All Chapters of Claimed by his obsession : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Damien's POVI was out of the car before the words finished landing in my earpiece.Zane grabbed my arm through the open door. "Damien wait—""She just told her my mother died for finding out about a dead child." My voice didn't sound like mine. "I'm not waiting.""If you walk in there you blow whatever control Sophia has built in that room," Zane said. Fast and low. "She's handling it. Listen to her handle it."I stood half out of the car with one foot on the pavement and forced myself to breathe and listened.Sophia's voice came through clear and steady in a way that didn't match anything I felt right now."You're telling me my parents didn't just find financial fraud," she said. "They found out you had a child who died under suspicious circumstances connected to the Vale family. And Victoria had them killed to bury that.""Yes," Diana said."Why didn't you tell anyone," Sophia said. "Twenty one years and you let your sons believe you abandoned them rather than tell them you were pr

Damien's POVI stepped in front of Sophia before Marcus finished his sentence."You're not getting anywhere near her," I said.Marcus smiled. The smile he used to wear in boardrooms before he became a punchline. "Damien Black. Defending what's mine again.""She was never yours," I said. "And tonight you're about to find out exactly how far away from yours she actually is."Behind Marcus, six men were spreading out across the street with the controlled efficiency of people who did this professionally. Not security guards. The same kind of people Zane had warned us about weeks ago, when mercenaries had tried to grab Sophia from a spa.Marcus had hired the real thing this time.I felt Sophia's hand close around my arm."The laptop is inside," she said quietly. Just for me. "Mei is with it. I need to get back to her.""You're not going back in there," I said."Damien—""Margaret Park has been selling information to every side of this for fifteen years," I said. "I don't know what room is

Damien's POVDominic was awake by seven.He looked terrible. Pale and stiff and connected to things that beeped, but his eyes were sharp, and when we filed into the room,m he looked at each of us the way he always had, checking, cataloguing, making sure everyone was accounted for.He got to Sophia and stopped."You're still here," he said."Where else would I be?" she said.He looked at our joined hands. He had been looking at that particular detail for the last hour and filing it somewhere behind his eyes without comment each time."Victoria," he said."Arrested forty minutes ago," Elijah said. "The laptop evidence went to the DA and three independent legal bodies simultaneously.""Marcus," he said."Warrant out," Zane said. "He won't get far."Something moved across Dominic's face. Not satisfaction. Something quieter. A man who had been fighting something for a long time watching it finally stop.He looked at Carter in the doorway."Sit down," he said.Carter sat."You're going to t

Sophia's POVNobody moved for a moment.Lena Park stood in the elevator with her hands at her sides and her eyes on me, and the specific stillness of someone who had rehearsed this moment so many times that now it was actually happening; she had forgotten all of it.I stepped forward and pressed the button to hold the doors open."Come out of the elevator," I said gently.She came out.Up close, she was younger than the photograph had suggested. Late twenties but carrying it heavily, the way people did when they had been careful for a very long time. She looked at Damien beside me, and something cautious moved in her face."He's with me," I said. "He's safe."She accepted that with a small nod."How did you find us here?" Damien said. Quiet and direct. Not threatening. Just needing to know."Mrs. Park told me," she said. "She said if I was ever going to do this, it had to be now before everything shifted again." She paused. "She said Sophia would understand."I thought about Margaret

Damien's POVI read the message over Sophia's shoulder.She had tilted the screen toward me automatically, the way she did everything now, no deliberation, just instinct, and I read it twice and felt something settle in my chest that was cold and very focused.Marcus Vale was still running.And running people made threats."Don't respond," I said quietly."I wasn't going to," she said.I looked at the room. Richard still in the doorway. Diana and Lena still three feet apart doing the careful work of twenty one years in real time. Dominic watching his father with an expression that was going to need its own conversation at a separate time.I touched Sophia's arm."Come with me," I said.We stepped into the corridor and I called Zane before the door had fully closed behind us."Marcus sent Sophia a threat," I said. "He claims he has something on me. I need to know what he thinks he has before he goes public with it.""Already on it," Zane said. Which meant he had been monitoring Marcus'