Team B had finally caught up to them, sprinting across the snow. Now, all of them stood there—heads bowed in shame, some checking the wounds of their injured comrades.
Greyson remained upright, his jaw clenched so tight the muscle twitched. Pain tore through his shoulder—so fierce it made his vision waver—but he didn’t so much as flinch.
As they’d retreated, those bastards had fired one last shot, striking his leg while he was shouting for the others to pull back. Blood soaked the fabric around his thigh, dripping onto the pristine snow beneath his boots.
“Sir…you need a hospital,” one of the guards ventured hesitantly. “We can get the men back to the agency. You’re badly hurt—”
Greyson turned to him with a glare so cold, so murderously bright, the man swallowed his words and went pale. For a heartbeat, it looked as though Greyson might explode. But instead, he just stared.
There was blood in his eyes—pure, furious, humiliated rage.
The guard immediately backed off and slipped away, deciding he valued his life far too much to speak again.
Greyson stood there, hands clasped behind his back, surveying the men as they gathered themselves—some limping, others helping each other along, all of them weighed down by the bitter taste of defeat.
He didn’t move to stop the bleeding. Didn’t even acknowledge the pain. He had always sworn that if he was wounded, he’d never be the first to leave the field—not before every last one of his men was accounted for.
This was his code. His way.
But he didn’t want to speak to anyone. Not right now. He simply watched them, the flicker of shame on every face, until at last he turned and walked with them out of the trees.
His steps faltered just slightly—his leg refusing to bear his full weight—but he said nothing.
Without a word, he climbed into his jeep, slammed the door shut, and roared away in a spray of snow and dust.
“The Director’s furious,” a man murmured, one arm draped over his friend’s shoulder for support. “How the hell is he even driving in that condition?”
“I don’t know,” the other replied, staring after the retreating taillights. “I just hope to God he makes it home safe.”
Behind them, another operative limped forward, both arms raised imploringly toward the sky.
“Oh God, please…please save us from the Director’s wrath,” he cried in a voice full of theatrical desperation. “We’re innocent, I swear!”
The rest of the team, battered and bruised, echoed together in weary unison:
“God, even if this idiot is the real sinner here, please—grant his prayer this once!”
They all winced as the collective shout made their wounds throb even worse, clutching at bandaged limbs and groaning in agony.
Far off, at the very edge of a nearby building’s rooftop, a lone figure watched the entire scene unfold through a pair of field binoculars.
Damien.
He stood perfectly still, clad entirely in black—a fitted turtleneck, dark trousers, and an overcoat that billowed faintly in the wind.
The shadows suited him, as though he belonged to them.
Honey-brown hair swept across his forehead in the cold breeze. And for a moment, as he watched Greyson’s retreat, a slow, darkly amused smile curved across his lips.
There was no denying it—like this, with that quiet, predatory smile—he looked almost devastatingly handsome.
He handed the binoculars over his shoulder to the secretary standing behind him. Then, sliding a phone out of his coat pocket, he dialed a number.
Without waiting for the person on the other end to even speak, Damien began in his low, decisive voice:
“Whatever you recovered—bring it to the mansion. I’m on my way.”
And he ended the call.
Perhaps he was simply too accustomed to giving orders to ever bother listening to anyone else’s.
His hair was still ruffled by the wind, his overcoat flaring behind him. With a smooth motion, he combed his hand back through the strands falling over his forehead, then slipped the phone back into his pocket.
A slow smile curled over his mouth as he murmured to himself:
“So…the thing you were chasing all this time…has finally fallen into my hands.”
And he turned to leave.
His secretary fell into step behind him without a word, following him out of the building.
Behind the structure, three black cars waited in the abandoned lot. Damien shrugged off his coat, draping it neatly over one arm, and slid into the back seat of the lead vehicle.
A moment later, engines rumbled to life. His car pulled out first, and the other two followed in formation, tires crunching over the broken asphalt.
The whole area was desolate—crumbling buildings, an empty lot smothered in silence.
But if one looked carefully…
Just beyond the parking area, hidden behind a concrete pillar, a figure in all black stood watching.
A dark cloak fell to his boots, a deep hood shadowing his face.
He waited—still as a grave—until Damien’s convoy roared past in a swirl of dust and exhaust.
Only then did the hooded figure emerge, stepping out into the open.
Without a sound, he turned and walked away—his silhouette receding down the lonely road in the opposite direction until he, too, disappeared into the gloom.
269Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHIn9ANS71q
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He drove the jeep all the way up to the porch and climbed out.
The moment Chandler caught sight of Greyson—bloodied and barely on his feet—he broke into a run toward him.
Greyson’s legs were trembling now. One arm was soaked entirely in blood. His hair had fallen over his forehead, and the dark eyes that so often held iron control were turning red with strain.
