Page 68 of The Billionaire’s Contract Bride

Chapter Fifteen: No Mercy

Mercy had always been a weakness in Augustus Blackthorne’s vocabulary and a calculated variable in Damien’s. Aria wanted it to become a choice.

When Damien stood on the precipice of extreme violence, she did not ask him to become harmless. She asked him to decide who he wanted to be after the rage receded. The question followed him like a specter—Damien had spent years believing restraint meant surrendering power, but Aria forced him to face another reality: that having the absolute power to destroy someone and choosing not to might be the ultimate form of control.

The first guard collapsed before the estate’s emergency lights painted the smoke-filled corridor in strobing red.

Aria sprinted toward the sound of Damien’s voice, but Victor lunged from the shadows and snagged the back of her dress. Silk tore cleanly. Without hesitation, Aria whipped around and slashed downward with the sewing scissors she had pulled off the vanity.

The razor edge opened Victor’s forearm. He released her with a sharp scream. “You little bitch—”

A suppressed gunshot struck the plaster an inch beside his head, startling Aria into dropping the scissors.

Damien stood at the far end of the hallway, framed by swirling gray smoke. Blood trickled down his left temple. His gun remained aimed at Victor with unnatural, lethal steadiness.

“Take your hands off my wife.”

Victor raised both blood-stained palms. “She is not yours, Damien.”

“Correct,” Aria said, stepping out of Victor’s reach. “But you should still listen to him.”

Damien’s eyes found hers. For a fraction of a second, raw relief broke through his icy facade, exposing just how close he had come to losing control entirely.

Then automatic gunfire erupted from the grand staircase behind them.

Damien closed the distance instantly, driving Aria behind a heavy marble pillar. He used his own body as a shield as concrete chips rained down around them.

“Are you hit?” He demanded, checking her face.

“No.”

“The bruise on your head—?”

“We talk about that later,” she snapped.

He reached into his jacket and pressed a secondary firearm into her hands.

Aria recoiled. “I don’t know how to shoot this!”

“The safety is off,” Damien said calmly over the deafening noise. “Point it at anyone who enters this corridor without calling your name first. Do not place your finger on the trigger unless you intend to kill them.”

“Where are you going?”

“To end this.”

Aria caught the lapel of his tailored shirt, holding him back. “Come back.”

The words spilled out before her pride could stop them. Damien looked down at her hand gripping his fabric.

“That sounds dangerously like a request.”

“It’s an order.”

His mouth brushed her forehead—one fierce, brief press of lips amidst the gun smoke. “Then I will obey.”

A guard burst through the smoke behind them, aiming at Damien’s back. Before Aria could react, Lucien materialized from the stairwell and drove the butt of a tactical rifle into the man’s throat, sending him crashing into the drywall.

“Move, now!” Lucien ordered Aria. He grabbed her arm, yanking her away from her relative safety, as well as away from Damien.