Chapter 4 - MIDNIGHT SHADOWS
By the end of her first week as personal attendant, Alina had learned the rhythm of Damon’s nocturnal habits. While the rest of the mansion went dark by midnight, the light beneath the third-floor study door always remained on until the early hours of the morning.
It was 2:30 AM when insomnia drove Alina out of her narrow bed. Her palms were still tender from the glass shards, throbbing with a dull, persistent ache. Needing water, she padded silently down the carpeted hallway in her bare feet, wearing a simple oversized linen sleepshirt.
As she passed the grand staircase, a low, strained sound echoed from the direction of the study.
It wasn't the sound of an intruder. It was a guttural, choked intake of breath—a sound of intense physical or mental agony.
Alina froze. Her instincts screamed at her to turn around, to crawl back into her bed and pull the blankets over her head. But the memory of that choked sound pulled at her heartstrings. Even monsters bled.
She crept down the corridor. The heavy double doors to the study were unlocked—a rare slip-up by a man who paranoidly secured everything. She pushed the door open just an inch, peering into the dim, amber-lit interior.
The sight that met her eyes made her breath catch in her throat, freezing her completely in place.
Damon Vulkoff was sitting in his high-backed leather chair, his suit jacket discarded, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. His head was thrown back against the leather headrest, his eyes squeezed shut in a mask of dark, private torment. One of his large, calloused hands was buried deep inside the waistband of his trousers, moving with a slow, agonizingly rhythmic friction.
He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving with every ragged intake of air, a sheen of sweat glistening across his sharp jawline and collarbones.
Alina’s mind short-circuited. The virginal, sheltered girl from the orphanage felt a scorching heat rush up her neck, flooding her cheeks with a violent crimson flush. She should have closed the door. She should have run. But her feet were glued to the floorboards.
Damon’s head suddenly snapped toward the door.
His grey eyes locked onto the crack where she stood. They weren't cold now; they were dark, dilated, and blazing with a raw, feral hunger that made her entire body tremble.
He didn't pull his hand away. Instead, a dangerous, low chuckle rumbled deep in his chest.
"Like what you see, little mouse?" he rasped, his voice thick with a dark, intoxicating lethargy.
Alina’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped sledgehammer. She couldn't look away. The sheer forbidden magnetism of the mafia boss exposed in his most vulnerable, primal state held her completely captive.
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"I... I didn't mean to—" she stammered, her voice barely a whisper.
"You never mean to," Damon interrupted, his voice dropping an octave as he shifted in his seat, his hand remaining trapped where it was, openly defying every rule of power and control he usually wielded. "You just keep showing up where you don't belong. Step inside, Alina. Close the door."
