Clara said, her voice icy, precise, and cutting like glass.
"I am not one of your contracted enforcers, and I am certainly not Montgomery’s assignment to manage. You want those offshore accounts drained? I deliver the drive. You want a tactical team outside on the street? Fine. But the second I walk through those restaurant doors, I run that table on my own terms. If you don’t like it, you can figure out another way to bait Sullivan without me."
Jullian let out a quiet, appreciative whistle under his breath, thoroughly entertained by the sheer audacity of someone defying Damian to his face.
Damian’s dark eyes locked onto Clara’s fearless glare. A tense, suffocating silence hung over the desk for five agonizing seconds before the corner of Damian’s mouth twitched into a cold, dangerous smirk.
"Have it your way, Miss Clara," Damian rasped smoothly. "Run the table. But Montgomery stays on the line... whether you acknowledge him or not."
_________________________
A few hours later, in the private dressing room of the east wing, the air was thick with static tension.
Clara stood rigidly in front of the mirror, smoothing the sleek emerald silk cocktail dress that concealed the light medical dressing over her collarbone.
Jullian stepped silently behind her. He held a microscopic audio transmitter disguised within a delicate platinum teardrop pendant.
Instead of asking for permission, his large, warm hands reached forward, parting the dark silk of her hair and sweeping it over her uninjured shoulder.
His calloused knuckles brushed lightly against the sensitive, bare skin of her nape. Clara’s breath hitched in her throat, an involuntary shiver tracing down her spine. The fiery defiance in her chest flared instantly against the sudden, overwhelming heat of his proximity.
"I told you I don’t need a babysitter, Mr. Montgomery," Clara said sharply, her voice trembling just enough to betray the chaotic jump in her pulse as she met his reflection in the glass.
Jullian didn’t step back. Instead, he stepped closer, closing the distance until the solid wall of his chest hovered mere inches behind her shoulder blades.
He brought his hands forward, carefully looping the platinum chain around her throat. His fingers lingered against the hollow of her collarbone, warm, steady, and unapologetic.
"You don’t need a babysitter, Clara," Jullian murmured, his deep aristocratic drawl dropping into an intense, low rasp right beside her ear. His breath stirred the loose tendrils of her hair. "You’re a weapon. But I’m the one holding the safety switch tonight."
He fastened the clasp with deliberate slowness, his hands dropping to rest lightly... possessively... on the curve of her bare shoulders, anchoring her in place.
"The tracking frequency is hardwired into my watch."
Jullian whispered, his gaze locking with hers in the mirror with lethal conviction.
"I will be across the street in the tactical van. If that executive director so much as touches your hand, or if this audio drops for a single second, I am kicking the front glass in and putting a bullet through his forehead. Fire all you want at me later, sweetheart... Tonight, you’re staying alive."
Clara stared at his reflection, the sharp retort on her tongue faltering under the suffocating intensity of his gaze and the electric heat of his hands on her skin.
________________________
The sharp clack of Victoria Sterling’s heels broke the tense quiet of the foyer as she intercepted them near the grand entrance.
Her discerning gaze swept over the scene... Damian in a dark tailored overcoat, an encrypted comms earpiece tucked into his lapel; Anastasia walking tensely by his side; and Walter signaling the armed security convoy idling on the driveway.
"What is the meaning of this?" Victoria demanded, stepping directly into Damian’s path with crisp aristocratic authority. "Why are the estate gates being put on tactical alert, and where exactly do you think you are going dressed for a field deployment?"
Damian stopped, his expression settling into an impenetrable mask of cold corporate calm. "Routine business downtown, Mother. Nothing for you to concern yourself with."
"Do not insult my intelligence, Damian."
Victoria countered, her dark eyes flashing with sharp intuition.
"Half an hour ago, Jullian Montgomery was shouting in my drawing room about hostile takeovers and putting competitors in the ground. Now you have armored vehicles idling outside, your personal comms active, and you are walking out the front doors less than four days after taking three bullets at the docks."
Her eyes flicked to Anastasia’s pale, strained face, then back to her son.
"The clinic physician explicitly stated that any sudden physical strain will tear the arterial sutures along your ribs," Victoria pressed, her voice lowering with rare, fierce maternal protectiveness beneath her composed exterior. "Whatever boardroom conflict or hostile acquisition is happening downtown, you have hundreds of contracted directors and security heads. Send them. You do not leave Northwood in your condition."
Damian didn’t flinch, deliberately keeping every detail of Dante Sullivan, the hundred-million-dollar Vance blood debt, and the ambush off the table. As far as Victoria was permitted to know, this was nothing more than high-stakes corporate espionage.
"The board doesn’t handle hostile corporate breaches, Mother," Damian replied, his gravelly baritone smooth, steady, and devoid of telltale emotion. "A rogue faction is attempting to infiltrate Sterling Enterprises’ financial accounts tonight through an offshore digital siphon. We are cutting the connection before they touch our liquidity."
Victoria frowned deeply, clearly unconvinced that a mere digital breach required her critically injured son to leave the estate. "Then let Jullian Montgomery handle the extraction and the servers. The Montgomerys practically own half the city’s commercial grid anyway. You cannot afford physical trauma tonight."
"Jullian is handling the ground-level logistics," Damian replied smoothly, stepping gently but firmly around her. "I will be stationed in a private, heavily fortified surveillance suite across the avenue, monitoring the feed. Anastasia stays locked in that command room beside me under my direct watch."
Victoria opened her mouth to issue another sharp reprimand, but the immovable, absolute resolve in Damian’s dark eyes made it clear the discussion was finished.
"Walter has the estate on maximum lockdown until we return," Damian added over his shoulder, his fingers closing firmly around Anastasia’s hand as he guided her through the heavy double doors into the waiting armored vehicle.
_________________________
Downtown, rain began to streak across the panoramic windows of a high-rise luxury hotel suite overlooking the intersection of The Obsidian Room.
The master suite had been turned into a forward command post. A bank of encrypted monitors displayed the restaurant’s thermal floor plan and live radio frequencies.
Ana stood by the glass, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as she stared down at the neon-lit street below, her stomach twisting into painful knots with every tick of the clock.
Heavy, measured footsteps approached behind her.
Damian stepped up to the glass. Ignoring the slight pull on his bandaged ribs, his uninjured arm reached out and circled firmly around Ana’s waist, reeling her flush against the solid expanse of his chest.
His right hand settled over her hip, anchoring her completely in his hold, while his chin rested lightly against the top of her dark hair.
"She’s in position, Ana," Damian rasped softly, his low voice a steady, grounding vibration against her back. "Jullian is watching the perimeter, and my security snipers have every exit locked."
Ana leaned back into his warmth, her hands resting over his forearm, her racing heart finally finding a fragile rhythm against his chest.
"If anything happens to her, Damian..." Ana whispered, her voice thick with raw emotion.
Damian lowered his head, pressing a slow, searing kiss to the sensitive junction where her neck met her shoulder, his lips brushing the faint mark he had left there.
"Nothing will happen," Damian murmured against her warm skin, his dark eyes locked onto the green tracker flashing on the monitor across the room. "No one touches what belongs to my house and my empire. Neither her, nor you."
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