Damian's POV
The empty bed shouldn't have hit me as hard as it did.
I had seen worse. Pack violence. Territory disputes that ended in body bags. Boardroom betrayals that cost men everything they'd spent decades building. I had learned early that attachment was a liability and sentiment was a slow poison for men who needed to make clean decisions.
But the sound Aria made when she stepped into that room—
Not a cry. Not a gasp. Just a small, quiet collapse of breath, like something load-bearing had given way inside her chest without warning.
That sound did something to me I wasn't prepared for.
I glanced through the room fast, the way I'd trained myself to do since I was twenty-two and learned that survival meant reading a scene before your emotions got to vote. Stripped b
