Closer

Chapter 5：Attack

The night was dark. The wind was colder than I had expected. As it blew through my dress, I immediately regretted not insisting on changing back into my own shoes.

Damian noticed I had slowed down a little.

"Hurting?"

"No," I said. "It's just that these shoes are trying to murder me."

He looked down and gave a faint smile. "Noted. I won't pick these next time."

"Next time?"

"You just said you haven't decided whether to give me a second chance."

My steps faltered.

The man had an annoyingly good memory.

Waves lapped against the guardrail beyond. The sea air tasted of salt and damp cold. I pulled my hand out of his palm and gripped the rail instead. As the cold metal touched my skin, I suddenly remembered the rusted pocket watch.

I couldn't afford to lose myself in front of him.

"You don't seem to like the sea," Damian said.

I turned back quickly. "Doctors usually don't like late nights, cold wind, or ill fitting high heels."

He looked at me but didn't call me out right away.

That was another thing that made him dangerous. He never rushed to press. He just waited quietly, as if he always knew others would eventually show their cracks.

I didn't want to give him that chance.

"That night," I said, keeping my voice soft. "Why did Lorenzo act like that?"

Damian's gaze shifted from the sea to my face.

"You're still afraid of him?"

"A man said in public that I should be dead and nearly killed me." I looked at him. "I think I have the right to be afraid."

His eyes darkened a little.

"Yes, you do."

I waited for him to continue.

Damian was silent for a moment before he spoke. "Lorenzo's father, Marco, took a bullet for me years ago. He asked me to take good care of his son before he died."

"So you raised him."

"I looked after him," Damian corrected. "That doesn't mean I approve of him."

His words were so cold they didn't sound like he was talking about a child he had raised.

I lowered my eyes, hiding the sharp flicker of satisfaction in my chest. Lorenzo was not his weakness. At least not the kind I had assumed. That was better than I had hoped.

"Has he always been like that?"

"Like what?"

"Out of control. Volatile. Like he could hurt someone at any moment." I paused, then added, "Or like he already has."

Damian gave me a deep look, like a sudden undercurrent beneath the surface.

I immediately realized I had asked too quickly.

So I smiled and deliberately lightened my tone. "Sorry. Occupational habit. Emergency doctors always want to know where the danger is coming from."

"You've encountered plenty of dangers tonight."

"Including you?"

"Especially me."

I should have stepped back after that line. But he was standing too close. The wind carried his scent toward me, cedar and tobacco mixed together. In that moment, I actually thought danger could have a temperature.

How terrible.

I was about to speak when a sudden burst of engine noise roared in the distance.

That sound was nothing like the waves. It was fast, like a blade slicing through the night.

Damian's expression changed in an instant.

"Elena, come here!"

Before I could react, a pair of headlights tore into my eyes.

The white light nearly shredded my vision. The next second, a black sedan jumped the curb like it had lost control and barreled straight toward us.

"Damian!"

His arm locked around my waist and yanked me aside. The world flipped. Wind, screeching brakes, the scream of tires on asphalt all crashed together. I fell into his chest, my back slamming against the cold stone steps at the roadside. Pain flashed across my eyes.

But Damian didn't let go.

The car's front grille scraped past the guardrail. The shriek of metal hurt my eardrums.

"Get down!"

Damian's voice pressed against my ear, terrifyingly calm.

The moment I lowered my head, gunfire erupted.

The first shot was so close it felt like it had exploded inside my chest.

My whole body went stiff and my blood nearly stopped flowing.

The car door was kicked open. Several men in black jumped out with guns raised. They didn't shout warnings. They fired directly at Damian without hestitation.

This was not a threat. They want to kill him.

Damian pulled me to my feet and shielded my head with his arm. "Stay close."

"Your hand—"

"Not now, Dr. Moore!"

He dragged me into a narrow alley. My high heels struck the stone slabs. Every step felt like it would snap my ankle. The dress tangled around my legs and almost tripped me. Damian spun back, grabbed my waist, and hauled me behind a wall.

Bullets hit the streetlamp behind us. Glass shards rained down like drops.

He covered me with his body. In that moment, I smelled blood on his shirt. Not much, but enough to make my chest tighten sharply.

"You're hurt?"

"A graze."

