Damien’s POV (Elias Reed)
The first rule of survival: know when your lies begin to show.
Meera hadn’t said it outright, but I had seen it in her eyes. The sharpness of her questions, the way her lips pressed tight when I told her “not now” about calling her parents, the stiffness in her shoulders when I intercepted her phone. She was doubting me.
And doubt was dangerous.
I couldn’t lock her away forever. The more I tightened my grip, the more she would wriggle against it. A woman like Meera couldn’t be smothered; she had to be dazzled. Distracted. Convinced.
So I told myself the solution wasn’t to loosen control, it was to change the stage.
If she thought I had cut her off from her world, then I would give her the illusion of opening the doors again. I would give her family, her frie
