Chapter 168: The Slave Chose The Devil

​"I don’t want your blind trust, and I don’t want forty percent hidden away in European shadows," Ana stated, her hazel eyes glittering with ruthless clarity. "I want you to use your liquid capital to buy out the entire remaining block of Xander and Hall’s liquidated shares the second Frankfurt opens on Monday. I want you to step in as Sterling Global’s single highest external shareholder."

​Delgado stared at her, genuinely stunned. A bewildered laugh slipped from his throat.

​"Are you insane?" Delgado asked, shaking his head. "I offered you an independent empire. Co-chaired by you. Under your family’s name. Why the hell wouldn’t you take those shares for yourself? Damian is your husband... or fiancé, whatever act you two are playing. By all rights, he should have signed half the corporation over to you the day you married him."

​Ana’s lips parted in a cold, radiant smirk, her head tilting back with aristocratic pride that made the emeralds at her neck gleam like polished ice.

​"And let high society call me a gold digger?" Ana scoffed softly, her voice pure, untamed fire beneath the crisp night wind. "Let the financial columns print that Anastasia Vance only sits at the table because she traded her body for a portfolio? No, Mike. I build my fortune on my own. With no man’s charity, and no man’s permission."

​Delgado watched her, mesmerized. "Then what do you want from him?"

​"I don’t need his money," Ana whispered, her hazel eyes burning with fierce, unapologetic truth. "I just want his devotion. His absolute, undivided love. Everything else... I can take it on my own."

Behind the frosted glass of the terrace doors, Damian’s fists clenched so tightly the leather seams of his watch groaned under the strain. Every muscle along his ribs locked rigid, the burning pull of his wound swallowed whole by the raw, volatile shock surging through his chest.

​I just want his devotion. His absolute, undivided love.

​He didn’t wait in the shadows another second.

​The heavy glass door slid open with a sharp, definitive click. Moving with silent, predatory grace, Damian crossed the moonlit terrace. Before Mike Delgado could even take a breath to greet him, Damian stepped directly into Anastasia’s space.

His heavy arm came around her waist from behind, his large hand splaying wide over her hip to haul her spine flush against the solid wall of his chest. It was an unmistakable, bruising declaration of ownership, daring Delgado to look at a single inch of her bare skin.

​Delgado merely chuckled, raising his hands in mock surrender, his sharp eyes flicking between them. "Damian. Right on cue."

​"You’ve lingered enough on my terrace, Delgado," Damian rasped, his gravelly voice dripping with lethal territorial dominance. "My security detail will escort you to the valet bay. The transfer protocols for the traitors’ shares will be in your inbox before Frankfurt opens. Be ready."

​Delgado offered Anastasia a slow, knowing incline of his head. "A pleasure doing business with you, Mrs. Sterling. Goodnight, Damian."

​The moment Delgado’s footsteps faded down the grand stone staircase, Damian didn’t let go. He kept his arm clamped around Ana’s waist like an iron band, steering her through the VIP corridor and down the private elevator straight into the armored car.

​Inside the leather interior, the silence was suffocating. Damian didn’t look away from her. His obsidian eyes pinned Ana to the opposite corner of the seat, burning into her with a dark, heavy intensity that made the air between them feel thin.

His jaw was set like carved granite, his hand resting possessively over hers, his thumb tracing the blue vein of her wrist with a steady, rhythmic pressure that felt less like comfort and more like a tether.

​When they entered the penthouse, the chandelier light caught Valerie sitting by the marble dining island, a glass of wine in hand. She looked up, tracking their entrance.

​"Well?" Valerie asked, raising an eyebrow. "Did the old lions sign?"

​Damian didn’t break stride, his arm still firm around Ana’s waist as he commanded the room with sovereign arrogance. "The traitors are finished. Ana cut Gilbert and Genevieve to ribbons before the main course, and Delgado is absorbing the remaining block at market open."

​Valerie’s lips parted in genuine astonishment, nodding slowly in respect. "Well done, Anastasia."

