Lena's POV
The knock came at midnight.
Not one of his men this time. I knew the difference now — his men knocked once, sharp and functional. This was different. Two knocks, deliberate, with a pause between them that felt almost like hesitation.
I lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling.
Then I got up.
I opened the door and found Damian standing in the corridor in a dark shirt, no jacket, looking like a man who had been sitting alone with his thoughts for too long and had finally run out of patience for his own company.
"Come," he said.
Not a command exactly. Something quieter than that.
I followed him.
He led me downstairs and into the informal sitting room at the back of the house — not his office, not the formal spaces he used for business. This one was smaller, warmer, a
