Dante Sullivan stood in the private washroom of his penthouse office, dabbing a cold, wet cloth against his split lip.
The sting was sharp, but the smirk on his face was sharper.
Behind him, his chief legal advisor stood anxiously near the doorway, holding a leather folder. "Mr. Sullivan, the bank has verified the hundred million dollar liquidity line. The buyout contract for Anastasia’s original family debt is fully drafted. Should we serve the papers to Sterling Global’s legal department immediately?"
"No," Dante replied smoothly, tossing the cloth into the sink and turning around. His dark eyes glinted with a quiet, lethal intelligence. "Not yet."
The advisor blinked, surprised. "Sir? If we submit the payoff now, we have a legal precedent to challenge Sterling’s hold over her..."
"Damian Sterling isn’t a man you beat with a piece of paper, Arthur," Dante interrupted, his voice cool and calculated. "If I throw this contract in his face today, he’ll simply tear it up, lock her away tighter, and go to war. That only makes him look like a tragic, protective hero in her eyes."
Dante walked over to the window, gazing out over the city skyline as he buttoned his shirt cuff.
"Damian is a monster driven by blind, possessive rage," Dante continued softly, a faint smirk touching his lips. "Right now, he’s terrified of losing her. He’s going to strangle her with his control. He’s going to yell, he’s going to lock her down, and he’s going to make her feel like a prisoner all over again."
Dante turned back to his lawyer, his gaze turning absolute.
"We wait," Dante ordered. "We wait for Damian to make his inevitable mistake. When his dark temper finally breaks her, and she realizes she’s just traded one cage for another... I won’t just offer her money. I’ll offer her the choice between the Devil who controls her... and the man who wants to save her."
________________________
Meanwhile, the car pulled through the iron gates of Damian’s private, heavily guarded estate on the outskirts of the city.
The entire drive had been conducted in a suffocating, lethal silence. The moment the car came to a complete halt in the private garage, Damian stepped out, opened Ana’s door, and held his hand out to her.
Ana looked at his large, waiting hand, her heart hammering violently against her ribs.
When she didn’t move fast enough, Damian reached in, gently but firmly grasping her wrist, and pulled her out of the vehicle.
He guided her through the quiet, grand hallways of the estate, straight into his private quarters, and clicked the heavy doors shut behind them.
The sound of the lock sliding into place echoed through the quiet room like a cell door slamming shut.
Ana turned around, her pale face flushed with a sudden wave of exhausted, desperate frustration. The fear that had kept her quiet all day was suddenly eclipsed by sheer emotional overload.
"Are you going to lock me in here now, Damian?" Ana whispered, her voice trembling as tears welled up in her dark eyes. "Are you going to treat me like a criminal too?"
Damian stood near the closed doors, his dark suit jacket tossed unceremoniously onto a chair. He looked at her, his broad chest heaving, his obsidian eyes burning with a mixture of unbridled rage and a deep, terrifying desperation he couldn’t hide.
"You should be thankful. I am keeping you alive, Anastasia," Damian purred coldly, stepping toward her. "Your family wants to destroy you. The press wants to tear you apart. And Sullivan..." His jaw set so tight a muscle flexed violently. "...Sullivan wants to take what is mine."
"I am not an object!" Ana cried out, her voice breaking as the first tear spilled over her cheek. "I didn’t ask Dante to be there! I didn’t ask him to kiss me! I was trying to leave because I felt like my presence was destroying your life!"
Damian froze in his tracks, his eyes narrowing as he stared at her distraught, trembling form.
"You think you’re destroying my life?" Damian whispered, his tone dropping into a low, dangerously quiet register as he closed the distance between them.
That sent a shiver straight down Ana’s spine. He took a heavy, deliberate step forward, shadowing her completely.
"You’ve been tearing my life apart from the exact moment you foolishly asked for a divorce."
Ana gasped softly, shrinking back as his towering frame pressed into her space.
"Your impulsive, foolish acts are to blame for this chaos," Damian spat, his obsidian eyes burning into hers with a dark, suffocating intensity. "Your family is striking back now only because Vivian must have handed them some kind of leverage! They are using your naive little head as a pawn!"
He reached out, his large hands gripping her shoulders... not enough to hurt, but firm enough to lock her completely in place.
"Now tell me," Damian demanded, his voice laced with a lethal, razor-sharp edge. "What did you and Sullivan talk about in that café? Why the hell did it end with him putting his mouth on yours?"
Ana’s heart hammered frantically against her ribs. She couldn’t tell him about the hundred million dollars. If Damian found out Dante was actively trying to buy out her debt, his unbridled rage would cause an all-out corporate war that would burn the entire city to the ground.
"He... he talked about the past," Ana whispered, her voice trembling as she forced herself to meet his terrifying gaze. "He said he’s known me for years... long before I met you. He said he wanted me... and that he wanted to marry me."
Damian’s jaw set so hard a muscle twitched violently in his cheek.
"He asked me to leave you," Ana added softly, her dark eyes wide and pleading.
Damian leaned down, his face inches from hers, his dark eyes searching every tear-stained contour of her face. His voice dropped into a slow, dangerous whisper that made the air in the room feel completely thin.
"And what did you say to him, Anastasia?" Damian purred, stepping dangerously closer until her back pressed against the carved wooden post of the canopy bed. "Will you leave me?"
Ana’s chest heaved. Looking into his blinded, volatile rage, she knew she had to say whatever it took to de-escalate the terrifying storm brewing inside him.
"I said I won’t," Ana managed to say, her voice barely above a whisper. "I told him no."
A quiet, agonizing silence fell over the room as Damian stared at her trembling lips. The volcanic anger in his dark eyes slowly settled into something far more dangerous... an absolute, unbreakable grip of dark possession.
"Good," Damian whispered, his baritone dark and heavy. "Because you are not going anywhere until you pay every single cent of your debt to me. I will never let you go."
Slowly, his large hand moved up to cup her jaw. His long thumb brushed firmly across her lower lip, erasing the faint memory of another man’s touch.
"Now let’s remove his scent off you," Damian growled leaning down to her face, his eyes darkening into pure void as his face dipped down toward hers. "You will only ever have me touch your body, your lips... and your soul. No one else."
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