Chapter 5 - Whispers in the Dark
Tucked inside the dimly lit safe house, Leah refused to sleep unless I held her hand. Every time I tried to pull away, her small fingers tightened instantly. Damian sat across the room by a bank of surveillance monitors, cleaning a dark steel sidearm with calm, mechanical precision. The contrast between his lethal aura and the tenderness he showed Leah was overwhelming. "She spoke for you because she remembered," he said quietly, breaking the silence. "The scent of your lotion... the rhythm of your heartbeat. She buried it deep inside, but she never forgot."
I looked at him, feeling the sharp sting of lost time. "Two years, Damian. Two years I spent staring at an empty nursery." He looked up, his dark eyes filled with a raw, unexpected remorse. "I didn't know, Elena. On my life, if I had known Victor slaughtered your happiness to build mine, I would have killed him two years ago." For the first time, I saw Damian not as a feared mob boss, but as a victim of the same elaborate trap that had stolen my life.
