65
1403 Words
CHAPTER 65 — THE THINGS THAT DON’T WASH OFF
The blood didn’t come off.
Sienna scrubbed her hands until the skin burned, until the water in the sink ran pink and then clear and then pink again—but the feeling stayed. The memory stayed. The sound stayed.
The gunshot echoed in her skull like a second heartbeat.
She stopped scrubbing only when Damien’s hands closed gently around her wrists.
“That’s enough,” he said quietly.
She didn’t look at him. “I can still feel it.”
“I know.”
The bathroom was too bright. Too clean. It made what she’d done feel unreal, like it had happened to someone else—someone colder, sharper, more monstrous.
But it had been her finger on the trigger.
Her choice.
Damien wrapped a towel around her hands, blotting instead of rubbing. Careful. Like she was fragile glass instead of a woman who had just taken a life.
“I didn’t hesitate,” she said suddenly.
He stilled.
“I thought I would,” she continued, voice flat. “I thought I’d freeze or scream or throw up. But I didn’t. I just… aimed.”
Damien lifted her chin so she had to look at him.
“There are moments,” he said, “where survival decides for you. That doesn’t make you a monster.”
Her lips trembled. “What if it does?”
He didn’t answer right away.
That silence scared her more than a lie would have.
⸻
Annabelle slept in the next room.
Alive.
Monitored by doctors Damien trusted more than hospitals. Machines hummed softly, steady and indifferent to the fact that the woman on the bed was supposed to be dead.
Sienna stood at the doorway for a long time, watching her mother breathe.
“She looks smaller,” Sienna whispered.
Damien leaned against the frame beside her. “She’s been through hell.”
“So have you,” Sienna said. “Because of me.”
He turned to her. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t rewrite this like it’s your fault.” His voice hardened. “Dante did this. I did not protect you well enough. That’s on me.”
She shook her head. “You warned me. I walked in anyway.”
“Yes,” he said. “And I would do it again.”
That stopped her.
She turned fully toward him. “You’d let me do that again?”
“I would walk through fire with you,” Damien said simply. “Even if it burns us both.”
Something in her chest cracked open then—not pain, not relief, but something heavier. Something like belonging mixed with terror.
She rested her forehead against his chest.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” she admitted.
Damien’s hand slid into her hair, holding her there. “You’re becoming.”
⸻
The house didn’t sleep that night.
Men moved in low voices. Phones buzzed. Screens lit up with maps and security feeds. Somewhere downstairs, someone broke a glass.
Dante had vanished.
Again.
That was the worst part.
“He wants you to chase him,” Damien said later, sitting across from her in his study. “He’s always enjoyed the hunt.”
Sienna stared at the chessboard between them. Pieces frozen mid-game from a night weeks ago—before everything shattered.
“I don’t want to chase him,” she said.
Damien raised a brow.
“I want him cornered,” she corrected. “I want him desperate.”
A slow, dangerous smile curved Damien’s mouth. “You’re learning.”
She didn’t smile back.
“He knows me now,” she said. “Knows what I’ll do.”
“And he underestimates what it cost you,” Damien replied. “That’s where he’ll lose.”
She reached out, moving a chess piece forward—placing the queen directly in danger.
Damien’s eyes flicked to the board. “That’s reckless.”
“So is letting him think he has control.”
Damien leaned back, studying her like she was a weapon he hadn’t finished understanding.
“You’re not bait,” he said. “I won’t use you that way.”
“I’m already bait,” she said softly. “I just want to choose the hook.”
⸻
Morning came grey and heavy.
Vanessa arrived uninvited.
Sienna heard her heels before she saw her—sharp, purposeful, like she was walking into a room she owned.
“Well,” Vanessa said, eyes sweeping over Sienna with thinly veiled contempt. “I see you’re still alive.”
Damien’s presence behind Sienna was immediate, solid. “Choose your next words carefully.”
Vanessa scoffed. “Relax. I’m here for Annabelle.”
That name still sounded wrong in her mouth.
“You lost that right years ago,” Sienna said, surprising herself with how steady her voice was.
Vanessa turned, eyes narrowing. “You should be grateful she’s alive at all. If not for the chaos you bring—”
Damien stepped forward. “Enough.”
Vanessa smirked. “Or what? You’ll threaten me like you threaten everyone else?”
“I won’t threaten you,” Damien said calmly. “I’ll remove you.”
The room went silent.
Vanessa laughed, brittle and forced. “You think she’s worth all this?”
Sienna didn’t flinch.
“Yes,” Damien said without hesitation. “She is.”
That shut Vanessa up.
She left shortly after, pride wounded but venom intact.
Sienna exhaled only when the door slammed.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said.
“I did,” Damien replied. “And I’ll keep doing it.”
⸻
That night, the house felt too big.
Too many rooms for too many thoughts.
Sienna stood on the balcony, wrapped in one of Damien’s shirts, city lights glittering below like a promise she no longer believed in.
Damien joined her quietly.
“You’re avoiding sleep,” he said.
She didn’t deny it. “Every time I close my eyes, I hear it.”
“The gunshot.”
“And the silence after.”
He leaned his elbows on the railing beside her. “It never fully goes away.”
She looked at him sharply. “How do you live with it?”
“I don’t,” he said honestly. “I live around it.”
She turned to face him. “Does it get easier?”
“No,” Damien said. “But it gets quieter.”
She studied his face—the scars she knew, the ones she didn’t. The weight he carried so effortlessly for everyone else.
“Were you like me,” she asked, “the first time?”
Damien was quiet for a long moment.
“No,” he said finally. “I was younger. Angrier. I wanted it.”
Her stomach twisted. “I didn’t.”
“I know.”
“That scares me more.”
He reached for her hand, threading their fingers together. “It should. It means you still have a line.”
She squeezed his hand. “What if Dante pushes me past it?”
“Then,” Damien said softly, “I’ll be there to pull you back.”
She leaned into him, breathing him in, grounding herself in the warmth of his body.
“Promise me something,” she said.
“Anything.”
“If I start to disappear,” she whispered, “don’t let me become you.”
His grip tightened. “And if I start to lose myself protecting you—don’t let me become him.”
They stood there like that, bound by fear and loyalty and something far more dangerous than love.
⸻
Across the city, in a room that smelled like smoke and oil—
Dante watched security footage on a cracked screen.
Sienna, standing in the warehouse, gun in hand.
The moment she fired.
The moment she didn’t look away.
He smiled slowly.
“She crossed it,” he murmured.
One of his men shifted nervously. “Boss… the Westwoods are mobilizing.”
“Good,” Dante said. “Let them come.”
He paused the footage on Sienna’s face.
“Because now,” he continued, eyes gleaming, “she belongs to the game.”
⸻
And somewhere deep inside Sienna—
Something answered.
Not guilt.
Not fear.
Resolve.
The war hadn’t just begun.
It had chosen her.
- Writer