"I haven't checked!"

"So for now you'll have to trust the patient's statement."

Even at a time like this, he could still talk back.

I was so angry I wanted to curse at him, but the next round of gunfire was already closing in. Damian pulled me forward again. As we rounded the corner, a black SUV screeched to a stop. Several men jumped out, raised their guns, and fired back.

"Boss!"

Damian shoved me into the SUV and climbed in after me.

The moment the door shut, I realized my hands were shaking.

The vehicle tore away. The gunfire faded behind us. The sea wind, the lights, the crashing waves all turned into blurred shadows. I looked down and saw that the sleeve of Damian's suit jacket on his left arm had been torn open. Blood seeped through, staining the white shirt cuff dark.

Doctor's instinct once again overpowered fear.

"Damian, take off the jacket!"

Damian looked at me calmly.

"It's time to check your wound," I said in a tight voice. "Don't make me repeat myself."

He was silent for two seconds. Then he pulled off the jacket.

I tore open his sleeve and examined the wound. Luckly, it was just a graze. The bullet hadn't gone in, but the skin had been scraped open. The blood looked worse than it was. I pressed down on the bleeding point and grabbed gauze from the emergency kit inside the car.

"Who were those people?"

"Enemies."

"Do you have so many enemies they need to be categorized?"

His gaze fell on my trembling hands. "Tonight isn't a good time for explanations."

"I was almost run over by one of your enemies."

"That's why I'm taking you somewhere safe."

I looked up and asked, "What do you mean?"

Damian turned to the driver and said coldly, "Go to the estate."

My hands stopped.

"No."

"Elena."

"You can drop me off up ahead." I tried to sound like a stubborn woman who had just been frightened. "I'll take the subway home."

The car went quiet for a moment.

Damian looked at me as if I had just told an absurd joke.

"Those people just saw you with me."

"So what? We're just doctor and patient."

"That's what you think." His voice dropped lower. "They won't see it that way."

My heartbeat slowed and sank.

He continued. "If they can't find me for a while, they'll look into you. It won't take them long to find your hospital, your address, your friends. They won't ask if you're a doctor. They'll only ask how important you are to me."

I opened my mouth, but no words came out right away.

Those words stopped every argument I had, like a cold hand around my throat.

I had thought I had calculated the danger clearly enough. But the gunfire just now reminded me that Damian's world did not operate on ordinary logic. It didn't give you time to prepare.

I could already picture those people finding my shift schedule, waiting at the back door of St. Mary's Hospital, or following Marcus's car after his night shift.

The image sent a chill through my stomach.

I could gamble with my own life. But I could not drag Marcus into the same bet.

"So you're locking me up?" I asked.

"Protecting you."

"Those sound the same."

"The difference is huge." He looked at me and explained, "Locking you up is about control. Protecting you means I don't feel comfortable leaving my lifesaver exposed to danger."

I should have kept refusing.

As an ordinary doctor caught in an accident, I had to refuse. I had to be afraid and resist. I had to make him believe I didn't want to get anywhere near the Rosso estate.

But my heart thumped hard in my chest.

The estate.

Lorenzo.

I had thought it would take much longer to stand in front of that man again. I hadn't expected a hail of gunfire and a smear of blood to hand me the chance so soon.

I wrapped the gauze tight, and hid the gleam in my eyes that shouldn't have been there.

"Do you always make decisions for other people?"

"Only right after they've nearly been killed by my enemies."

"Sounds like you have principles."

"Very few," he said. "But yes."

I looked up at him.

He had no idea what this decision meant to me.

He thought he was dragging me into danger. He didn't know I had been waiting for this chance. I just had to bury my excitement beneath fear and show no sign of anything unusual.

The light inside the car was dim. His face looked paler than usual from blood loss. But his eyes were still calm, as if the gunfire, the blood, and the death just now were all just an ordinary part of his life.

I suddenly understood. He had not been making an invitation or a request. He had been making a decision.

Outside the window, the city lights receded little by little. In the distance, the outline of the Rosso estate slowly emerged through the darkness. The lights looked like a silent cage. They also looked like a door that had finally opened.

I looked down at the blood on my fingertips.

It was Damian's blood.

But the name rising in my mind was only one.

Lorenzo.