My Father’s Enemy, My Obsession

Chapter Three – Blood & Lies[Part 1]

The next gunshot is so close that it punches through the leather seat inches from Ava’s head.

She flinches. Damian doesn’t.

“On your knees!” someone bellows across the room. “Hands where I can see them!”

The emergency lights strobe red, turning the underground auction into a jagged slideshow—shadows lunging, glittering gowns smearing across black marble, and men in suits with guns instead of champagne.

Damian’s fingers tighten on her jaw for a fraction of a second, like he’s checking she’s still there, still breathing.

Then, his hand drops to her wrist.

“Up,” he says. “Now.”

“Are you insane?” The words slice out sharper than she intends.

“Frequently.”

He hauls her up with him, keeping her tucked against his side. To anyone watching, she’s just a shaken lover being dragged to the exit. To her, he feels like a moving wall of steel and control.

“Head down,” he murmurs. “Stay on my left.”

“Why—”

“Because my right is where the gun is,” he answers, already steering her into the aisle.

Her heart slams against her ribs.

At the base of their section stands a man in a cheap suit with dead eyes and a gun sweeping the crowd. Two more guards hover by the main exits. One of The Axiom’s original door staff lies facedown near the doors, blood pooling under his cheek.

The gunman spots them.

“Hey!” he snaps. “You two—stop.”

Damian doesn’t stop.

He doesn’t even speed up.

Ava feels the subtle shift of his body, the way the loose, bored posture disappears. The hand on her shoulder tightens, just shy of painful.

“Keep walking,” he murmurs. “Smile if you can manage it.”

Her lips bare in something that isn’t quite humorous.

The gunman’s shoes slap against the marble as he comes closer. “I said stop—”

Damian finally turns his head, regarding him with a flick of cool disdain.

“If you’re here for the Moretti girl,” he says, voice carrying without shouting, “wasting time on random couples is a poor strategy.”

The man hesitates.

Recognition flickers when he really *sees* who he’s talking to.

“Kade,” he breathes.

The room shifts around them—a current of attention. Some eyes are calculating. Some hungry. Half the people here would happily carve Damian up and sell the parts.

“Unless,” Damian adds lazily, “you’re planning to shoot everyone tonight. In which case, by all means, start with the councilman in row B. He’s overdue.”

A strangled sound comes from the front rows.

The gunman’s grip tightens on his weapon, then loosens again. Orders war with survival instinct in his eyes.

“We’re looking for the Moretti girl,” he repeats. “She’s here. Crest on the wrist. Dark hair. Boss wants her alive.”

Cass’s voice sputters weakly back to life in Ava’s ear, full of static. “Ava—signal—jammed—get—out—listen to—”

Ava keeps her head angled down, hair veiling most of her features, the mask hiding the rest. Damian’s thumb presses once into the top of her arm. Stay still.

He shifts just enough to bring more of his body between her and the barrel of the gun.

“And what exactly,” Damian asks, almost amused, “do you think Moretti will do to the men who drag his daughter out of here bleeding?”

The gunman swallows.

“We’re not afraid of—”

“You should be,” Damian cuts in, calm as ice. “I don’t know him personally, but I know what *I’d* do if someone touched something that belonged to me.”

Belonged.

The word hits harder than the gunshots—sharp, invasive. Something low in her stomach tightens before she can crush it.

The gunman’s gaze flicks from Damian to Ava, then back.

Behind them, the auctioneer is shouting for calm. People are sobbing, screaming, and shoving for exits. The room is a pressure cooker.

“If you’re smart,” Damian continues, voice gliding over the noise, “you’ll double-check your information before you start dragging random women around. Otherwise you’re about to have Kade and Moretti problems at the same time. That’s bad for business.”

The man’s jaw clenches.

“Look at her,” Damian says. “Designer dress. No guards. Sitting in C-seventeen. Do you think Vince Moretti lets his daughter walk into hell alone as a casual bidder?”

The lie is clean. Effortless.

