingling with the sharp tang of exhaust from passing taxis.She was fifteen minutes early. The city was still stretching awake, but she was already here. She was not going to risk being “late once” and “gone.” Not after yesterday.Her breath curled in the cold air as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Above her, the building’s steel-and-glass facade mirrored the restless clouds drifting across the sky. Somewhere inside, behind all that gleaming order, was Damian Knight.Her gloved hands tightened around the strap of the small leather bag slung over her shoulder. It held almost everything she considered essential: a single pen with fading ink, a worn notebook whose spine was barely hol
He stood before her now, more real than air, more intense than memory.Damian Knight.No dream could’ve captured the sheer weight of his presence.In the dream, he had been unreachable, a shadow cut from midnight, a voice made of silk and command. But here, in the flesh, he was sharper. More dangerous. The man standing before her was not born of fantasies, he was carved by reality, and reality was always harder, colder, and far more intoxicating.He was taller than she remembered… or imagined. His dark hair was artfully tousled, yet nothing about him looked accidental. The lean line of his jaw was clenched with silent intensity, as though every word he spoke was weighed before it left his lips. And his eyes, God, his eyes were a deep, unreadable brown, the kind of gaze that didn’t just look at you… it took you apart, piece by piece.“This way,” he said simply.No explanation. No small talk. Just the quiet, absolute expectation that she would follow.And she did. Not because she unders
She turned slowly, her body reacting before her mind could make sense of what she was doing.The young man behind her was dressed in a sleek black blazer, the fabric sharp and perfectly pressed, a silver Jaxon Corp badge clipped to the lapel. His hair was neatly styled, his smile polite,practiced in that way corporate employees wore like part of their uniform.But Isabella’s chest wasn’t reacting to him.It was reacting to this moment.Every sound, every angle of light, every tiny detail around her thudded into place like pieces of a puzzle she’d already solved once before.This was how it happened in the dream.She could hear the echo of it, his voice exactly the same pitch and rhythm as it had been when she’d been standing in this same lobby… except she hadn’t been here before. Not in waking life.“I—yes,” she stammered, unsure whether she was telling the truth. Her lips moved on instinct, as if her tongue had been given lines from a script she didn’t remember learning. “I’m here fo
The plane landed with a hard thud, jolting Isabella forward in her seat. The seatbelt dug into her hip, and for a moment she couldn’t tell if the pounding in her chest was from the landing or from the dream she’d just woken from.Her stomach twisted painfully.This wasn’t Russia anymore.This was New York, loud, fast, merciless. Just like the dream.Only now, she was truly alone.She sat still for a moment, fingers curled tightly around the tiny bag on her lap, the same faded leather thing she carried through snow and shame. Inside was everything she had, a folded resume on cheap paper, a crumpled photo of her mother with a tear running through the middle, and the last of her savings. A few coins that jingled miserably when she moved, and a handful of worn bills earned through years of pity and quiet servitude.The overhead lights burned her tired eyes as the passengers shuffled toward the exit. Someone muttered impatiently behind her, but she stayed seated until the aisle cleared.He
Two weeks.Fourteen days of pretending she was broken. Of walking like her bones were made of glass, of bowing her head in silence while Cynthia hurled insults like knives and Clarissa played the sweet serpent with her fake smiles and poisoned words.Isabella played her part well, obedient, vacant-eyed, lips stitched into silence. She scrubbed floors, served tea, and smiled when she wanted to scream. She nodded when Cynthia called her useless. She didn’t flinch when Clarissa dumped soup over her head at dinner just to watch her clean it up.Every second, she held the image of that bus in her mind. That dream. The one that felt too real to be false. Damian’s voice echoing in her chest. His name etched into her bones.And now, it was time.The house was still. Shadows curled in corners like sleeping beasts. The clock on the hallway wall ticked past 1:09 a.m. A perfect hour. Everyone drunk. Everyone dreaming.She slipped into Clarissa’s oversized fur coat, luxurious, heavy, and the only