Chapter 237: The Insecurity Of Devil's Woman

His free hand shot out, his long, brutal fingers wrapping around the nape of her neck, hauling her upward with sudden, terrifying force until her tear-streaked face was inches from his.

His obsidian eyes bore into hers, unhinged and wild.

”Do you think an apology fixes this?” he breathed, his voice vibrating with a terrifying, fractured fury. “Do you think crying on the floor brings back what died in Pennsylvania? Your stupidity cost us everything, Anastasia! You broke this family into pieces!”

His grip tightened in her hair, holding her captive against his chest, his breath hot and ragged against her parted lips.

”And yet you come here,” Damian rasped, his voice dropping into a dangerous, possessive growl that trembled with agonizing self-hatred. “You come back into my wreckage, begging on your knees, expecting me to cast you out. But you don’t get to leave, Anastasia. Not after what you cost me. You are mine to punish, mine to keep, and mine to bleed with. You will never walk out of my sight again.”

He yanked her flush against his chest, burying his face brutally into the curve of her throat, his blood staining her pale skin as he held her in a suffocating, unbreakable vise in the dark.

The darkness of the ruined penthouse remained heavy, thick with the sharp tang of copper, stale scotch, and rain washing down the panoramic glass.

Damian did not loosen his grip. His fingers stayed locked in the dark silk of her hair, his forearm banded like iron across her lower back, pinning her so hard against his heaving chest that the buttons of his torn dress shirt pressed bruises into her skin.

He didn’t speak another word of comfort. There was no gentleness in him—only the raw, territorial fury of a man who had clawed through his own flesh and found her still kneeling in the blood.

Ana stayed pressed to him, her cheek resting against the harsh curve of his collarbone, listening to the violent, erratic thunder of his heart. She felt the wet smear of his split knuckles against her bare shoulder, the heat radiating off him like a dying furnace. She didn’t struggle against his punishing hold. She took every ounce of his weight, his cruelty, and his fractured pride, letting the silence bind them together in the debris.

Slowly, the adrenaline that had fueled his rampage began to leach from his limbs, leaving behind a cold, shuddering exhaustion. His breath came slower, harsher, rattling in his throat.

Ana pulled back slightly, just enough to look into his face.

His features were carved from brutal shadow, dark eyes hollowed out, staring down at her with unblinking, feral intensity.

”Damian,” she said quietly, her voice hoarse from crying but steadying with each passing second. “Look at your hands.”

Damian didn’t look down. His gaze remained welded to her mouth, his jaw ticking. “They’re fine.”

”They’re bleeding through the floor,” Ana said. She didn’t ask for permission. She placed her hands flat against his chest, pushing gently to create space, then reached down to carefully peel his blood-caked fingers from the back of her dress. “Get up.”

A low growl rumbled deep in his throat at the loss of contact, but he didn’t fight her.

He rose to his full height with slow, deliberate menace, towering over her once more. Even stripped of his jacket, covered in sweat, dirt, and blood, his presence filled the room like an oncoming storm.

Ana took him by his uninjured forearm, guiding him past the overturned consoles, over the crunch of pulverized crystal, and down the wide corridor toward the master wing.

The master suite had been spared his frenzy, standing immaculate and cold.

She led him directly into the cavernous bathroom, where stark, recessed lighting reflected off pristine white Calacatta marble. Under the bright, sterile glow, the damage was laid bare: his knuckles were torn raw, slivers of glass embedded in the thick calluses of his palms, dark trails of blood running down his wrists and staining the cuffs of his bespoke shirt.

”Sit,” Ana commanded softly, pointing to the wide edge of the freestanding stone soaking tub.

Damian stared at the tub, then at her, before lowering himself down. He sat with his elbows braced on his knees, his broad shoulders hunched forward, his eyes tracking her every movement like a hawk watching prey.

Ana turned on the polished brass tap, letting the warm water run. She moved around the room with quiet purpose, retrieving clean linen towels, antiseptic, tweezers, and rolls of sterile gauze from the vanity cabinets.

She brought a small porcelain basin of warm water to the floor, kneeling between his spread knees.

The moment she touched his right wrist, Damian’s left hand shot out.

