His eyes were less hostile. “Cat, I’m gonna be fine. I’m not dying.”
“I know… I just hate seeing you hurt.”
“I’m not hurt. It’ll heal.”
“What happened?”
He stared at me for a long time before he answered. “Just work bullshit. But it’s fine. It’s just a setback.”
“A setback?”
“Yeah. I’ll take care of it later.”
So, Damien wasn’t going to stop. He was going to keep fighting Heath forever. “Maybe you should just let this go—”
“Maybe you should mind your own business.” His voice rose, echoing in the large room as he gave me a cold stare.
“I just care about you, alright?” I countered. “I don’t want you to get yourself killed. Why don’t you just retire? You’re gonna ask Anna to marry you. Hades retired, so why don’t you?”
“Hades and I aren’t the same person.”
“Then maybe you should be the same person. Come on. Think about it.”
He shook his head. “You’ve never been worried about me before, so where is this coming from?”
I tried to think of something fast. “Anna was captured. Some guy broke in to your home. You had to fight some guy in a death match. Yeah, I’m fucking worried. You have plenty of money, and if you really don’t want to be home, keep working at the bank. But there’s more to life than your business. You and Anna could travel. You could start a family. There’re so many things you can do.”
“Quit ballet.”
I turned quiet, my eyebrow raised. “What?”
“What if I told you to quit ballet? You could break an ankle…a knee.”
“Not the same thing—”
“It is the same thing,” he snapped. “I built this empire, and I’m not gonna walk away from it yet. I told Anna I would leave once we start our family, but not before. She accepted that, the woman I’m gonna marry, so I don’t see why it matters to you.”
“It matters to me because I fucking love you, Damien.” My voice rose. “I want you to live a very long time. I want you to be an uncle to my kids. I want to be an aunt to yours. It matters to me a lot.”
His anger was sheathed. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Trust me, this is nothing. I’ve been through much worse.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I snapped. “You’re just proving my point, Damien.”
He sighed in irritation, his gaze moving out the window. “I appreciate your concern, but let it go.”
“You’re the one who needs to let this vendetta go, Damien.”
He turned his gaze back to me, his eyes cold. “Would you let it go? If there was a man you loved and someone took him away from you, would you fucking let it go?”
I inhaled a deep breath because one man popped into my head, but I had to force him away, not allowing this man to have a face… and definitely not to have blue eyes and an intense stare. “You have Anna and you’re happy. That’s all that matters. Leave the past in the past.”
He shook his head in disappointment. “I never let anything go. And I’m not gonna let this fucking go either.”
I had practice at the theatre, so I didn’t get to Heath’s place until nine. I parked at the curb and walked up the steps until I arrived at his front door. There were two doors, both deep brown and ordinary. It didn’t seem like they were thick enough to stop a militia from getting inside, but I knew it was probably all for show, so when kids came to the door selling candy they wouldn’t have a clue what they’d walked into.
There was a camera in each corner, protected by a thick frame of glass, probably encased in bulletproof material. A keypad was on the wall, black and sleek. I typed in the long combination then heard the sound of air compressors erupting from behind the door, the same sound a safe made once it unlocked.
Then I slipped the ordinary key inside and got the doors unlocked.
When I opened the door, I came into contact with a metal wall. The wooden door had opened outward onto the street, but the metal one swung inward. When I started to push it, I realized how heavy it was, and then I realized it was several feet thick.
Whoa.
I stepped inside the house and shut both sets of doors. When the metal door was shut, the mechanisms inside immediately came to life, clicking and locking as all the bolts within it returned to place.
Shit, he wasn’t fucking around.
I turned around and saw a sitting area in front of a fireplace. It looked untouched, like it was staged for visual purposes. To the right were the stairs that led down to the basement.
The basement where he’d kept me.
I couldn’t believe I was there again…under completely different circumstances.