He was a man of unbreakable nerves. That was the only reason he was still standing at all—anyone else would have collapsed long ago.
“Boss—your condition doesn’t look good,” Chandler panted anxiously, voice ragged with worry.
Greyson’s reply was a hoarse murmur:
“I’m fine.”
And without another glance, he started walking toward the entrance.
Just then, Max’s car rolled through the gates and came to a stop.
Greyson didn’t look back. He set a foot on the stairs, vision wavering and clearing in dizzy waves. Every few steps he gave his head a slight shake, forcing himself to stay conscious.
Chandler’s voice followed him, low and pleading:
“Sir…should I help you to your room?”
Greyson stopped.
Slowly, he turned his head to glare at him with eyes that seemed to burn with something almost feral.
In a voice like cold steel, he said:
“Did I ask you for help? Go back to your post.”
Chandler froze, swallowed hard, then stepped back.
And Greyson climbed on.
He held the railing in one hand, fingers gripping so hard the knuckles turned white. He forced himself up the staircase, step by grueling step.
At the top, he paused, bracing himself against the wall, lungs heaving as he struggled to catch his breath.
He lifted his head—his blurred gaze drifting across the lounge—and there, on the couch, lay Lena.
A book lay open on her chest. She had drifted to sleep, her face bathed in the first calm he’d seen in what felt like a lifetime.
Even in the crushing pain, seeing her finally at peace brought a tired smile to Greyson’s lips.
He took another step toward the stairs leading to the bedrooms—
—and the world tilted.
He was about to collapse when a pair of steady arms caught him from behind, saving him from the fall.
Through his dimming vision, he tried to focus—and found Max looking back at him, wearing a crooked little smile that couldn’t hide the deep worry in his eyes.
Max’s voice was half scolding, half choked:
“I leave for a little while…and you turn into some kind of lovesick idiot, ready to drop dead on the stairs? Look what you’ve done to yourself.”
Even in this state, Max couldn’t resist teasing him.
But only Max knew how much it tore him up inside to see his friend like this—staggering, covered in blood, fighting to stay upright in front of everyone.
There was no way Max Bennet could stand by and watch his brother in all but blood crumble in front of the men who respected him.
Greyson’s eyelids fluttered. He managed a weary grin and rasped out:
“Shut up…you’re my…temporary wife…”
Max rolled his eyes.
“Come on. Let’s get you upstairs.”
And with that, he slipped his arm around Greyson’s back, supporting him up the last of the stairs.
He guided him carefully into the bedroom.
Once Greyson was settled, Max stepped back out and closed the door behind him.
He leaned against it, chest heaving.
His heart was pounding so hard it hurt.
Seeing Greyson in this state always did that to him. Always made him feel like he was on the verge of tears.
Because unlike Greyson…Max was never any good at holding them back.
But right now—right here—he refused to let himself break down.
Wiping the wetness from his eyes with the heel of his hand, Max straightened…and quietly started down the stairs.
Max had barely reached the ground floor when Carl came sprinting out of the security room, nearly colliding with him.
“Tell me—how is the Director?” Carl was shaking Max by the arms, frantic.
When Max didn’t answer right away, Carl cursed under his breath and turned to bolt upstairs himself.
But Max’s voice drifted lazily after him:
“He’s fine… but if anyone goes into that room right now, he won’t stay fine.”
Carl stopped like he’d hit a wall, swallowed, and turned back.
“So… that means he’s okay?”
“More or less.”
Carl let out a heavy breath and stalked off to the security room, muttering to himself.
All this commotion had woken Lena.
She sat up on the couch, blinking at the sight of Max, who was dialing someone on his phone.
She got to her feet, moving toward him with confusion.
Just as she reached him, Max’s words fell into her ears—
“Yeah, just come over… No, he doesn’t want to go to the hospital.”
Lena stared at him, uncomprehending.
Max caught her gaze, lowered the phone, and in a quiet voice said:
“Greyson’s been shot.”
He turned away again, resuming his conversation with the doctor.
But he didn’t see Lena’s face go white as paper.
Her heart seemed to stop for a moment—like something inside her had snapped.
And then she turned on her heel and bolted—barefoot—up the stairs.
Max looked over his shoulder, startled, as she fled.
“Hey—he said no one is to go in there!” he called after her.
But she didn’t hear a word.
All she could hear was that single sentence echoing in her mind—
Greyson’s been shot.
She reached the landing, nearly stumbling in her desperation, and flung the bedroom door open.
For a second she looked around wildly.
He wasn’t on the bed.
His shirt lay discarded on the floor, dark with blood.
She found him sitting in the rocking chair, head tipped back, eyes closed, breathing in ragged, shallow pulls.
The door opening made him stir.
