Chapter 136 - ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX

Chapter 136: Chapter ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX

ANGEL

"Daddy," I whispered urgently now, pressing the phone so hard against my ear, "Daddy, I’m—I don’t know where I am. Damien has me. There’s a forest everywhere, and guards, and I can’t—I don’t know how to leave—"

"Listen to me." His voice cut through my panic, steady and commanding. "I’m going to find you. Do you hear me, Angel? I’m going to bring you home."

Home.

The word wrapped around me like arms I couldn’t feel, then I heard him barking out commands to someone on the other end, his voice sharp with urgency. Then a curse, the sound of something crashing in the background.

Two crashes. The second one was coming from outside the bathroom.

"Angel, I know you have my phone." Ines again, firmer now, the patience bleeding out of her voice. "If you give it back now, I won’t tell the Master what you’ve done." I could hear the sound of keys jiggling against the lock.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

I didn’t think she had a spare set.

My fingers fumbled across the screen, clumsy with adrenaline, my hands shaking so badly I could barely navigate.

I couldn’t risk it.

If Ines saw the call and told Damien, Daddy might be in danger. Everything could fall apart before it even began.

I searched the call history. There. I deleted Daddy’s number, then deleted it from recently deleted, my eyes scanning rapidly through the screen again just to be sure. I wiped my face with the back of my hand, just as the door pushed open.

Ines stood in the doorway, her expression cold now, taking in my red-rimmed eyes and trembling hands.

"Hand it back," she ordered. "Now."

I obediently placed the phone in her palm without a word.

"Don’t tell him. I didn’t call a-anyone," I whispered, letting the spill over. It was not hard to fake when half of them were real. "There’s no one to call. I have no one out there who gives a shit about me. So can you not tell Damien? Please?"

She studied me for a long moment, her dark eyes unreadable. I held my breath, a brief flash of something passed through her gaze. Sympathy, maybe. Or pity. Either way, it worked in my favor.

"Just don’t do this again," she said finally, her voice softer than I’d ever heard it. "I’ll let it slide this time, but only because of your current condition."

Condition?

What the hell was she talking about?

She was already turning away, pressing a bottle of water into my hands along with some pills that were supposedly meant to help with the nausea. Then she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her.

My knees gave out the second her footsteps faded. I barely made it to the bed before I collapsed, my whole body shaking with the force of what I was holding inside. I shoved my face into the pillow and screamed—it came out muffled, but this time the tears that soaked into the fabric weren’t from grief.

They were from happiness. Pure, overwhelming, impossible happiness.

Daddy was alive.

But did Damien know?

That was the question that kept nagging at me, picking at the edges of my joy like a needle prick. Had Damien lied to me about Vincenzo being dead? Or did he truly believe it? There was a difference—a crucial one. If Damien knew Daddy had survived and was hiding it from me, that meant he was prepared. On guard. Expecting an attack.

But if he genuinely thought Vincenzo was dead...

Then he had no idea what was coming for him. I needed to find out which one it was.

I must have dozed off at some point. When I opened my eyes, the light had changed. Late evening now, and the air felt heavier somehow. Damien was sitting on the edge of the bed.

Watching me.

I jerked upright so fast the room spun, then I frowned for being so startled.

"You’re such a weirdo," I spat before I could think better of it.

He chuckled, "Wasn’t it you who missed me? Ines called sounding quite worried. Said my little Angel was feeling unwell." He reached out to brush a strand of hair from my face, his fingers trailing down my cheek with deceptive gentleness. "I had to wrap things up early and rush home just for you. So here I am. Devoted as always."

I jerked away from his touch like it burned. "I didn’t ask you to come."

"No?" His grey eyes studied me with an intensity that made me want to shrink back, to hide, to disappear entirely. "Then why did you ask her to call? Were you playing tricks again, baby girl? Scheming in that pretty little head of yours?"

Damien had a way of staring like he could see straight through my skin to every secret I was keeping. For a terrifying moment, I was certain he knew. That Ines had told him everything despite her promise. But his expression held only curiosity, not the cold fury of someone who’d discovered his prisoner had contacted the enemy.

"I felt a bit ill, that’s all," I forced the words out, meeting his gaze with all the defiance I could muster. "I never asked you to come. My life already sucks, and it gets worse every time you’re around."

"Such foul words from such a pretty mouth," he said slowly, a wicked gleam entering his eyes. "If you won’t use it to say nice things to me, I can think of much better uses for it." He cocked his head, studying me like a cat watching a cornered mouse. "Might improve that shitty attitude of yours. Works every time."

I said nothing. Just glared at him with all the hatred I could muster.

He sighed again, "And here I thought you missed me. My mistake, clearly."

"Yes. Your mistake." I scoffed, perhaps it was because I now knew that Daddy was alive, but I felt more emboldened than I had in the last few days. "I don’t miss you. I never miss you. Every moment you’re gone is a fucking blessing. I pray for longer absences."

Damien pressed a hand to his chest with exaggerated hurt, his grey eyes dancing with dark amusement. "From loving me devotedly to this. Such a tragic downgrade. How the mighty have fallen." He shook his head with a sadness that didn’t reach his eyes. "We had something beautiful, Angel. Before Vincenzo poisoned you against me. Why can’t you see that everything I did was for us? Every single thing."

My heart stuttered at the name. Vincenzo. There it was—the opening I needed.

I watched Damien’s face carefully, searching for any flicker in his mask.

"It wasn’t him who poisoned me," I said, letting real anger bleed into my voice. "You lied to me. You manipulated me from the very beginning. You killed my parents and blamed Vincenzo for it. Everything between us was built on lies!"

"Was it?" He cocked an eyebrow, utterly unbothered by my outburst,

"You’re a monster."

"Maybe." He shrugged, lazy and unconcerned. "But I’m a monster who loves you. So don’t act so surprised when monsters do monster things. It’s kind of in the job description." A dark smile curled at the corner of his lips. "You don’t hire a wolf and then complain when it eats the sheep, sweetheart. That’s just poor planning on your part."

He was definitely crazy in the head. Completely, utterly unhinged. When did I ever hire him in the first place? I never asked for any of this. Never signed up to be kidnapped, manipulated, broken down and rebuilt into something that fit his twisted vision of love.

But more importantly, I needed to push harder to find out how much he knew about Vincenzo. For this, I would have to poke at the wound and see if it bled.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

"It was easier for me to love Daddy," I said, purposely using the name that always made Damien’s jaw clench, "He wasn’t as crafty as you. He gave up his life trying to save me, and that makes me love him even more." I paused, letting the words sink in. "If only he was alive. He’d definitely get me away from here sooner or later. How long do you think you’d be able to keep me if Daddy was alive, Damien? A week? A month before he burned this place to the ground with you inside it?"

There.

I watched the shift happen in real time, Damien’s entire demeanor changing in an instant. His eyes hardened into chips of grey ice, the lazy amusement vanishing, turning his features into something genuinely terrifying.

Real anger. Dark jealousy. The kind that burned hot enough to consume everything in its path.

And that told me everything I needed to know.

If Daddy was truly dead, he would have responded with that cocky arrogance of his. He wouldn’t waste a single second before rubbing it in my face.

But he didn’t.

He looked rattled. Like I’d poked at a wound he was trying desperately to pretend didn’t exist.

Now, this was interesting, turnedout I wasn’t the only predictable one in this fucked-up arrangement.

"What did I say about that mouth?"