The attack didn't come loudly.
It arrived as silence.
Elias noticed it first when his phone stopped buzzing no messages, no calendar sync, no background hum of the city's digital pulse. At first, he thought it was a network glitch. Then his access badge failed at the private elevator.
That had never happened before.
He didn't panic. Panic was what predators relied on.
Instead, Elias stepped back, breathing evenly, scanning the underground garage. Too quiet. Too clean. Even the security cameras felt… angled.
He took his phone out again.
No signal.
"Damien," he murmured, though he knew Damien couldn't hear him.
That was when the voice came from behind him.
"You walk like you expect the ground to obey."
Elias turned slowly.
Marcus Vale stood near a concrete pillar, jacket open, posture relaxed too relaxed for a chance encounter. Two men lingered in the shadows behind him, nondescript, watchful.
Elias didn't flinch. "You're bolder than I expected."
Marcus smiled. "You underestimate how much I dislike losing."
Elias folded his arms loosely. "If this is a threat, you're doing it poorly."
"Oh, this isn't a threat," Marcus said lightly. "It's a conversation. One Damien refuses to have."
Elias's gaze sharpened. "Then have it with him."
Marcus took a step closer. "I'm having it with you."
Elias felt the danger then not physical, not yet but reputational, strategic. Marcus didn't want blood.
He wanted leverage.
"You think Damien chose you because he's evolved," Marcus continued. "Because he's braver than the rest of us."
Elias held his ground. "He chose me because he wanted to."
Marcus chuckled. "He chose you because you're soft where he's sharp. And that makes you useful."
The words were meant to burrow under skin. Elias didn't let them.
"You're wrong," Elias said quietly. "I'm not soft."
Marcus's eyes flickered interest, then calculation. "No," he agreed slowly. "You're not. Which makes this unfortunate."
One of the men behind him shifted.
Elias moved first.
He stepped back sharply, drawing attention, his voice carrying. "This garage is monitored. You touch me, and you won't walk away."
Marcus sighed. "You're bluffing."
Elias smiled faintly. "So are you."
Sirens wailed in the distance too close, too fast.
Marcus stiffened.
Elias hadn't called them.
Damien had.
Because Damien always knew.
Marcus's expression hardened. "This isn't finished."
"No," Elias agreed. "It's just no longer private."
Marcus stepped back, melting into the shadows with his men just as security vehicles flooded the entrance.
Damien arrived minutes later.
He crossed the space with lethal calm, took Elias's face in his hands, and searched him eyes, throat, wrists checking for damage.
"I'm fine," Elias said softly.
Damien didn't answer until he was certain.
Then his voice dropped, dangerous and quiet. "He came for you."
"Yes."
Damien closed his eyes once. When he opened them again, something cold and final lived there.
"He crossed the line," Damien said.
Back in the penthouse, the walls felt closer, the silence heavier. Damien moved like a man restraining a storm controlled, precise, but vibrating beneath the surface.
Elias watched him, heart pounding.
"You're angry," Elias said.
"Yes."
"With me?"
Damien turned sharply. "Never."
"Then look at me," Elias said.
Damien did.
The intensity in his gaze stole Elias's breath.
"You didn't listen," Damien said quietly. "You went alone."
"I didn't have a choice," Elias replied. "And I handled it."
Damien stepped closer. "You shouldn't have to."
Elias placed a hand on Damien's chest, feeling the hard, fast rhythm beneath. "I'm not fragile."
"I know," Damien said. "That's what terrifies me."
The confession cracked something open.
Elias pulled Damien into a kiss hard, grounding, claiming. Damien responded instantly, gripping Elias's waist, kissing him back with a hunger sharpened by fear and relief.
The kiss deepened, slowed, transformed into something intimate and fierce. Damien pressed his forehead to Elias's, breath unsteady.
"I will end him," Damien said quietly.
Elias didn't pull away. "Not recklessly."
Damien's jaw tightened. "He threatened you."
"And you'll destroy him," Elias said calmly. "But you'll do it clean."
Damien studied him. Then slowly he nodded.
"You're not my weakness," Damien said. "You're my restraint."
They moved to the bedroom without urgency this time, tension unraveling into closeness. Damien held Elias like something precious, something earned. Their kisses were slower, deeper less fire, more gravity.
When they finally lay together, Elias traced the line of Damien's jaw with his thumb.
"You don't have to be alone in this," Elias said.
Damien captured his hand, kissing his knuckles. "I'm not anymore."
Outside, the city continued unaware of the war quietly shifting beneath its lights.
Marcus Vale had shown his teeth.
Now Damien Blackwood would show him what happened when predators mistook devotion for vulnerability.
And Elias far from being collateral
Was becoming something far more dangerous.