Elena stared at the screen long after the video ended.
The silence in the room was deafening, the hum of the laptop the only sound. Her chest rose and fell in slow, deliberate breaths, but her hands were steady. Steadier than they had any right to be.
She wasn't angry. Not anymore.
Anger was too soft for what she felt.
She closed the laptop, stood, and walked to the window. The early morning light crept in, brushing her face with gold. The city was waking. But something in her had gone quiet. Focused. Centered.
Serena wanted a reaction. A fracture. A storm.
But Elena wasn't giving her that.
She was going to give her the fall.
***
That night, the house was unusually quiet.
No strategy. No whispers of the war between her and her pasts.
Just Damien.
He found her in the kitchen, barefoot in silk, sipping red wine with no urgency at all. The fire in her eyes was banked, but not gone. She looked up as he entered, and for once, there was no armor between them.
"I thought you'd be reading legal memos by now," he said, leaning against the counter.
"I thought you'd be brooding in the dark with a drink."
He raised his glass. "I already did that. Now I'm onto... better company."
Elena didn't smile, but her lips parted like the beginning of one.
"You ever wonder," she said softly, "what it would've been like if we met before all this?" She asked as she thought back to her previous life—before the lies, before the fire, before the blood.
Damien stepped closer. Not fast. Not intense. Just deliberate.
"No," he said. "Because I wouldn't have liked you then."
She tilted her head. "And now?"
"Now I like that you bite before you bleed."
The air between them tightened. She could feel the heat of him, could hear the pause in his breath.
His hand came to rest gently on her waist. Not possessive. Not hesitant. Just real.
"You keep looking at me like that," she whispered, "I might think you're putting too much into the pretense of our fake engagement."
"Maybe I am."
She didn't move when he leaned in, his mouth brushing hers like a question.
She answered.
The kiss wasn't sweet. It was slow, and sharp, and inevitable.
Her fingers found his collar, pulled him closer. His hand slid up her spine. Every part of her felt awake.
For one perfect moment, the fire that consumed her didn't burn.
It warmed.
That one kiss broke the silence between them.
Not like a crack. Like a vow.
He didn't rush her.
Damien kissed her the way someone studies a language they've always wanted to speak—careful, patient, reverent. His hand moved to her jaw, tilting her face just enough for his mouth to take hers deeper, and she let him. God, she let him.
Her glass hit the counter behind her, forgotten.
She pressed into him, her silk robe catching on the edge of his belt. His hands roamed her sides, not greedy but thorough, as though he'd been waiting to memorize the shape of her.
"You're dangerous," he murmured against her skin.
"I warned you," she breathed.
He chuckled low, kissed her collarbone, her throat, the corner of her jaw. "I like dangerous."
She reached for the hem of his shirt, fingers curling into the fabric, sliding it up over his torso. He let her pull it off, eyes locked on her the entire time like he didn't quite believe this was happening—and wasn't about to stop it.
The robe slid off her shoulders, pooling at her feet.
He didn't say a word.
He looked at her like she was something carved from smoke and vengeance and velvet. Then he kissed her again, and it was no longer soft.
It was hunger.
Hands tangled in hair. Breath tangled in breath. She pressed him back against the counter, then turned, leading him toward the bedroom like a dare.
They didn't make it that far.
The hallway wall became a backboard. She gasped as he pinned her wrists above her head, kissed down the length of her throat, his body anchoring hers like a promise.
Every second was fire.
Every touch rewrote something broken.
When they finally reached the bed, it was with the desperation of two people who had spent years waging wars they didn't start, and finally found something—someone—they could claim as real.
He undressed her like a birthday gift. She pulled him down like a command.
And when they moved together, it wasn't just physical.
It was grief and power and longing fused into something wild. Something that made her feel alive in a way nothing else had since the fire.
No roles.
No revenge.
Just two souls colliding in the dark, teeth and tongue, sweat and skin, all rhythm and release and the kind of silence that means something's being rebuilt in the ashes.
Afterward, they lay tangled together, her head against his chest, his fingers drawing invisible shapes across her shoulder.
For once, she didn't think about Serena.
Or Lucas.
Or the fire.
Or the future.
Just the sound of Damien's breath. And her own. And the steady, terrifying, perfect calm of being held by someone who didn't try to fix her.
Only saw her.
"You still think you wouldn't have liked me back when you were still engaged to her?" she asked, voice husky, worn.
Damien kissed the top of her head. "I think I'd have liked you too soon. And ruined it."
She didn't answer. But the way she curled into him said everything.
Because for the first time in two lives, Elena didn't feel alone.
***
Damien
She was asleep beside him now.
Bare shoulders tangled in sheets, cheek pressed to his chest, breath soft against his skin. And Damien Voss—the man known for steel deals and colder blood—couldn't stop staring at her.
It wasn't about the sex.
Not really.
It was the silence after. The way she'd let herself collapse into him, like her body trusted him before her mind could catch up. Like he was something safe.
He wasn't.
He'd told her as much, once.
But watching her now, skin still warm from him, lashes fluttering in dreams she didn't share.
For once, he didn't feel dangerous.
He felt tethered.
Damien ran a hand slowly down her back, memorizing the quiet strength in her muscles. Even in sleep, she wasn't soft. She was battle-hardened. Like a flame held in a closed fist.
And she had kissed him like she had nothing left to lose.
He understood that feeling better than most.
When she'd asked what it would've been like if they'd met before all this, before he was almost tricked by her family and betrayed by his so called fiancé—he hadn't lied.
He wouldn't have liked her.
Because he wouldn't have known what to do with a woman from that family.
Not when he was still trying to figure out who he was behind his father's shadow. Not when his world was still shaped by people who taught him power meant control, not connection.
But this Elena?
The one who didn't act tenacious like Serena, the one who had been played by her own sister and fiancée. The one now made of fury and grace?
He didn't just like her.
He respected her.
And maybe that was what scared him.
Because Damien had power. He had resources. He had plans.
But he didn't have people. Not really. Not anymore.
And somehow, without thinking twice, she'd walked into his house, his war, his life—and made space for herself like she'd always belonged there.
She stirred slightly against his chest. He froze, but she only sighed and nestled closer.
God help him.
He wanted her to stay.
She didn't stir again that night.
But Damien stayed awake beside her, one arm around her bare shoulders, the other behind his head, eyes fixed on the ceiling like it held the map to a future he hadn't planned.
She had crept past his defenses without trying.
And he wasn't sure if that made her the most dangerous woman he'd ever met since he had come back Ten years earlier… or the most necessary.
Just before sleep pulled him under, he whispered something he didn't mean for her to hear.
But maybe she did anyway.
"I'll burn the world before I let them touch you again."
And in the quiet, Elena—half-asleep, half-wrecked, and more whole than she'd felt in two lifetimes—tightened her fingers around his.
Not out of fear.
Out of trust.
And that was the most dangerous vow of all.