Blurred gold and white city lights streaked across the car’s tinted glass, bleeding into the dark velvet of the night sky. The leather seat beneath me felt unnervingly cold, far too empty for the charged silence filling the vehicle.
Damian sat motionless beside me, his profile sharp and unreadable against the glowing window. His eyes were closed, giving the false impression of rest—but I knew better. He wasn’t sleeping. He was dissecting every second of tonight’s chaos, filing away every reaction, every rival’s crack in composure, every new variable in his play.
This silence was not calm. It hummed with leftover adrenaline, unspoken calculations, and the heavy, unspoken weight of what I’d just proven.
I lifted my gaze, and my eyes locked with Ava Winter’s in the rearview mirror for a sp
