Chapter 129: No One Enters The Devil’s Territory
The quiet halls of the east wing were plunged into near-total darkness by the time Anastasia made her way toward the master bedroom.
Her skin was still prickling with the fiery defiance from dinner, but as she passed the cracked door of Damian’s private quarters, a low, stifled grunt of pain stopped her dead in her tracks.
Through the narrow opening, a single amber bedside lamp cut through the shadows. Damian was sitting on the edge of the mattress, his dark shirt discarded on the floor.
His left shoulder was bound tightly, but his right hand was struggling to peel back the blood-stained gauze along the broad curve of his lower back. Every awkward reach pulled violently on his fresh sutures, turning his sharp profile pale with sheer, grinding agony.
Ana stood frozen for a second, her anger warring fiercely against her instincts.
With a quiet breath, she pushed the heavy door open and stepped inside.
Damian’s obsidian eyes instantly snapped toward the doorway, dark and lethal with unyielding pride, even as sweat glistened along the sculpted planes of his chest. “I didn’t ask for an audience, Ms. Vance.”
”Shut up,” Ana whispered coldly.
She walked straight past him, picked up the fresh roll of sterile gauze and the antiseptic bottle from the nightstand, and moved behind him on the bed. Without waiting for his permission, she gently knocked his trembling hand away.
Her fingers were feather-light as she dabbed the cool, stinging antiseptic along the jagged tear in his flesh. Damian’s spine went rigid, his breath catching in a sharp hiss against the quiet room, but he didn’t pull away.
The silence stretched between them… dense, suffocating, and charged with every drop of unfiltered heat they had traded all day.
As she taped down the final clean edge of the dressing, Ana leaned back, exhaling a quiet breath. “There. Try not to rip them open again with your arrogance.”
She moved to stand up, but before she could take a single step away, Damian moved.
Ignoring the blinding flare of pain in his back, his uninjured right arm shot out with lightning speed. He caught her by the waist, yanking her hard against his bare, burning chest, and spun her around until her back slammed into the dark wood of the bedpost.
Ana gasped, her hands flying up to brace against his rigid shoulders, her dark eyes wide in shock.
Damian caged her in with his broad frame, leaning down until his lips hovered a fraction of an inch from the sensitive curve of her ear. The scent of cedarwood, clean antiseptic, and raw, untamed heat rolled off his skin, suffocating every defense she had left.
”You had a lot of sharp words at dinner, little doll,” Damian rasped, his deep baritone thick, gravelly, and dripping with dark malice. “Calling my hands vulgar in front of my family.”
Ana’s heart slammed violently against her ribs. She swallowed hard, trying to summon her icy glare, but the heat of his bare torso pressing against her made her senses spin. “You deserved every word, Damian.”
A dark, dangerous rumble vibrated in his chest. His right hand slid from her waist, trailing slowly up the curve of her ribcage, his thumb pressing possessively into the hollow of her throat where her pulse hammered like a trapped bird.
”You think a few fingers under a cashmere blanket is vulgar, Anastasia?” He whispered, his hooded obsidian eyes burning straight into her soul. “You haven’t seen anything yet. Test me again, and I’ll show you just how filthy I can be when there isn’t a room full of people to save you.”
Damian’s thumb applied a fraction more pressure against the frantic flutter at her throat, his looming frame cutting off every angle of escape. His breath fell warm and ragged against the sensitive crook of her neck, sending a sharp, involuntary shiver down her spine.
”You still haven’t said it, Anastasia,” he rasped, his deep baritone dipping into a dangerous, gravelly command. “You sat there playing the hero, but you walked right past my tactical detail, defied a direct lockdown order, and practically served yourself up on a silver platter to Vivian and her goons. Say it. Admit you were reckless.”
Ana’s chest heaved against his bare, sculpted torso. Her stubborn pride flared, demanding she fight him off, but her gaze dropped to the stark white bandages wrapping his shoulder and the fresh gauze covering the bullet wounds on his back.
He had bled for her disobedience. He had taken three rounds to his spine because she had run blind into a slaughterhouse.
The anger drained out of her, leaving behind a raw, suffocating ache.
”I’m sorry,” Ana whispered, the words trembling softly against his skin. She didn’t look away, holding the dark, bottomless intensity of his gaze. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I was reckless, and you nearly died because of my mistake.”
Damian went completely rigid.
He had expected her sharp tongue, her venomous defiance, or her bitter sarcasm. To hear a genuine, unvarnished apology fall from her parted lips caught him entirely off guard, fracturing the cold, tyrannical mask he wore like armor.
His fingers at her throat loosened slightly, shifting into a tender, possessive caress along the line of her jaw.
Before the silence could soften into total surrender, Ana took a slow, steadying breath.
Her dark eyes hardened with a sudden, devastating resolve.
”I’m sorry I walked into their trap, Damian,” she murmured, her voice steadying as she laid her hand directly over his uninjured chest, feeling the heavy, thunderous slam of his heart beneath her palm. “Just like you should be sorry for keeping me in the dark. I know about the Swiss trust, Damian. I know why you really paid my father hundred million dollars… so that you can keep me out of Dante’s reach.”
The bedroom fell into a suffocating, dead silence.
The warmth of the amber lamp seemed to vanish instantly, replaced by a chilling, sharp stillness. Damian didn’t flinch, but the muscles along his broad shoulders coiled tight as iron, the air between them turning heavy enough to crush bone.
His obsidian eyes narrowed to dangerous, lethal slits. The surprise lasted for only a fraction of a second before it hardened into absolute, calculating coldness.
”How did you know?” Damian rasped, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly quiet, dangerous baritone. “Who gave you access, Anastasia?”
Ana’s throat felt dry as sand, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. Pinned beneath his crushing frame and the burning weight of his gaze, she knew any lie would shatter immediately.
”Nobody gave it to me,” Ana whispered, lifting her chin to hold his piercing stare without flinching. “I went into your private study yesterday when you were burning up with fever. I unlocked your personal lockbox, Damian. I saw the Swiss bank receipts. I saw my grandfather’s bloodline clause. I read every single document.”
A terrifying, unreadable stillness settled over Damian’s sharp features.
He didn’t yell. He didn’t rage. Instead, a slow, predatory shadow swept across his carved face.
In one swift, effortless motion, his large, calloused hand snapped shut around both of her wrists, wrenching them upward and pinning them firmly against the dark, solid wood of the bedpost above her head.
He leaned down, his towering frame completely trapping her, the untamed heat of his bare torso pressing ruthlessly against her chest until she had nowhere left to breathe.
His lips brushed against the trembling curve of her ear, his breath hot, dark, and laced with absolute malice.
”You think going through my things makes you clever, little bird?”
Damian whispered, a dark, devilish rasp vibrating straight down her spine.
“You only read the surface of that trust. You have no idea what that paper actually demands… or the sheer price I’m going to make you pay for breaking into my territory without my permission.”