His eyelids fluttered, heavy with exhaustion, but he managed to look at her—
At the girl standing in the doorway, honey-colored eyes flooded with tears, fear etched across every inch of her face.
He closed his eyes again.
Seeing him do that, Lena let out a broken little sob.
She rushed to him, falling to her knees at his side.
Her hands came to rest, trembling, on his wounded arm as she began to cry in earnest.
Her voice cracked as she choked out the words:
“What…what have you done to yourself? Why—why did you do this?”
Her tears spilled freely, dripping onto his skin, her whole body shuddering.
Greyson sat motionless, listening to her sobs, letting the sound of her pain wash over him.
Slowly, he opened his eyes again.
And he managed the faintest, tired smile as he looked down at her.
“I’m fine,” he murmured, voice rough but gentle. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“No!”
She struck his arm with the flat of her palm—lightly, as though she couldn’t bear to hurt him further, even in anger.
“Don’t—don’t lie to me. You promised you’d take care of yourself—so tell me what this is! Tell me!”
She was sobbing so hard now she could barely breathe, her tears wetting his bare skin, her hands clutching his arm as if she could somehow hold him together by sheer will.
He looked at her then—really looked—at this girl who had dropped to the floor beside him, golden eyes brimming, voice breaking over and over as she cried for him.
And in that moment, something in his chest ached far worse than any bullet wound.
Gently, he lifted a hand.
His fingers brushed her cheek, wiping away the tears as they fell.
His palm came to rest against her face, warm despite the blood drying on his skin.
His voice was soft, a whisper meant for her alone:
“You… you’re being cruel now, you know that?”
“If you stay here… kneeling like this… crying like this… it hurts me more than all these wounds ever could.”
His shoulder was screaming with pain. His leg throbbed so badly he felt he might pass out again.
But none of that mattered.
Because all he could think about was how she looked, crying for him—
And how, somehow, he had become the reason for her tears.
Lena felt the chill of Greyson’s hand resting against her cheek, and her heart clenched.
She rose without a word, leaning over his shoulder to see the wound more closely.
Blood had clotted thickly around the bullet’s entry point, crusting over so dark that it was hard to see where the injury began.
Tears still streamed silently down her face, but she no longer made a sound.
Instead, she examined his injuries with a quiet, desperate focus.
Greyson lay back against the chair, his jaw locked tight, refusing to make a noise even as pain pulsed through every nerve.
Eyes closed, lips pressed together, he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her see how much he was hurting.
And yet, with every ragged breath, he knew exactly where she was—bent over him, weeping because of him.
He felt her tears sliding down onto his chest.
His hand clenched into a fist.
Then he felt it—
A soft, careful touch at his feet.
His eyes flew open at once.
Lena was kneeling at his legs, her delicate fingers working to pull off his boots.
“No—don’t. Don’t do that,” he rasped, his voice rough with something almost like panic.
“I can take them off myself… Please, don’t sit at my feet. And don’t—don’t touch my boots.”
Because how could he bear to watch this girl—this girl who lived in some hidden corner of his heart—kneel before him like that?
He tried to pull his legs back, but Lena only bowed her head lower, her voice breaking into a trembling plea:
“Please… just let me do this. Don’t… don’t stop me.”
Slowly, she lifted her hands again.
And this time, he didn’t move as she took off his boots one by one, setting them carefully aside.
One of his feet was soaked in blood.
Greyson stared down at her, helpless.
He didn’t want her to see any of this—to see how much he was bleeding, how badly he’d been hurt.
“Please,” he whispered, voice raw and pleading, “go… I’m fine. Just go.”
But Lena rose to her feet instead.
She came around to the front of him, sat on the edge of the bed, and looked into his face.
Her voice was soft and low, but it carried a terrible ache:
“My grandpa said the same thing.”
“He said he was fine… and then when I left… he left me forever.”
She lifted her honey-colored eyes to his, shimmering with tears.
And this time her words trembled with a fear that made his heart twist:
“You’re all I have left now. If you go too… I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Her voice caught, and a thin thread of stubbornness wove through the sorrow:
“This time… even if you ask me to leave… I won’t.”
“My grandpa said the same words. And he left me.”
“But you… you’re not allowed to go.”
For a moment, Greyson just looked at her.
He could see it—how scared she was.
How the thought of losing the last person she trusted in this world was enough to break her apart.
He shut his eyes again, fighting the throb in his shoulder, in his leg, and worst of all, in his chest.
His voice came out in a hoarse, exhausted whisper:
“Then do one thing for me…”
“Don’t let those eyes of yours suffer any more because of me.”
“Because if I have to account for every one of these tears you’re shedding… I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”
And after that, silence fell.
Lena sat motionless, her face wet, watching him.
And Greyson… Greyson sat there, wounded and spent, a faint smile still on his lips as if he had learned—
—how to keep smiling even in agony.
