******
The afternoon passed in a strange haze. Aria returned to her room, intending to rest as Damien had commanded, but sleep was impossible. Her mind wouldn't stop spinning.
She pulled out her laptop and tried to focus on research, mapping out the greenhouse locations, studying security protocols, planning her eventual heist. But the words blurred together, meaningless against the weight of everything else.
Her mother was dying.
Damien knew she was lying about something, even if he didn't know the full extent.
She was falling for him with a terrifying intensity that made rational thought nearly impossible.
And tonight, he was going to push their physical relationship even further, binding her to him in ways that would make walking away even more devastating.
You should stop this, a voice in her head whispered. You should end it before it goes any further. Before you're in so deep you can't see the surface.
But even as she thought it, she knew she wouldn't. Couldn't.
