The waiter—Leo, a ghost from an underground firefight six months ago whose torn shoulder I had stitched back together without anesthesia—didn’t hesitate when my fingers clamped onto Damian’s sleeve. The silver tray tilted. Sunlight refracting through the crystal champagne flutes splintered into blinding shards across the marble floor.

The city lights outside the massive floor-to-ceiling windows were fading as a pale gray dawn broke over Boston Harbor. The sprawling, minimalist space felt less like a home and more like an executive war room, guarded by men stationed outside every entry point.

I sat on the edge of a massive, dark leather sofa, holding a steaming mug of black tea that one of Damian’s housekeepers had silently handed me before vanishing.

Damian walked out of his private en-suite bathroom, having changed into a fresh black shirt, his sleeves still half-rolled. In his hand, he carried a damp cloth and a small first-aid kit.

He walked over, kneeling down directly on the rug in front of me without a word.

"Damian, I can do it," I murmured, pulling back slightly as he gently took my wrist, inspecting the ugly purple bruises forming around my throat where Scarface had choked me.

"Stay still," he commanded softly, his touch surprisingly gentle as he pressed a cold, medicated compress against my bruised skin. The coolness stung, but the radiating heat from his fingers chased away the lingering tremors.

"You didn't have to bring me here," I whispered, staring down at the dark expanse of his hair and the rigid line of his shoulders. "I have my own apartment."

"Your apartment was breached three weeks ago by one of Mercer's scouts," Damian said flatly, not looking up.

My breath caught. "How do you—?"

"I told you, Elizabeth. I know everything that happens around my people." He finally looked up, his dark gray eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made it difficult to breathe. "And after tonight, you are not 'my people' anymore. You are under my personal protection."

"That sounds dangerously close to being a hostage," I challenged, though the lack of heat in my voice betrayed my exhaustion.

A faint, humorless smile touched the corners of Damian’s mouth.

"If you were a hostage, Elizabeth, you wouldn't be sitting on my couch drinking tea with my men guarding the door. You’d be locked away where nobody could ever look at you." He paused, his gaze dropping to my lips for a fraction of a second before snapping back to my eyes. "Instead, I brought you to the only place in Boston where I can guarantee you won't be touched."

"Because you want me alive to patch up your bullet wounds," I muttered.

Damian reached out, his thumb gently tracing the line of my jaw, stopping just beneath my chin.

"I kept you downstairs in the clinic for two years because I thought keeping you hidden was keeping you safe," Damian murmured, his voice dropping into a husky, hypnotic register. "Tonight, I watched you spot an assassin across a crowded room in a crimson dress, take down a gunman, and survive a tactical ambush. You don't belong in the basement, Elizabeth. You never did."

Before I could process the words, a sharp, urgent chime echoed from the secure communications console mounted on the far wall of the penthouse.

Damian’s eyes instantly hardened. The vulnerable, intense man kneeling before me vanished in a heartbeat, replaced once again by Boston’s most feared mafia boss.

He stood up, walking swiftly toward the console.

Miller’s voice crackled through the speaker, breathless and grim.

"Boss. We broke the cleaner. Mercer isn't just hitting your docks... he's moving on the central vault tonight. And he has an inside man."

Damian stared at the glowing red tactical map on the screen. Then, slowly, he turned his head and looked straight at me.

"Who?" Damian demanded into the comms.