Aria pov
He took my free hand in both of his hands and held on with a grip that would have hurt if I'd had any capacity to notice over the shoulder, his eyes moving over my face like he was cataloguing damage, and I watched him try to pull himself back and not quite manage it.
"You stopped talking," he said. "The wire went quiet and you stopped"
"I dropped the earpiece." I kept my voice steady and clear. "The shot came from the wrong angle — it caught my shoulder. Marcus" I glanced across the room, then back to him. "It's over. He's gone. Damien, look at me. It's over."
He looked at me. And I saw it — the thing underneath all the devastation, the thing that had been running this whole time — not just fear but love, enormous and uncomplicated, the kind that doesn't leave room for walls or distance or any of the careful management he'd spent years hiding behind. Every bit of it right there on his face, completely visible, and for a moment I just let myself look at it.
