Emma's POV
The storm outside had finally broken sometime before dawn, but the one inside me lingered, slow and trembling. When I opened my eyes, the apartment was washed in the soft, muted blue of early morning. The city stretched beyond the windows, slick with rain, glowing with the first movements of waking life—but everything felt strangely quiet.
Too quiet.
I stretched my fingers toward the other side of the bed, expecting warmth, expecting Damian, expecting that steady, grounding presence that had become the axis of my nights. But my hand met nothing except cold sheets.
Right.
He had barely slept—if he slept at all.
Last night replayed itself in fragmented images: the way his jaw tightened when he told me the security breach wasn't random, the old name—Ethan—re-emerging like a ghost with blood still dripping from its memory, the flicker of fury beneath Damian's composure, the way his hand trembled when he thought I wasn't looking.
He wasn't afraid for himself.
