All Chapters of Boardroom to Bedroom: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The air shimmered with heat and electricity, thick with smoke and the scent of ozone. My lungs burned with every inhale, but I didn't dare move away from Damian. His body thrashed beneath my hands, muscles twitching violently, glowing veins of light tracing under his skin. He wasn't fully human-not anymore-but something inside him was still holding on."Damian... stay with me," I whispered, clinging to him as though my grip alone could tether him to reality.He let out a low, guttural sound that was half growl, half scream. His eyes flickered between the warmth I knew and a blinding white light that seemed to pierce the shadows around us. Sparks from the exposed machinery danced across the walls, reflecting off the slick sweat on his skin, making him look like some creature from another world.I had to think fast. The floor shuddered beneath us, and cables snaked along the walls like live serpents. Every panel and mechanism in the chamber pulsed with life, reacting to Damian's awakenin

The hospital changed after dark.By day, it buzzed with movement - nurses rushing, monitors beeping, reporters pressing against the glass doors. But at night, it went still. Too still. The kind of silence that hums just beneath your skin, like something waiting to wake.I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, the explosion replayed - the roar, the heat, the flash of white before the world went silent. Sometimes I could still feel the tremor in my bones, the weight of concrete above me, the way Damian had looked at me just before everything caved in.So I sat under the pale hospital light, tracing the edge of the gauze around my wrist. Someone had wrapped it too tight. The skin beneath it itched, pulsed - like there was something inside it, breathing with me.The corridor outside was half-lit, fluorescent bulbs flickering in an offbeat rhythm. Somewhere down the hall, a machine beeped steadily - the kind of sound that meant someone was alive. Barely.Then: footsteps.Too heavy f

The wind that night smelled like rain and smoke and something softer-something that felt almost like healing.We'd spent the evening on the porch, talking about everything and nothing, wrapped in the kind of silence that only exists between people who've already seen each other break. Damian had made pasta-terribly, by the way-but I'd eaten it anyway just to watch him try not to laugh at himself.The lights from the cabin window spilled over the grass, pale and flickering. I leaned back in my chair, cradling my mug, and watched him fix the fire pit like it was some sort of sacred ritual."You know," I said, teasing lightly, "for a man who used to blow up Syndicate labs for fun, you're very domestic."He glanced up, smirking. "Don't spread that around. It'll ruin my reputation.""You don't have a reputation anymore."He stilled for half a beat, then looked at me again, softer this time. "Maybe that's a good thing."Something in the air shifted then. The distance that usually sat betwee

"The same text messages, Isla, Isla! Who is that, Damian? Don't mess with me right now!"Damian froze mid-sip of his coffee, eyes wide. For a fraction of a second, I thought I had finally broken him. Then his face shifted into that calm, infuriatingly composed mask."It's... nothing," he said smoothly, setting the cup down. "Just someone from work. Don't worry about it.""Don't worry about it?" I repeated, voice rising. "Damian, I see the way you hide your phone. I see the way you delete messages before I can look. And now you're telling me it's nothing?"He ran a hand through his hair, his jaw tightening. "Elena... I didn't want to worry you. It's complicated, that's all.""Complicated how?" I shot back, stepping closer. "She keeps texting you, Damian! 'I miss you,' 'We need to talk, 'It's urgent.' Who the hell is she?"He opened his mouth, then closed it. Sighed. Shook his head. "She's... a cousin. A distant cousin. She... she's worried. After everything that happened at the tower,

Elena was gone. Her absence hit Damian like a physical blow. He woke in their apartment, the morning sunlight cutting through the blinds, and immediately noticed the emptiness of the bed beside him. Panic surged - a cold, raw wave that left his chest tight. His phone vibrated relentlessly on the nightstand, dozens of unanswered messages flashing across the screen. But Elena hadn't responded to a single one.He ran his hands through his hair, pacing the room, muttering under his breath. The city outside hummed as if unaware of his personal disaster. Every instinct screamed at him to find her, but Damian felt a strange, almost electric twinge in his chest - a reflexive, unnatural reaction he couldn't entirely control. The Lazarus enhancements were still there, buried deep, surfacing now with his panic: a low, buzzing tension in his muscles, a flicker in his vision when he sprinted to the door, a tremor in his fingers when he grabbed the keys.Damian shoved it aside. He didn't have time