Chapter 93: Call from the Facility
The study was too quiet. Damien had been prowling its perimeter for an hour, the silence pressing in like a physical weight. A half-empty glass of Lagavulin sat forgotten on the edge of his desk, next to the vase of black roses. They’d arrived that morning, jet-black petals glistening with faux dew. An impulse. A stupid one. He’d almost thrown them out after her text hadn’t gotten a reply.
His phone, face-up on the mahogany, remained dark.
Vittorio was holed up in his suite. Claire hadn’t left the west wing. Sophia’s pacing from the previous day had finally ceased, replaced by a silence that felt more accusatory than her footsteps. The compound was holding its breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the next threat, the next betrayal. And he was waiting for a phone call.
When the screen finally lit up, vibrating with a soft hum against the wood, her name flashing, he snatched it up so fast he nearly fumbled it.
“Beth.”
There was a beat of static, the faint sound of an airport terminal announcement in the distance. Then her voice, a fraction softer than usual. “Damien.”
The relief was a blunt, physical thing. He leaned back against the desk, the edge digging into his thigh. “You’re alive.”
“I’m on the ground in Newark. Just refueling.” A pause. He could hear her breathing. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. Time got… twisted there.”
“With Elena.” He didn’t make it a question.
“Yeah. It’s easy to lose track. The world outside… it just stops mattering in that room.” Her exhale was a soft rush against the microphone. “How’s the den of vipers?”
A faint smile touched his lips. She was re-anchoring, slipping back into their rhythm. “Quiet. Sulking. Vittorio’s pride is more bruised than anything else. He’s reviewing security protocols like they’re holy texts. Thinks if he finds the right flaw, it’ll undo the fact that his own son put a gun to his head.”
“And Sophia?”
“Stopped pacing. Now she’s just… plotting. I can hear the gears turning through the walls.”
“Claire?”
“Won’t take my calls. Sent a messenger to say she’s ‘in meditation.’ Which is Claire-speak for ‘I’m furious and arming myself with scripture.’” He swirled the remaining whiskey in his glass. “They’re scared. Which makes them volatile. It’s a mess.”
“Your favorite kind,” she said, and there was a trace of old warmth there, the ghost of a shared joke.
“Only when you’re here to help me clean it up.” The words came out more raw than he intended. He cleared his throat. “The silence was worse, you know. Not knowing.”
On her end, a cart rattled by, someone called out a gate number. “I know,” she said simply. Then, “I missed your voice.”
The admission, so quiet and direct, hit him in the chest. He closed his eyes. For years, he’d operated on a diet of calculated threats and orchestrated charm. This—this plain, unvarnished truth—was a language he’d almost forgotten. “The feeling,” he said, his own voice dropping, “is catastrophically mutual.”
He heard the faint click of her seatbelt, the rustle of her jacket. She was in a car now, the background noise smoothing into the muted hum of a luxury engine. “I’ll be at the compound in forty minutes.”
“Tell your driver to take the east gate. I’ve cleared it.”
“Always managing the perimeter.”
“Always.” He paused. “Beth.”
“Hmm?”
He wanted to ask a hundred questions. What did Elena say? Did she warn you away from me? Do you see me as just another part of the cage? Instead, what came out was, “I love you.”
The silence on the line stretched. Not empty, but full. He could picture her face, the slight part of her lips, the way her eyes would soften before she schooled her features.
When she spoke, the words were just a breath. “I love you, too.”
It wasn’t a surrender. It wasn’t a solution. It was just a fact, suspended between them in the digital space, as complicated and undeniable as the rest of their lives. The line clicked, and she was gone.
Damien lowered the phone. He looked at the black roses, their unnatural color absorbing the lamplight. An apology that never arrived. A gesture that missed its mark. He picked up the vase, its crystal heavy and cool in his hand. He carried it to the study’s window, which overlooked the main drive, and set it on the sill.
A beacon. A welcome. A warning.
He stood there in the dark room, waiting for the first sight of her headlights to cut through the tree-lined avenue, the words she’d given him playing on a loop in the quiet of his mind. They didn’t fix anything. They didn’t promise a future. But for now, for the next thirty-eight minutes, they were enough to make the waiting feel like something other than agony. They made it feel like a beginning.