He tried to sit up. A sharp, tearing pain ripped through his chest, forcing a low, guttural groan from his lips. He fell back against the pillows, his chest heaving.

Finn, his executive assistant, jumped up from the chair beside the bed. He slammed his hand onto the nurse call button. "Boss, don't move. You've been unconscious for two days."

Damian ignored the pain. His hand shot out, his large fingers wrapping around Finn's wrist with terrifying, bone-crushing force.

"Where is she?" Damian's voice was a raw, gravelly rasp.

Finn winced at the pain in his wrist. "When our team secured the mountain, there was no one else. Just you, and six highly trained assassins bleeding out in the mud, completely incapacitated."

Damian slowly released his grip. He fell back against the headboard. His mind flashed back to the torrential rain. The slender figure. The baseball cap. The ruthless, beautiful violence of her movements.

He pressed his hand against his chest, right over the bandages. The wound that should have killed him was already itching, the tissue knitting together at an impossible speed.

The lead doctor rushed into the room, holding a tablet. He looked at Damian's vitals, his eyes wide with absolute shock.

"Mr. Yates, this is impossible," the doctor stammered. "There is an unknown cellular-repair agent in your bloodstream. This technology... it's at least twenty years ahead of anything in the medical field. What did you inject?"

Damian's eyes turned into shards of ice. He glared at the doctor.

Finn understood instantly. He grabbed the doctor by the arm and shoved him toward the door. "You saw nothing. Level-one NDA. If a word of this leaks, you're dead."

The door clicked shut. The room was silent again.

Damian reached over and violently ripped the IV needle out of the back of his hand. A drop of blood welled up on his skin. He threw the covers off.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His bare feet hit the cold hospital floor.

The man the entire city believed to be paralyzed stood up. His posture was perfectly straight, his massive frame dominating the room like a waking lion.

He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, staring down at the rainy streets of Seattle.

"Use every underground contact we have," Damian ordered, his voice echoing off the glass. "Find the woman from the mountain."

Finn bowed his head. "Yes, sir." He hesitated for a second, pulling a tablet from his jacket. "Sir... the board of elders is pressing the Lott family marriage issue again."

Hearing the name "Lott" made Damian's stomach churn with physical disgust. His mind was entirely consumed by the phantom touch of the woman in the rain. The idea of being chained to an arranged marriage made him want to break something.

"The Lott family sent an update," Finn continued nervously. "They are swapping the bride. Instead of the adopted daughter, they are sending a recently recovered illegitimate daughter from the countryside."

Damian let out a harsh, cruel laugh. "They think I'm a recycling bin for their garbage? They think they can just toss some trailer-park trash into my bed?"

He turned away from the window and sat down heavily on the leather sofa. His long fingers began to tap a slow, rhythmic beat against the armrest. A sign that someone was about to suffer.

"Prepare the jet," Damian said coldly. "I'm going to Redwood City."

Finn looked up in surprise. "To punish them?"

"To throw their pathetic contract right in their faces," Damian sneered. "I'm breaking the engagement personally. I will not have any woman's name attached to mine." He was saving that spot for the woman in the rain.

At that exact moment, in the guest house of the Lott Estate, Aurora had just finished her shower.

Her encrypted phone buzzed on the bathroom counter.

She picked it up. A message from K. Stone glowed on the screen. It was a single string of digits. Damian Yates's private, highly classified phone number.

A satisfied smirk touched Aurora's lips. She had her weapon.

She walked out of the bathroom, drying her hair with a towel, ready to make the call that would sever her ties to the crippled tyrant forever.

Chapter 5

You might like