EMMA
The sedation had been a calculated insult—a low-dose toxin designed not to put me under for hours, but to paralyze my will just long enough for Damien to prove he could touch me whenever he pleased.
I woke up back in the penthouse, my head throbbing and my side burning where the dart had broken the skin. Gabriel was a silhouette against the floor-to-ceiling glass, his back to me. The air in the room was so thick with his fury it felt like walking through a swamp. Every muscle in his back was corded, a map of repressed violence.
"He didn't take me," I rasped, pushing myself up from the silk sheets. My voice felt like it had been dragged through gravel.
"No," Gabriel said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. He didn't turn around. "He wanted you to wake up here. He wanted you to know