Or maybe…
…maybe he simply didn’t feel pain the way other people did.
Boots of polished black leather struck the gleaming charcoal tiles with a calm, unhurried rhythm.
One hand slung his black coat over his shoulder, the other slipped carelessly into the pocket of his trousers.
With that same cold nonchalance, Damien pushed open the study’s door and stepped inside.
He hung his coat neatly on the stand.
He wore a sleek black turtleneck that clung to the hard lines of his frame.
Rolling his sleeves up to just below the elbows, he moved around the desk and sank into the chair, leaning back with a controlled exhale, as if trying to steady something restless beneath his ribs.
Sunlight poured through the tall glass walls, flooding the study in a golden hush.
Rows of books gleamed under that warm light, giving the space the solemn grandeur of a palace library.
But Damien was untouched by any of it.
He sat utterly still, long fingers clasped over the carved armrests, his gaze fixed on the ceiling—
—and in his eyes, if you looked past the gleam of cold calculation, there was something that looked almost…tired.
Something hollow.
People saw only the ferocity there.
The darkness.
The predatory calm.
But behind that mask lay a bone-deep loneliness, a weariness he never allowed to surface.
He didn’t move when the door behind him clicked open.
A man entered, hands folded, posture rigid.
Damien neither spoke nor lifted his head.
He waited in that silence that always made others uneasy, the air around him growing heavier by the second.
Finally, he straightened and raised his gaze.
The secretary was standing there, holding the same dirt-smeared bag.
With a brief gesture, Damien indicated the seat opposite.
The man sat, set his laptop down, and plugged in a USB.
Code scrolled across the screen as he cleared his throat.
“I’ve reviewed all three USBs, sir. The first contains the names of every agent and informant—ours and our enemies’—embedded within the agency.”
Damien’s eyes tracked the data without expression.
“The second USB details illegal smuggling routes—guns, cash, trafficking networks. Every buyer. Every seller. Every dirty secret.”
He hesitated, glancing up.
Damien’s gaze shifted from the laptop to the man’s face, flat and unblinking.
His voice, when it came, was smooth as glass:
“I already know all that.”
“What I don’t know…”
“…is what’s in the third.”
The secretary swallowed.
His eyes darted away.
Damien watched him with a stillness that was more menacing than anger.
He waited.
And when no answer came—
His hand shot out.
He grabbed the man’s tie, wound it tight around his fist, and yanked him forward across the desk.
Their faces inches apart, Damien’s tone dropped to a whisper:
“I despise waiting.”
“In fact, people who make me wait feel like poison in my veins.”
The secretary was trembling, his throat constricted by the tie strangling off his breath.
His face turned red, lips parting for air.
But Damien’s grip remained unshakable.
“Start talking,” he said softly—so quietly it sounded almost tender, almost affectionate.
“…It’s…a video,” the man rasped, voice cracking.
“A video of the night you went to kill your grandfather.”
Damien released him.
The secretary fell back, coughing raggedly, clutching at his tie.
But Damien—
—he just stood there.
Something in his face seemed to fracture.
It wasn’t rage that came over him.
It wasn’t even shock.
It was worse—
—a blankness so total it looked as if the life had been siphoned out of his eyes.
As if some hidden dam inside him had split wide open, and everything he’d used to hold himself together was flooding out.
He turned away, started toward the door.
He almost made it.
Then the secretary’s voice came again—thready, hoarse:
“And sir…that USB also holds evidence your father orchestrated the deaths of Hudson Blackwood and his wife. And proof he ordered the car crash that killed Miss Lena West’s parents.”
Damien’s steps slowed to a halt.
He did not turn.
Did not even draw breath.
A brittle, unnatural stillness settled over his tall frame.
“…And…sir,” the man’s voice shook, as though he could barely force the words out,
“There are recordings…calls your father made. He gave the order that Miss Lena be abducted when she was still just a teenage girl…and physically harmed.”
Silence.
Long, heavy, final.
Damien’s fists clenched at his sides until the tendons stood out like cords.
When he finally spoke, his voice was stripped of every trace of warmth:
“Is there anything else?”
The secretary swallowed.
“N…no, sir.”
Slowly—
Damien looked back over his shoulder.
There was nothing in his eyes now.
Not fury.
Not grief.
Not even hatred.
Only a terrible, silent emptiness—
—like a man who had looked into the abyss and found nothing staring back.
Without another word, he climbed the stairs to his room.
He had found what he was searching for.
But some truths…
…are best left buried.
You don’t realize this—
—not until the moment you uncover them.
And then you wish to God you had never asked.
Because sometimes—
—knowing is a curse.
And in that hour—
—that curse wrapped itself around Damien West’s soul like a chain, and began to drag him under.
269Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2rXMEXslC8
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