Chapter 198: Devil’s Slave’s Silent Surrender

Damian’s jaw tightened until the bone ached. He crushed the butt of the cigarette into the marble ashtray, the embers hissing and dying in the dark.

He picked up the crystal glass, drained the remaining scotch in one brutal swallow, and stared out into the black expanse of the night.

In less than forty-eight hours, the doctor would arrive. A single vial of blood would seal her fate, pulling the iron bars shut around them both forever.

And as Damian stared down at his own calloused hands—the hands that had cast her into the mud, the hands that now held her life captive—a terrifying, suffocating certainty settled in his chest.

He had sworn a decade ago to make her life a living hell.

He just hadn’t realized that in dragging her into the dark, he had built a prison from which he could never escape, either.

The heavy double doors of the study clicked open, breaking the stillness of the room.

Damian didn’t bother looking up from his desk. He reached for the crystal decanter, the amber liquid splashing heavily into his glass. He had given orders for the elevators to be locked down, but Victoria had never needed permission to walk through any door she chose.

She stepped into the dim light of the study, still dressed in her sharp ivory silk, her posture rigid as she closed the door behind her.

"You need to give me answers, Damian," Victoria said, her tone smooth but laced with demanding authority. "What is going on with that girl? What happened in that bathroom?"

Damian raised the glass to his lips, taking a slow, burning sip before setting it down against the dark wood.

"Do not involve yourself in my matters, Mother," he said, his voice flat and dismissive. "Go home."

"Your matters?" Victoria scoffed softly, taking several deliberate steps toward the desk until she stood beneath the faint glow of the lamp. The cool mask she usually wore began to slip, a rare crack of raw anxiety showing in her eyes. "You think I don’t see what you’re doing? You lock yourself away in this tower, you shut the world out, and you carry every single piece of this family’s ruin on your own shoulders. I watched your father do the exact same thing, Damian. I lost him. I am not going to stand by and watch myself lose you, too."

She reached across the edge of the desk, her manicured fingers trembling slightly.

"I am your mother," she pleaded, her voice dropping into an earnest, fragile whisper. "Let me share this burden. You don’t have to carry it alone."

Damian let out a low, humorless laugh that held not a shred of warmth. His obsidian eyes flicked up, cold and merciless.

"I am not a coward like my father."

The air in the room seemed to freeze on the spot.

Victoria flinched as if he had struck her across the face, but she didn’t shrink back. Her chin lifted, a fierce, protective fire flaring behind her tears.

"Your father was never a coward," she said, her voice shaking with quiet, unwavering conviction. "He did what he had to do to protect us from the wolves, and I will love him until the day I die for every single sacrifice he made. Arthur loved you. He loved Valerie. He loved this family too much to ever take that decision lightly."

She leaned closer, her gaze boring straight into her son’s guarded face.

"And deep down, Damian, you know it too," Victoria whispered. "You know the truth of what he stood for. That is the real reason you keep Anastasia so close to you. That is why you won’t let her go."

Damian’s jaw tightened until the muscle jumped beneath his skin, but Victoria pressed on, the painful subtext of his life laid bare between them.

"I don’t know what you forced her to sign. I don’t know the ugly details of the arrangement you have with that girl," Victoria said softly, shaking her head. "All I know is that you are trying to finish whatever war Arthur was fighting. But you are suffocating yourself in the process, Damian. You are destroying your only chance to ever build a happy life."

"Happy?"

The word tore out of Damian’s throat in a harsh, mocking scoff. He leaned back in his leather chair, a cynical smirk curling his mouth as he picked up his glass again.

"Happy life," he repeated, dripping with venomous amusement. "In the real world, Mother, no one lives happily. Fairy tales don’t run empires, and they certainly don’t clear family debts. I don’t believe in happy."

Victoria didn’t back down. She stared at him, her eyes searching the hollow, exhausted hollows of his face.

"Then answer me this," she said softly, the question hanging like a blade over the dark desk. "If Anastasia is truly pregnant... won’t that make you happy? Won’t you want your child to grow up in a happy family?"