His calloused fingers clamped around the back of her neck, pulling her roughly forward until her hazel eyes met his obsidian gaze. The grip wasn’t meant to hurt, but it was inescapable—an unyielding anchor reminding her exactly who owned the air she breathed.

”You don’t touch another man, Anastasia,” he rasped, his voice a gravelly, lethal warning that echoed against the white marble. “Not Sullivan. Not a single soul. You stay under my roof, where I can see you.”

Ana looked at the raw agony and possessive madness swirling in his eyes.

”I’m right here, Damian,” she murmured, refusing to look away. “I’m not going anywhere.”

”You run again,” Damian whispered, his thumb pressing hard against the tender curve beneath her ear, “and I will tear down whatever city you hide in. You will stay right here and watch what I become.”

”I know,” she answered softly.

His grip on her neck didn’t vanish, but it settled into a heavy, claiming weight, resting against her skin as he allowed her to tend to him.

Ana picked up his right hand, submerging his raw knuckles into the warm water. A sharp hiss escaped his teeth as the crimson bloomed in the basin, clouding the clear liquid.

With steady, delicate fingers, she took the metal tweezers and began the agonizing work of extracting the small shards of crystal embedded in his flesh. Damian didn’t flinch. He didn’t make a sound. He simply kept his heavy, dark gaze locked onto her face, watching her dark eyelashes sweep down, watching the quiet concentration etched across her pale features.

She dabbed antiseptic onto a clean cloth, pressing it against the deepest lacerations on his knuckles. The sting must have been excruciating, but Damian’s hand remained steady, held captive in her small, careful grip.

”You knew the entire time,” she said softly, not looking up as she carefully rolled white gauze around his palm. “In Pennsylvania.”

Damian’s jaw hardened, his hand twitching slightly beneath her touch.

”I sat in a sedan three streets away from that clinic for forty-eight hours,” Damian confessed, the words torn out of him, sharp as jagged glass. “I had the medical records pulled before the ink was dry on the charts. I knew you were bleeding. And I wanted to walk through those doors, put a bullet in every doctor who couldn’t stop it, and drag you back by your hair.”

Ana paused, her fingers trembling against the bandages, her throat tightening at the image of him sitting in the cold Pennsylvania rain while she lay alone in that ward.

”Why didn’t you?” she whispered.

Damian leaned down, his face inches from hers, his dark eyes burning with that terrifying, ruthless possessiveness that defined him.

”Because I hated you for losing it,” he whispered, the brutal honesty slicing between them like an open wound. “And because I hated myself more for giving you a reason to walk away.”

Ana swallowed the ache in her chest, securing the final strip of adhesive tape across his wrist. She smoothed the gauze down, then gently brought his bandaged knuckles to her lips, pressing a quiet, lingering kiss against the cotton.

Damian went completely rigid.

His fingers flexed beneath the wrapping, his obsidian eyes dilating until there was barely any light left in them. Without a word, he reached down with both hands, hooked his arms beneath her thighs, and hauled her clean off the floor onto his lap, burying his face into the crook of her neck as his bandaged hands locked her against his chest.

The white marble bathroom was dead silent, save for the faint hum of the city lights bleeding through the frosted high glass.

Ana sat stranded in his lap, straddling his thighs on the wide rim of the stone soaking tub. Her midnight-black gala dress was rumpled, dusted with faint debris from the destroyed living room, her bare back exposed to the cold air of the room while Damian’s massive, bandaged hands held her anchored to his chest.

His breathing had leveled, but the heat coming off him was suffocating. His face remained buried against the soft curve of her throat, inhaling the familiar scent of jasmine and rain lingering in her skin.

Ana stared past his broad shoulder, her hazel eyes tracing the sterile white tiles. The memory of the news ticker at Julian’s townhouse flashed behind her eyes like neon poison.

The video.

Vivian’s crimson mouth pressed against his.

Millions of voices demanding his wife be replaced.

The cold ache of insecurity, the very poison that Vivian had planted in her veins four years ago, flared back to life in her chest.

”Damian,” Ana whispered, her fingers resting lightly against the rough fabric of his torn collar.

He didn’t lift his head. “What?”

”The video from backstage.”