I could not lift my eyes.

“I believe you.” Catherine’s face did not soften. “That does not make it clean.”

Damen’s voice was rough.

“She was threatened.”

Catherine looked at him.

“Because of you.”

“Every woman who gets close to you becomes a target eventually,” Catherine said. “I know that better than anyone. Sarah knows it too. That is why she warned Elena. That is why this betrayal cuts twice.”

Then she looked back at me.

“If you love him, understand what you are choosing. Not the penthouses. Not the attention. Not the intoxication of a powerful man looking at you like you are oxygen. You are choosing his enemies, his ghosts, his violence, and a daughter who may never forgive either of you.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“No,” Catherine said. “You don’t. But you will.”

She left after that.

Three days later, I learned exactly what she meant.

I was walking from the school entrance to my car when a van door opened behind me.

A cloth over my mouth.

A chemical smell.

Hands.

Darkness.

When I woke, I was tied to a chair in a warehouse by the river.

Concrete floor. Rusted beams. Water dripping somewhere in the distance. My head throbbed. My wrists burned against plastic ties.

A man sat across from me.

Older. Gray at the temples. Expensive coat. Eyes like dirty ice.

“Miss Brooks,” he said. “You have caused an extraordinary amount of trouble.”

“Luca Bellini.”

The name meant nothing to me.

But Damen’s men had said Bellini once. Quietly. Like a warning.

Luca smiled.

“Damen Moretti has taken many things from my family. Territory. Men. Money. Pride. For years, he had no weak point worth pressing. Then he found you.”

“You know enough to make him come.”

He gestured.

A man moved behind me and pressed a knife to my throat.

My body went cold.

Luca leaned closer.

“When he arrives, you will ask him to surrender his dock ledgers, his ports, and his political contacts. Or you will die on camera, and his daughter will receive the video after the photos.”

My eyes burned.

“Leave Sarah out of this.”

“How touching. You betrayed her and still want to protect her.”

The knife pressed harder.

I closed my eyes.

For the first time since this began, I stopped thinking of Damen.

I thought of Sarah.

Her laugh in my apartment.

Her hand around mine in that restaurant.

Her face when I told her the truth.

I had lost her through selfishness. But I would not let these men use my betrayal as a blade against her again.

“No,” I said.

Luca’s smile faded.

“What?”

His gaze sharpened.

“You misunderstand your position.”

“I understand it perfectly.”

My voice shook, but it held.

“You can kill me. You can send whatever you want. But I won’t beg him to give you anything, and I won’t let you use Sarah’s pain as your weapon.”

The man behind me laughed.

“Brave.”

“No,” I said. “Late.”

The warehouse door exploded open fifteen minutes later.

Damen entered with a gun in his hand and death in his eyes.

PART 3: THE PRICE OF BEING HIS

Everything after that happened in fragments.

Boots on concrete.

Men shouting.

A cold barrel pressed beneath my jaw.

Damen standing under a hanging industrial light in a black coat, his face still enough to terrify the room.

“If you touch her,” he said, “I’ll burn down every life you have ever loved.”

Luca Bellini laughed.

“She’s young enough to be your—”

The gunshot cut him off.

The man holding the knife jerked backward.

I screamed.

Chaos erupted.

Damen’s men flooded the warehouse from the side doors. Gunfire cracked through the air. Concrete sparked. Glass shattered. Someone dragged me sideways before I could fall. Marcus cut the ties at my wrists with hands that moved quickly and gently.

“Stay down,” he said.

I crawled behind a rusted metal crate, shaking so hard my teeth knocked together.

Through the smoke, I saw Damen move toward Luca Bellini.

Not running.

Walking.

Like fate in a dark coat.

Luca fired twice.

Missed once.

Hit Damen’s shoulder the second time.

Damen barely staggered.

He struck Luca with the butt of his gun, disarmed him, and drove him to the concrete. For one terrible second, I thought he would kill him.

Then a voice cut through the warehouse.

“Don’t.”

Sarah stood in the open doorway.

Rain behind her.

Catherine at her side, pale and horrified.

“Dad, don’t.”

Damen froze.

For the first time since I had known him, he looked lost.

Not weak.

Lost.

Sarah’s eyes moved from him to me.

I could not read her face.

Luca groaned beneath Damen’s boot.

“Let the police take him,” Sarah said. Her voice shook. “Or whatever version of the police you people use. But if you kill him in front of me, don’t you dare pretend you did it for love.”

Damen’s jaw clenched.

His finger tightened once.

Then loosened.

He stepped back.

Marcus and two men took Luca.

The warehouse became strangely quiet, full of smoke, rain, and the sound of my breathing trying to remember itself.

Sarah walked toward me.

I stood because I could not bear to be found on the floor.

She stopped a few feet away.

Her face was wet, though I could not tell whether from rain or tears.

“You were kidnapped.”

“Because of him.”

“Because of you and him.”

I swallowed.

Her mouth trembled.

“I hate you.”

The words landed exactly where they belonged.

“I hate that I was worried anyway.”

That broke me.

Tears spilled before I could stop them.

“Stop saying that like it fixes anything.”

“It doesn’t.”

“No.” She looked at Damen. “It really doesn’t.”

Damen held his bleeding shoulder and said nothing.

Smart man.

Sarah turned back to me.

“I came because Mom told me Bellini had you. She found out from one of Dad’s men who still likes her better than him.”