Several days passed, and the fear refused to loosen its grip. Aria barely slept. Every creak of the penthouse, every shadow across the curtains, jolted her awake. She moved through the days in a fog of exhaustion, jumping at small sounds and checking the locks twice before she could relax enough to sit down.
Dominic watched the change with growing concern. He knew the kind of tiredness that came from fear—it hollowed people out from the inside, leaving them raw and unsteady. He had seen it before in subs who had been through too much, and he recognized the signs in the way Aria’s hands trembled when she reached for her coffee, in the way her eyes stayed glassy even after she blinked.
One evening, after she had pushed her dinner around her plate without eating more than a few bites, he m