​Damian didn’t wait for pleasantries. He guided Ana down the hallway and directly into the master suite, shutting the heavy mahogany door with a resounding click before turning the deadbolt.

​The silence returned, thick and electric.

​Damian shed his tuxedo jacket, tossing it carelessly onto the leather armchair. He turned to face her, the soft city lights silhouetting his massive frame as he unbuttoned his cuffs. The lethal CEO was gone; in his place stood the man whose pride she had just fractured into pieces.

​A low, dark chuckle rumbled from his chest... a mocking, sharp sound that held no genuine warmth.

​"You really are a brilliant strategist in the boardroom, Anastasia," he murmured, his gravelly voice silky and cruel as he closed the distance between them. "And an absolute, utter fool in the dark."

​Ana’s hazel eyes narrowed, her chin lifting with stubborn defiance. "What are you talking about?"

​Damian stopped inches from her, towering over her until his shadow swallowed her whole. He reached out, his rough knuckles tracing the cold emerald choker at her throat before sliding up to grip her jaw, his fingers biting into her soft skin with bruising, unyielding intent.

​"I heard you on that terrace," he rasped, his eyes flashing with a wicked, dangerous amusement. "Delgado offered you forty percent of Sterling Global. An independent fortune. Power in your own name. You could have taken those shares, Ana. You could have used that leverage to force my hand, paid back the hundred million dollars you owe me, and shredded that slave contract to ash. You could have bought your absolute freedom from my cage."

​His thumb pressed hard against her parted, swollen lower lip, forcing her to look directly into the pitch black abyss of his gaze.

​"Instead, you threw away an empire for the one thing on this earth I told you doesn’t exist," he whispered, his tone a velvet blade, mocking her sentimentality while his body burned with feverish possession. "You traded your freedom for my devotion? For my love?"

​He pulled her closer, his chest pressing flush against hers, his ragged breath scorching her ear as his grip on her jaw tightened.

​"I told you I am hollow, Ana. I don’t do love. I conquer. I consume. So if you want my devotion... look around you. You are locked in this room with a devil, and you just gave away the only key that could have ever saved you."

His fingers moved to the nape of her neck, deftly releasing the hidden platinum catch. The heavy heirloom emeralds fell away with a muted clink onto the mahogany vanity, leaving her throat bare to the amber glow of the city skyline.

​Damian looked down at the pale expanse of her skin. The dark, blooming purples of the marks he had left earlier... the fierce imprint of his fingers, the brutal sting of his teeth... stood out like a feral signature.

​"Men who love their wives let them go when things get dangerous, Ana," Damian murmured, his gravelly voice dropping to a dark, hypnotic cadence. "Men who love are gentle. I am neither of those things. What I have for you will burn us both to the ground before I ever let another man touch what is mine. I am already yours. But not like a fairy tale. But like an addiction to a poison."

​Before she could form a breath to answer, his broad hands clamped around her waist. With effortless, unyielding strength, he hoisted her off the floorboards and set her down firmly onto the high marble edge of the vanity counter, stepping between her parted thighs to crowd her against the gilded mirror.

​His rough thumb stroked the sharp line of her jaw, tilting her face up until she had no choice but to drown in the pitch black abyss of his eyes.

​"You’re a fool, Anastasia," he whispered, the edge of his lips curving with dangerous, intimate cruelty. "Delgado offered you freedom. You could have walked away from my cage with half the city in your pocket. Instead, you told him you wanted my heart. Don’t you realize that makes you just as mad as I am?"

​Ana’s hazel eyes flared with cold, untamed fire. She refused to look away, refused to let the intoxicating heat coiled between her thighs dull the sharp blade of her pride.

​She reached up, her manicured nails digging directly into the crisp cotton over his shoulders, bracing herself against his suffocating weight.

​"Don’t flatter yourself, Damian," she spat, her voice trembling slightly with breathless defiance, though her gaze remained glass sharp. "You think I stayed because I harbor some pathetic, romantic fantasy about fixing a monster? I don’t feel a damn thing for you."