Chapter 7: Unleashed

Chapter 7: Unleashed

The ride back from the gala was a masterclass in suffocating silence. The air in the limousine was thick with Damian’s rage, a palpable entity that pressed in on Elara from all sides. He didn't speak, didn't move. He simply stared out at the blur of city lights, his profile a terrifying landscape of sharp angles and rigid control. The predator she’d glimpsed was no longer hiding; it was sitting right beside her, leashed by the thinnest thread of civility, and she was afraid to even breathe for fear of snapping it.

Back in the penthouse, the tension escalated. Damian shed his tuxedo jacket, tossing it onto a chair with a contemptuous flick of his wrist. He paced the length of the living area like a caged wolf, his movements tight and coiled with a violence that promised to erupt. Elara remained by the door, a statue of terrified uncertainty, her borrowed silk dress suddenly feeling flimsy and foolish.

"Go to bed," he finally ground out, his back still to her. The words were not a suggestion; they were a command meant to clear the battlefield.

She fled, the sound of her own frantic heartbeat loud in her ears. But sleep was impossible. Through the thick walls of her suite, she could hear him for hours—the low, guttural murmur of his voice on the phone, the sharp clang of a glass being set down too hard, the restless, predatory rhythm of his pacing. He was a storm gathering strength just beyond her door, and she lay awake, waiting for the lightning to strike.

The morning brought a false, horrifying calm. Damian appeared in the dining area, dressed for work in a charcoal grey suit that was a perfect piece of corporate armor. His face was a mask of icy composure, the fury of the previous night banked behind his dark, unreadable eyes. If she hadn't witnessed it, she would have thought she’d imagined the entire scene.

"We're going to the office," he stated, sipping his coffee.

Elara stared at him, aghast. "What? After last night? Shouldn't we… stay here? Isn't it safer?"

His gaze met hers, and the cold fire was there, burning deep. "Hiding is a sign of weakness," he said, his voice flat. "It's an admission that he has succeeded in disrupting my life. We will proceed as normal. He will see that his pathetic attempts at intimidation have failed."

It was a power play, a move on his global chessboard, and she was a pawn he was moving back into the line of fire. Arguing was futile. An hour later, she was stepping into the private elevator with him, the familiar descent feeling like a drop into enemy territory.

The lobby of Blackwood Tower was its usual cathedral of corporate ambition. Sunlight streamed through the towering glass walls, glinting off the polished marble floors. People in sharp suits moved with quiet purpose, their voices a low hum of commerce. It was a world of order, of rules, of control.

It was a perfect stage for chaos.

They were halfway across the vast atrium, heading for the main entrance where his car awaited. Damian’s hand was once again at the small of her back, a gesture that was now less about possession and more about pure security. He was scanning everything, his senses on high alert.

It happened without warning. There was no explosion, no shout. There was only a high-pitched, metallic shriek—the sound of powerful machinery being forced past its breaking point.

Elara’s head snapped towards the source of the noise: the massive, multi-paneled revolving door they were about to exit. The gleaming steel and reinforced glass structure began to spin with impossible, accelerating velocity. It became a blur, a terrifying vortex of metal and light, whining like a jet engine. A security guard near the entrance shouted, his voice swallowed by the rising mechanical scream.

Time seemed to slow. Elara saw the blur, understood the danger, but her body was frozen.

Damian reacted with the instinct of a creature born to violence. There was no thought, only action. His arm clamped around her waist like a band of steel, and with a guttural roar, he launched them sideways. He twisted his body, putting himself between her and the impending disaster, and they hit the marble floor hard, the impact jarring through Elara’s bones.

A split-second later, the revolving door tore itself apart.

The sound was apocalyptic. A deafening cacophony of groaning, shearing metal and shattering, bulletproof glass exploding outwards in a deadly spray. A two-ton steel panel, ripped from its moorings, cartwheeled through the air and embedded itself in the marble wall exactly where they would have been standing. Shards of glass, thick as her thumb, rained down across the lobby.

Screams erupted. Alarms blared, their piercing shriek adding to the chaos. Dust and the acrid smell of fried electronics filled the air.

Through the ringing in her ears, Elara was aware of Damian’s weight on top of her, his body a solid, living shield. "Are you hurt?" he yelled over the din, his voice raw.

She shook her head, unable to speak, her gaze fixed on the twisted, smoking wreckage of the doorway. It wasn't an accident. It was an execution attempt, theatrical and sadistic, played out on the public stage of Damian’s own fortress. Thorne hadn't just made another move; he had tried to kill her.

Damian rolled off her, rising to his feet in a single, fluid motion. He stood amidst the carnage, his suit covered in a fine layer of white dust, a small cut bleeding freely from his temple. But his eyes… his eyes were perfectly calm. It was a terrifying, absolute calm, the kind found at the epicenter of a hurricane. All the rage, all the tension, had coalesced into a single point of cold, lethal purpose. The pretense of control didn't just vanish; it was incinerated.

Security guards were rushing towards them, shouting into radios. Employees were cowering behind desks. But Damian seemed to exist in a separate reality. He ignored the chaos he stood within, pulled out his phone, and dialed.

Elara pushed herself up onto her elbows, watching him. This was it. This was the moment of transformation. The businessman was gone, stripped away by the violence, and what remained was something elemental and terrifying.

"Kaito," he said, his voice cutting through the alarms with chilling clarity. It held no anger, no panic. It was the voice of pure command. "He crossed the line. Full protocol."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the destruction, over the place where Elara nearly died.

"I want his assets frozen, his network dismantled, his reputation incinerated. Activate our contacts in every regulatory agency, every media outlet. I want him legally and financially crippled by sunrise. I want him isolated, penniless, and alone. I want him to watch everything he has ever built turn to ash."

He started walking towards the wreckage, his steps sure and steady, a king surveying a battlefield.

"And Kaito," he added, his voice dropping to a low, intimate promise of violence. "When he has nothing left but his fear… bring him to me."

He ended the call and finally looked down at Elara. His face was a mask of stone, but his eyes were blazing with a dark fire that was both terrifying and hypnotic. The monster was fully unleashed, no longer a whisper in the dark but a roaring inferno in the light of day. He was a ruthless, lethal predator, and he was fighting for her.

And as he reached a hand down to pull her from the floor, she had to ask herself the question that would define the rest of her life. He was this—this terrifying force of nature, this purveyor of darkness and ruin.

Could she love the monster? Or was she just his most cherished possession, the prize he would go to war for?