For a second, Ava almost believes it, too.

The gunman falters.

“Get out,” he snaps finally, jerking his chin toward a side corridor. “We’re locking this place down. Now.”

Damian doesn’t argue.

He just steers Ava toward the door, pace unhurried, like he’s acquiescing out of irritation, not fear. As they pass the gunman, Damian’s free hand brushes the small of her back, guiding her.

“Don’t run,” he murmurs. “Prey runs.”

They reach the door. The guard wrenches it open, glaring at them on their way out.

“Go.”

They step into a narrow side corridor, dimly lit by flickering strips. The door slams behind them, muffling the chaos to a dull, ugly roar.

Ava exhales in a hard rush.

Damian doesn’t slow.

“Wait,” she says, fingers catching his sleeve. “Where are you—”

He turns and pins her to the wall in one motion, one arm braced beside her head, the other locking around her hip to keep her still.

“Next time,” he says, voice low and very close, “if a man with a gun tells you to stop, you stop. And you let the person who knows how to handle it handle it.”

Her eyes flash. “I was handling it until you interfered.”

“By painting a twenty-million-dollar target on yourself?” His mouth curves, humorless. “We have very different definitions of ‘handling.’”

She yanks her wrist free, the concrete cold at her back. “I had it under control.”

He laughs once, quiet and sharp. “You were one second away from outbidding me in a room full of people who’d gut you for that drive before you reached the door.”

“So why do you care?” she snaps. “You got it. Congratulations. Enjoy your new blackmail toy.”

His gaze sharpens. “Do you have any idea what’s actually on Lot Seventeen?”

“Enough to make men like you very rich,” she says.

“Enough to make men like your father very dead,” he corrects softly.

The words land like a blow.

Up close, his face is all hard lines and precision. No softness. No mercy. Just a man used to counting the cost of everything.

“Who sent you, Moretti?” he asks. “Because I know Vince, and he doesn’t risk the daughter he never acknowledges on his balance sheet.”

Her breath snags. “You don’t know anything about my family.”

“Don’t I?” His gaze drops deliberately to her wrist. Reflexively, she curls her hand in. Too late. “Your tattoo says otherwise.”

“What do you want?” she asks, forcing the words out tight.

“Oh, *now* you want to talk about wants?” he says, a sliver of amusement back in his voice. “You walk into an illegal auction for a drive you don’t understand, under a fake name, with a very real crest on your skin. The question is what *you* wanted, Ava.”

Her name in his mouth is a violation. Intimate and dangerous.

“I wanted information,” she says. “Same as you.”

“Wrong.” His eyes don’t leave hers. “I want control. You wanted a way out.”

Anger and something too close to truth twist together inside her.

A muffled shout rattles the door they came through. Closer now. A bang. Someone curses.

They don’t have time.

Ava shoves off the wall, her shoulder hitting his chest. He shifts half a step to the side, more instinct than permission.

“I’m leaving,” she says. “You got what you came for. We’re done.”

“You think you can walk out, and they just… forget you?” he asks mildly. “You heard them. They know Vince’s crest. They know you’re here. They don’t stop at the door, Ava.”

“I’ll manage,” she bites out.

His voice drops. “No. You won’t.”

He blocks her path down the corridor with his body.

“Get out of my way.”

“No.”

The word lands as solid as the wall behind her.

“Why?” she demands. “So you can call my father and tell him you saved his daughter, and he owes you? Is that what this is?”

Something ugly flickers across his face at Vince’s name. Not interest.

Contempt.

“My relationship with your father is not something I leverage with party favors,” he says. “If I wanted Vince to owe me, it wouldn’t be for walking his careless daughter to the car.”

Her cheeks burn. “Careless—”

“Reckless. Unprepared. Arrogant,” he counts off, unbothered. “Talented—but not enough to survive a room like that alone.”

White-hot anger flares. “You don’t get to call me—”

“Do you have a gun?” he cuts in.

“What?”