Damian Wolfe
The warehouse reeked of rust and rain — the kind of place where secrets came to die.
I stepped inside first, Bishop trailing behind me like a ghost. The rain sliced through shattered windows, pooling across the cracked concrete in grimy rivers. Every breath I drew tasted like metal and old blood.
Perfect.
A place for endings. A place for war.
I didn't have to wait long.
Aria Vale slipped through the wreckage like a phantom, Kira shadowing her flank. She wore black — sharp, deliberate — her hair slicked back, every line of her body carved from defiance. Her eyes burned, twin embers of ruthless purpose.
She was magnificent.
And she was mine — even if she didn't know it yet.
My pulse kicked up, slow and deliberate.
She stopped a few feet away — not close enough to touch, but close enough to tempt.
Neither of us spoke.
The silence stretched between us, thick and electric, coiling tighter with every breath.
Finally, I let the boredom bleed into my voice.
"You asked for this meeting," I said, letting the words drag across the space between us. "Talk."
Aria didn't flinch. Didn't lower her gaze.
"I found your trap," she said simply. "I know what you buried in Vault 07."
I smiled — slow, humorless, sharp enough to cut.
"Congratulations," I murmured. "You have half a brain after all."
Her mouth twitched — a flash of something too dangerous to be a smile.
"And you," she said coolly, "have less time than you think."
I stepped forward, deliberate, boots echoing off the hollow floor, each stride claiming more of the space between us.
"Big words," I said lazily, "for someone standing in my city. Surrounded by my men."
Kira's hand hovered near her weapon, but Aria stood firm — a blade balanced on the edge of a whisper.
Her voice dropped, low and cold enough to burn.
"You built Monarch on rot, Damian. It's already crumbling. You just don't see it yet."
I laughed — a raw, razor-edged sound.
"And what?" I said, voice silken with mockery. "You're here to save me?"
"No," she said, stepping closer.
"I'm here to offer you a choice."
The word snapped the air between us like a whip.
I tilted my head, intrigued despite myself. "Go on."
She advanced — not recklessly, but with a precision that spoke of blood and steel. Until she stood close enough that I could feel the electric heat of her body.
Her presence slammed into me, fierce and unyielding.
"You let me walk away," she said, her voice a quiet blade, "files in hand. No pursuit. No tricks."
I arched a brow.
"And in return?"
"You get to keep your empire," she said. "You contain the fallout. Protect your partners. Salvage whatever pieces of Monarch you can before the world tears the rest apart."
Her gaze locked onto mine, unwavering.
"Or," she continued, soft and lethal, "you can try to stop me."
A pause.
"And you can watch everything you've built burn to the f***ing ground."
The rain battered the warehouse harder, the storm outside rising to match the one raging between us.
I said nothing.
I let the silence stretch, savoring the taste of her desperation, her fury, her reckless hope.
She wanted to believe she had the upper hand.
She needed to believe it.
That was her weakness.
And mine?
Maybe it was that a part of me — buried deep, so deep I almost didn't recognize it — wanted to believe her. Wanted to believe there was still a way out. A way that didn't end with both of us bleeding.
But there wasn't.
There never had been.
I closed the final distance between us — slow, inevitable.
Close enough that her breath shuddered against my jaw.
"You think you're giving me a choice," I said, voice low, almost tender.
I reached up — fingers brushing a damp strand of hair from her face.
She went still, the tension snapping taut between us, but she didn't pull away.
Her scent hit me — wild, electric, dangerous.
Lightning just before it strikes.
"But the truth is, Aria..."
I leaned in, letting my lips graze the fragile, racing pulse at her throat.
"You never had a choice."
Before she could react, the warehouse doors exploded open behind her — a blast of sound and movement.
Bishop's men flooded in, black-clad, silent, weapons drawn.
Kira swore, spinning to shield Aria, but they were already surrounded.
Checkmate.
I didn't move. Didn't flinch.
Just smiled — slow and cruel — as the adrenaline lit up my blood.
"Welcome to my world," I murmured against her skin.
Aria stiffened, but she didn't step back. Not yet. Her hand dropped instinctively to the weapon at her hip — a fighter to the bitter end.
God, she was beautiful when she was cornered.
And she didn't even know the real trap hadn't closed yet.
Not the guns. Not the soldiers. Not even the threat of death.
The real trap was me.
And I had no intention of letting her walk out of here.
Not without paying the price.
In blood.
Or in surrender.
---
Aria Vale
The warehouse blurred around me — Bishop's men, Kira's snarl, the storm rattling the broken windows — all of it fading until there was only him.
Damian Wolfe.
Close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body.
Close enough to taste the darkness on his breath.
"You son of a b***h," I whispered.
His smile sharpened — slow, deliberate.
"You're going to have to be more specific, sweetheart."
The gun in my hand felt suddenly, violently alive.
I raised it between us, the barrel kissing the underside of his jaw.
A heartbeat.
Two.
Around us, weapons lifted, safety clicks breaking the heavy silence. Kira shifted behind me, tense, ready.
But Damian?
He didn't move.
Didn't flinch.
He just stared down at me, a slow, lazy hunger igniting behind those cold eyes.
"You gonna pull that trigger?" he murmured, voice like velvet dragging across skin.
"Or are you just trying to see how close you can get before you fall?"
The words slid into me, low and poisonous.
I pressed the barrel harder against his throat.
He tilted his head back, exposing more skin, daring me.
"Do it," he whispered.
"End it."
My hands trembled — but not from fear.
From fury.
From the unbearable, consuming need to prove him wrong.
Because part of me — the part he saw too clearly — wanted to drag him closer instead.
Wanted to find out what it would feel like if he broke first.
"You think you've won," I said, my voice shaking with how badly I wanted to hurt him.
"All you've done is make sure I'll never stop coming for you."
Damian's smile deepened.
It wasn't victory.
It wasn't cruelty.
It was something darker.
Something inevitable.
"You were always going to come for me, Aria," he said softly, the words sinking like knives under my ribs.
"You just didn't know if you wanted to kill me..."
His hand moved — slow, deliberate — wrapping around my wrist where I gripped the gun, squeezing just enough to make me feel it.
"...or f**k me."
The breath punched out of me.
The men around us blurred again — irrelevant.
The guns, the storm— irrelevant.
There was only him.
Only this.
Damian leaned in, the scrape of his stubble against my skin, his mouth brushing my ear in a breath that was more promise than threat.
"I'm still waiting to find out which it is," he whispered.
I hated him.
I hated that he could make me want to find out too.
Before I could stop myself, I shoved the gun harder against his throat — and at the same time, he slammed his body against mine, pinning me against the nearest steel beam, the cold bite of metal slicing through the thin armor of my control.
My head snapped back — a gasp torn from my lips.
He grinned — sharp, wolfish — one hand still gripping my wrist, the other braced against the beam beside my head.
A cage.
A challenge.
"You want to burn me down?" Damian growled against my mouth, so close I could taste him.
"Do it."
I could feel the tremble starting in my muscles — rage, adrenaline, want.
God help me, I almost dropped the gun just to grab him by the collar and tear him apart with my teeth.
But I didn't.
Not yet.
I let the muzzle drag up his throat — slow, almost caressing — until it pressed against the corner of his mouth.
He kissed it.
A savage, taunting press of lips to steel.
"You're not ready," he said, voice low and merciless.
"But you will be."
His eyes locked onto mine, and in that moment, I knew:
Whatever came next — whether I killed him or kissed him —
it was going to ruin us both.