Chapter 72: The Devil Wanted To Be A Father
The rain continued to lash against the windows of the suite, but inside, the room was enveloped in a heavy, suffocating warmth.
Damian had carried Ana into the penthouse himself, drenched and shivering, completely silent. He had personally dried her hair, changed her out of her soaked clothes into one of his oversized silk shirts, and tucked her into the plush bed.
Ana lay on her side, her eyes red and swollen, her gaze fixed blankly on the shadows on the wall. The exhaustion had drained every drop of fight out of her.
The mattress dipped as Damian sat beside her. He leaned down, his large hand brushing damp strands of hair away from her forehead with a quiet, rare tenderness that frightened her almost as much as his cruelty.
"I wanted to become a father, Anastasia," Damian spoke, his tone low, gravelly, and stripped of its usual razor-sharp edge.
Ana stiffened, her breath hitching.
"When I finally found out about your pregnancy..." Damian continued, his obsidian eyes dark with a haunting, unspoken regret, "...it was already too late. If I had known you were carrying my child, I would have never let you leave that house. I would have done anything... destroyed anyone... to keep you and our baby safe."
A tear slipped silently down Ana’s cheek, hot against her pale skin. She turned her head slowly, looking up into his unreadable face.
"Did... did Vivian lie?" Ana whispered, her voice cracking from the raw pain in her chest. "About your past? About... about everything?"
Damian didn’t flinch. He looked down at her with absolute, unflinching honesty. "We had a physical relationship once, years ago. Before you. It was purely physical."
He paused, his jaw tightening slightly. "Vivian never knew about your miscarriage back then. It was Valerie who told her when I finally informed my family about you. Vivian was the one who forged those false medical documents and fed them to Valerie to poison her mind against you."
The truth landed like a heavy, sickening blow.
Ana’s chest heaved as she broke into quiet, helpless sobs, clutching the silk sheets to her chin. "Why...?" She wept, looking up at him in sheer anguish. "Why do you still keep her around if you know what kind of monster she is?! Why did you give her a position in your company?!"
"Because tearing down a family like the Starks takes years of preparation," Damian said coldly, his eyes turning to black ice.
"Harrison Stark has powerful men in government and banking backing him. I couldn’t simply destroy them overnight without a strategic plan. If I rushed it, everything I built would have collapsed... and if Sterling Global fell, it would have been impossible for me to protect my family. Or you."
Ana sniffed, wiping her wet cheeks with the back of her trembling hand, her voice small and bitter. "I don’t need your protection, Damian."
Damian’s jaw set, his dark eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp displeasure at her words. He visibly suppressed the harsh reprimand resting on his tongue, knowing how fragile and shattered she was in this moment.
Instead, he leaned closer, his shadow falling over her as his thumb wiped away a lingering tear.
"If I hadn’t been protecting you, Doll," Damian murmured darkly, his breath warm against her cheek, "you have no idea what those people would have done to you."
Ana blinked through her tear-stained lashes, confusion swirling deep in her chest. What did that mean? What else had he been keeping from her?
Before she could open her mouth to demand an answer, Damian leaned down and pressed a slow, lingering kiss against her forehead.
"Get some rest, Anastasia," he commanded softly.
He stood up to his full height, smoothing down his dark shirt, and turned on his heel. The heavy bedroom door clicked shut behind him, leaving Ana alone in the quiet dimness of the room, her head spinning with a thousand unanswered questions.
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Damian stepped out into the dimly lit hallway. The moment he was out of Ana’s sight, every trace of warmth evaporated from his face, replaced by a terrifying, lethal stillness.
He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his mud-stained ring, and slipped it into his palm.
Unlocking his phone, he dialed an encrypted line. It rang only once before his head of security answered.
"Sir?"
"Initiate Protocol Zero on the Stark family," Damian ordered, his voice dropping into a deadly, sub-zero register that cut through the silence of the penthouse like a blade.
"I want Harrison’s offshore accounts frozen by midnight, and I want Vivian’s security credentials stripped immediately. Call emergency legal counsel... we are executing the takeover tonight."
"Understood, Mr. Sterling. And Miss Stark’s position?"
Damian’s obsidian eyes narrowed, looking toward the bedroom door where Ana lay sleeping.
"She used my unborn child against Anastasia’s dignity," Damian purred dangerously. "By sunrise, I want her stripped of her position, her family ruined, and her name wiped from this city. Erase her."
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In the luxurious penthouse estate of the Stark family, the atmosphere was chaotic and toxic.
Vivian sat on the edge of her velvet vanity chair, clutching an ice pack to her bruised jaw, her eyes frantically scrolling through her phone.
Her stomach churned in absolute disgust. Her plan had backfired... catastrophically.
Instead of the public rallying behind her as the tragic victim of an unhinged ex-wife, the press and high-society gossip channels were tearing her to pieces.
Because she had lost her temper and brought up Anastasia’s miscarriage in front of the entire marketing floor, the narrative had completely flipped.
Online forums and elite social circles were labeling her a cold-hearted "homewrecker," a "cruel mistress," and a sociopath who used a dead baby for corporate leverage.
Her pristine public relations image... the very thing she had spent years carefully crafting... was burning to ashes in real time.
Slam!
The heavy mahogany doors of her bedroom burst open, slamming hard against the wall.
Vivian jumped, dropping her ice pack as her father, Harrison Stark, stormed into the room. His face was flushed crimson with rage, his expensive suit disheveled, and his eyes bloodshot.
"Father..."
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!" Harrison roared, his voice shaking the crystal chandelier above.
Vivian flinched, shrinking back against her chair. "I... I was just putting Anastasia in her place! I had everything under control until..."
"UNDER CONTROL?!" Harrison shrieked, slamming his fist onto her vanity table, sending perfume bottles shattering across the floor.
"Damian Sterling just summoned an emergency board meeting for nine o’clock tomorrow morning! Do you know who received an invitation? Every single shareholder except me!"
Vivian’s breath hitched, the color instantly draining from her face. "What...? No... that’s impossible. You’re the second-largest shareholder in Sterling Global..."
"I was deliberately excluded!" Harrison screamed, pointing a trembling, furious finger at her face. "That means he is executing a hostile maneuver against us tomorrow morning! He is moving to strip our voting power, and it’s all because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut!"
"I’ll fix it!" Vivian pleaded desperately, standing up on trembling legs. "I’ll call Damian right now! I’ll apologize, I’ll tell him I was emotional, I’ll promise to smooth things over with the press..."
"Fix it?!" Harrison scoffed, his voice dripping with utter hatred and contempt. "Didn’t you promise me that once Anastasia Vance was gone, you would secure me a direct, exclusive partnership in Sterling Global?! Didn’t you swear Damian was practically in your pocket?!"
Vivian swallowed hard, unable to find her voice.
"You foolish, arrogant girl," Harrison spat, looking at his own daughter like she was a piece of trash. "You just handed our heads to Damian Sterling on a silver platter."
He cursed violently, turning on his heel and slamming the door shut behind him, his enraged footsteps echoing down the grand hallway.
Vivian stood alone in the quiet room as the reality of her collapse crashed down on her. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed onto the cold hardwood floor amidst the broken glass of her shattered perfume bottles.
She pressed her trembling, manicured hands against the floor, her eyes twisting into a terrifying, unhinged glare filled with pure, murderous hatred.
"No..." Vivian hissed through her teeth, her voice cracking in the dark room. "This isn’t over."
She dug her nails into the wood, tears of pure venom spilling down her bruised cheeks.
"I will not let you win, Anastasia..." Vivian whispered dangerously into the quiet night. "I will never, ever let you and Damian be happy."