Damien’s POV
The guilt was still burning in my chest hours later, a relentless fire that refused to die no matter how many times I tried to smother it with whiskey or distance.
I sat in the corner of the penthouse living room, the glass in my hand long forgotten. My eyes tracked Elena’s every movement as she tried to pretend everything was normal. She flipped through the pages of her novel, but I saw the truth. The tension in her shoulders. The slight stiffness in her posture. The way her eyes lingered on me a second too long, searching, waiting for me to slip up again. She knew something was wrong. She always did. Every word from Alex and Lila was a reminder of the secrets I kept buried.
The anger that started as a sharp blade had transformed into something deeper. Hungrier. Darker.
I
