Chapter 63: The Devil Wants To Put A Leash On His Slave
Deep beneath the city, in a dimly lit, soundproof basement owned by Sterling Global’s private security division, the air was heavy with damp concrete and iron.
Bound tightly to a steel chair under a harsh overhead bulb sat the attacker from the alleyway. His face was bruised and bloody, his breathing ragged.
Damian Sterling didn’t hand threats over to the authorities right away... not when his personal perimeter had been breached.
Damian stood in the shadows, immaculate in his tailored three-piece suit, taking a slow sip of black coffee. His dark, obsidian eyes were unreadable, but the heavy aura surrounding him made the air nearly impossible to breathe.
"I... I told you, I was just looking for a quick payout!" The man rasped, coughing blood onto the floor. "A drunk woman with a designer handbag... it was just a random mugging!"
Damian stepped into the light, his slow, measured footsteps echoing off the walls. He set his cup down on a metal tray and tossed an encrypted tablet onto the table in front of the man.
On the screen was a bank transfer statement... a heavy five-figure deposit made into the thug’s offshore account early Thursday evening.
"A random mugger who receives fifty thousand dollars before he even steps into the alley," Damian’s baritone cut through the quiet like a blade. "You’re a hired cleaner. You take hit jobs for elite clients who don’t want blood on their own hands."
The thug gulped, sweat glistening on his forehead. "Look, man... I don’t know the client’s name! It was handled through an anonymous proxy!"
Initially, Damian had assumed the strike was ordered against Anastasia... that someone was daring to target his wife on her day off. But looking at the timeline and the operative’s report, the target was unequivocally Clara Reed. Anastasia had simply intervened.
Damian’s eyes narrowed into a dangerous, lethal slit. Who held that level of desperate, spiteful malice toward a marketing director?
"Whether she was your intended target or not," Damian purred low, leaning down until his shadow completely engulfed the trembling man, "you laid your hands on my wife. You bruised her skin. You made her bleed."
Before the thug could scream, Damian signaled his men. A brutal, methodical beating followed... a ruthless, visceral punishment ensuring the hitman felt every ounce of the pain he had inflicted on Anastasia.
Once the room fell quiet, Damian straightened his cuffs without a speck of blood on his suit.
"Clean him up," Damian ordered cold-bloodedly to his chief of security. "He already has three outstanding warrants in two states. Frame him with an airtight narcotics charge and hand him over to the district attorney. Let him rot in state prison once we trace his broker."
"Understood, Mr. Sterling."
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Meanwhile, in her lavish executive suite at Stark Holdings, Vivian Stark paced frantically across the polished marble floor.
Her encrypted phone buzzed on her glass desk. She snatched it up, pressing it to her ear before it could even ring a second time. "Is it done? Is Clara Reed handled?"
"We have a severe problem, Miss Stark," a distorted voice replied over the line. "The operative failed. He never brought the target in, and he’s completely vanished off our radar. Seems like Mr. Sterling’s ex-wife was also present at that moment of time. Which caused the failure."
Vivian’s breath hitched, her manicured fingers gripping the phone until her knuckles turned white. "What do you mean vanished?! Did the police arrest him?"
"No. He’s not in police custody. Which means he was either intercepted by Sterling’s private security detail... or he’s dead."
The line went dead with a click.
Vivian slammed the phone down onto her desk, her chest heaving with bitter, suffocating rage. One of her manicured nails snapped against the leather blotter, but she barely felt the pain.
"Damn it!" She hissed, her teeth clenching.
All she wanted was to put Clara Reed in her place... to scar that arrogant, sharp-tongued department head so badly she would never dare disrespect a Stark again. It was supposed to be a quiet, devastating lesson.
And it had failed entirely because of Anastasia.
If Anastasia hadn’t crossed the street, if she hadn’t thrown her clumsy self into the fight, Clara would be ruined right now.
Vivian stared at her reflection in the dark glass window, her eyes burning with venomous envy. Anastasia Vance was systematically dismantling everything Vivian had built over the years... her standing, her influence, and worst of all, Damian’s attention.
If I can’t break Clara, Vivian thought, her lips twisting into a sinister smile, then I’ll make sure Anastasia pays for both of them.
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Damian stepped out of the cold basement and into the private elevator, wiping his hands with a warm towel provided by his assistant.
His chief of security stepped in beside him, holding an encrypted digital file. "Mr. Sterling, we traced the proxy routing number for the hitman’s offshore deposit. The shell corporation that funneled the fifty thousand dollars is registered under an offshore subsidiary."
Damian took the tablet, his dark eyes scanning the complex network of dummy accounts. "And who owns the parent entity?"
"It traces directly back to Stark Holdings," his security chief confirmed in a low voice. "Specifically, a private slush fund controlled by Vivian Stark."
Damian’s lips curved into an icy, unreadable smile as the elevator ascended to the top floor. He didn’t order an immediate arrest. Exposing an amateur move like this too early would give Harrison Stark time to cover his daughter’s tracks.
Instead, Damian would let Vivian believe she had played her cards cleanly... right until he stripped the Starks of their board seats at the upcoming shareholder summit.
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Later that afternoon, Anastasia walked down the quiet executive hallway toward Damian’s master suite on the top floor, holding a folder of approved marketing documents Clara had asked her to deliver.
Pushing the heavy doors open, she found Damian sitting behind his massive dark wood desk. He was staring at a glowing monitor displaying a detailed breakdown of Vivian Stark’s private assets, his expression cold, lethal, and calculating.
The moment his obsidian eyes flicked up and caught her standing in the doorway, his terrifying aura shifted, locking entirely onto her frame.
Ana stepped forward, setting the folder on his desk. She hesitated for a second, her fingers brushing against her bandaged wrist. "Damian... I heard about Marcus this morning. His desk was cleared out before eight."
Damian leaned back in his leather armchair, his arms resting on the armrests as he looked at her with an impenetrable gaze. "His internship was terminated. He is now blacklisted."
"Can’t you give him another chance?" Ana asked, her voice tinged with genuine concern. "He was drunk, Damian. It was a mistake..."
Instantly, the atmosphere in the office dropped to a suffocating temperature.
Damian stood up slowly, his towering frame casting a long, intimidating shadow over his desk.
His jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched violently in his cheek as he rounded the desk, stepping directly into her personal space until she was forced to take a step back against the edge of his desk.
"You’re asking me to show mercy to a man who put his hands on you?" Damian’s baritone was possessive, thick with dark, furious authority.
"He didn’t force himself on me!" Ana argued, trying to hold her ground despite her heart hammering against her ribs. "He just confessed his feelings! Men are allowed to have feelings for me, Damian... you can’t just destroy someone’s entire career over a drunken mistake!"
Damian reached out, his large hand clamping firmly around her waist and hauling her body flush against his hard chest. He leaned down, his face inches from hers, his dark eyes burning with an unyielding, possessive fury.
"Maybe I should put a leash on you then," Damian growled low against her lips, his fingers digging into her hips. "So the entire goddamn world knows you belong to me, and me alone."
Before Ana could gasp out a response, Damian brought his mouth down on hers in a deep, punishing kiss.
It was hard, ravenous, and completely overwhelming, completely consuming her protest and leaving her breathless against his chest as he claimed every last bit of her fight.