A low, guttural groan tore from Damian’s chest.

He shoved the glass aside, running both hands over his face, pressing his palms hard into his temples as the sheer, suffocating exhaustion of the night finally crushed him under its weight. The ghost of Anastasia’s accusations and his mother’s desperate questions tangled together, pounding against his skull like a hammer against iron.

"Get out, Mother," Damian rasped, his voice raw, rough, and completely spent. He dropped his hands and stared blindly at the dark glass of the window, waving a dismissive, heavy hand toward the door. "Leave me alone. I am sick of hearing these meaningless, pathetic questions. Just get out."

The morning light filtered through the sheer curtains of the master suite, gray and unyielding.

Anastasia woke with a heavy, hollow ache in her bones. Her limbs felt like lead, the remnants of the hospital medications lingering in her blood, leaving her mouth dry and her head swimming with a dull, persistent haze.

Before she could even drag herself fully upright, the bedroom door clicked open.

Victoria walked in, perfectly composed, followed closely by Valerie, who carried a silver tray lined with fresh water, sliced fruit, and herbal tea. The dynamic had shifted overnight; the tension of the previous afternoon was papered over with a suffocating, calculated veneer of domestic attentiveness.

"Don’t get up too quickly, darling," Victoria said, her tone smooth and measured as she fluffed the pillows behind Ana’s back. "You need to conserve your strength. Valerie, set the glass by her side."

Valerie obeyed instantly, setting the crystal glass on the nightstand with an anxious, hovering softness. "The chef made ginger broth, too, Ana, if your stomach feels upset. You just have to tell us."

They moved around her like quiet attendants guarding an invaluable heirloom. It was gentle, meticulous, and completely terrifying. Ana offered neither gratitude nor resistance; she simply sat there, pale and silent, letting their movements wash over her like water over a stone.

By the time they guided her down to the formal dining room, Damian was already seated at the head of the long mahogany table.

He was dressed in a crisp black dress shirt, the sleeves rolled to his forearms, a fresh tablet propped beside his coffee. The dark circles under his obsidian eyes were the only betrayal of a sleepless night, but his posture was carved from iron.

He watched in silence as Victoria pulled out a chair and settled Anastasia directly to his right.

A lavish breakfast was spread before her—poached eggs, warm grains, steamed greens, and a bowl of fresh berries. Beside her plate sat three small amber vials of prenatal vitamins, already sorted and waiting.

"Eat," Damian said. His voice was low, gravelly, and stripped of warmth, cutting cleanly across the soft clatter of silverware. "All of it. And take the supplements."

Ana didn’t flinch. She didn’t look up into his face to search for emotion, nor did she snap back with the fire she had carried the day before.

She simply picked up the heavy silver fork.

With mechanical, lifeless precision, she lifted a small bite of egg to her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. She picked up a blueberry, placed it on her tongue, and ate that too. Her hazel eyes stared blankly at the edge of the porcelain plate, utterly vacant, stripped of defiance, anger, or fear.

She moved like a broken doll obeying a command simply because it required.

Beside her, Damian’s jaw hardened.

He had expected her to push the plate away. He had prepared for her to challenge him, to spit venom about the contract, to throw his father’s name back in his face, or to wage war across the linen tablecloth. He was built for war. He knew how to break rebellion.

He did not know what to do with this complete, hollow surrender.

The sound of her fork scraping softly against the china was the only noise in the cavernous room. Victoria watched from the opposite side, sipping her tea with sharp, observant eyes, while Valerie kept her gaze locked nervously on her plate.

"Anastasia," Damian warned, his tone dropping an octave, razor-sharp with sudden, mounting irritation.

Ana paused. Her fork hovered an inch above the plate. She turned her head slowly, looking at him with eyes as dead and glassy as the surface of a frozen pond.

"Yes, Damian?" she whispered, her voice entirely flat. "Is there something else you require me to do?"

A dark, dangerous muscle leaped in his jaw. The utter lack of fight in her—the clinical, obedience—didn’t bring him a single shred of satisfaction.

It infuriated him far more than any scream ever could.