The champagne glass hit me before I understood someone had thrown it.

By sunrise, the rain was washing the soot and blood from the streets outside the Drake Hotel.

The Chicago Police Department had cordoned off three city blocks. But inside the penthouse suite of the Drake, where Damian’s team had temporarily established an operational hub, there were no police sirens.

Julian Vance sat tied to a heavy wooden armchair in the center of the room, his face bruised, his expensive tuxedo shredded. Two of Damian’s men stood behind him like gargoyles.

Damian sat across from him on a plush sofa, quietly sipping black coffee while a private medic wrapped my blistered hands in soothing burn ointment and sterile gauze.

“Damian, please,” Julian whimpered, his voice cracked with exhaustion. “It was Gallo. Gallo forced my hand! He threatened my daughter in Boston! I had to give him the blueprints for Bellamy House! I didn’t want Luca hurt!”

Damian set his coffee cup down on the glass table. The clink of porcelain echoed like a death knell in the quiet room.

“You gave him the mezzanine key, Julian,” Damian said without an ounce of emotion. “You told him where my six-year-old child would be standing. And tonight, you paid him half a million dollars to finish what he started.”

Damian stood up, walking slowly toward his cousin. He stopped six inches from Julian’s trembling face.

“Your daughter in Boston is currently safe,” Damian murmured. “My men relocated her to a secure villa in Switzerland two hours ago. She will never lack for anything. But you, Julian… you no longer exist.”

Julian looked up, terror dilating his pupils. “What does that mean? Damian, we’re blood!”

“Blood is tested by loyalty,” Damian said coldly. “Not biology.”

He turned to Marco, whose shoulder was now bound in a tight sling. “The files on Julian’s shell companies. Hand them to the federal prosecutor. Every wire fraud, every tax evasion, every bribe to the port authority. Ensure he spends the rest of his natural life in ADX Florence. Let him live in an eight-by-ten concrete box where he will never see the sun again.”

Julian let out a ragged sob of despair as Damian’s men hauled the chair backward, dragging him toward the private elevator.

When the doors closed, the penthouse fell completely silent.

Damian turned to me. The fury that had consumed him for the past twelve hours melted away, replaced by an exhaustion so deep it made him look vulnerable for the very first time.

He walked over to where I sat, dropping to his knees before my chair—just as he had on the marble floor of Bellamy House two weeks ago.

He took my bandaged hands in his, pressing his lips gently against the white gauze.

“You should never have had to throw that pot, Emma,” he whispered, his voice thick with regret. “You should have been safe at the estate. I dragged you into my darkness.”

“You didn’t drag me anywhere,” I said softly, reaching up with my wrapped fingers to touch his scarred eyebrow. “I chose to stay. I chose to fight for you. And for Luca.”

He closed his eyes, leaning his cheek into my palm, letting out a long, shuddering breath.

“You saved my life twice,” he murmured. “First by taking the glass meant for my son. And tonight, by saving my soul from becoming the monster they wanted me to be. If you had died, Emma… I would have burned this city to ash.”

“I’m right here, Damian,” I whispered, leaning forward until our foreheads rested against each other. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He opened his eyes, dark and endless, filled with a warmth that completely eclipsed the dangerous billionaire the world feared.