Episode four: Too close to Breathe
771 Words
Elena hated how aware she was of him.
Every room he entered, every shadow he passed through—her skin seemed to tighten, her senses sharpening like she was being hunted. But it wasn’t fear that clutched at her.
It was something worse. Something she didn’t want to name.
She’d been around dangerous men before. But Damian Blackwood didn’t just feel dangerous—he was. He didn’t have to raise his voice or lift a finger. He didn’t have to touch her. He just had to look.
And God help her, she liked when he did.
It was nearly closing time when it happened.
She was behind the bar again, wiping down the surface with tired arms and an aching back, when his voice cut through the low music like silk on steel.
“Elena.”
She turned.
He was standing at the edge of the bar, jacket off, sleeves rolled just enough to show the ink trailing up his forearm. She’d never seen him like this—less polished, more real. Like he’d stopped playing a part for a moment.
“I need a word,” he said.
She didn’t ask why.
She just followed.
They moved through a side hallway she hadn’t been in before. At the end was a glass door with a silver handle and no label. He opened it, gesturing for her to step inside first.
The room was quiet. Warm. Private. A low fireplace flickered along one wall, and two leather armchairs sat facing each other. No cameras. No staff. No noise from the club. Just them.
“What is this place?” she asked, voice soft.
“My office,” he replied. “For certain kinds of conversations.”
She turned to face him. “And what kind are we having?”
He didn’t smile. He stepped closer instead.
“Elena,” he said slowly, “you keep looking at me like you’re afraid I’ll do something to you.”
“Aren’t you planning to?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “If I were, you wouldn’t be standing here.”
That should’ve scared her. Maybe it did. But something else was crawling under her skin. A heat that made it hard to think.
“I don’t trust you,” she said.
“Good. I don’t trust anyone.”
“And yet you keep dragging me into your world.”
He moved closer again. Close enough that she could smell him—clean, expensive, and sharp, like cedar and cold metal.
“I didn’t drag you,” he said. “You walked in.”
He reached for something on the desk behind him, and when he turned back, he held out a small black velvet box.
She stared at it. “What is that?”
“A favour.”
She didn’t take it. “Why?”
“Because someone left a message for you in the alley last night. A warning. And I don’t like messages delivered on my property.”
Her stomach dropped. “You said nothing happened.”
“I lied.”
She took the box with shaking fingers and opened it.
Inside was a bullet.
Nothing else.
Just one, clean, cold piece of metal.
She felt her chest tighten. “He found me.”
Damian stepped closer, his voice low. “You don’t have to face him alone.”
She looked up at him then. Really looked. The lines of his jaw. The darkness in his eyes. The calm fury he carried like it was stitched into his skin.
He wasn’t offering protection.
He was offering war.
“I don’t know who you really are,” she whispered. “But I know this—if I let you in, I won’t come out the same.”
His hand came up, slow and deliberate. He didn’t touch her—but his fingers hovered near her cheek, close enough to feel the warmth.
“You think I’m the one you should fear,” he said softly.
“I don’t think,” she replied. “I feel. That’s the problem.”
Their eyes locked.
For a moment, the world shrank to just the space between them—tight, magnetic, impossible.
Then her phone rang.
The sound shattered the moment.
She stepped back, heart racing, breath shallow.
He let her go.
No questions. No demands.
But something had changed in the air between them. The kind of shift that couldn’t be undone.
She didn’t know if she was falling or if she’d already hit the ground.
But one thing was certain.
She’d never been closer to something that could destroy her—
And wanted it anyway.
- Writer
