Chapter 5 - The Snake in the Grass
For three weeks, Damian played the role of a weakened king.
He walked with a cane he didn't need. He let his voice sound tired during family sit-downs. He watched Marcus step up, taking over territory negotiations, preening under the assumption that Damian was slowly dying from heart complications caused by the anaphylaxis.
Meanwhile, behind closed doors in the master wing, Damian was coming back to life.
It wasn't just the physical recovery. It was the presence of Lily. The little girl had no concept of what a mafia boss was. To her, Damian was just "the tall man who owed her a new pen." She would wander into his office while he was planning Marcus's downfall, demanding he draw rabbits with her on his expensive stationery.
Sarah, too, slowly lost her terror of him. She saw the way Damian looked at Lily—not with annoyance, but with a fierce, guarded tenderness. Late at night, Damian and Sarah found themselves talking in the estate’s library. He learned about the abusive ex-husband she had fled in Chicago. She learned about the bomb in the car that had taken his wife and daughter.
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"You don't have to be afraid of the dark anymore, Sarah," Damian told her one evening, pouring her a glass of water (he had banned wine from the house). "I am the darkest thing in this state. And I am standing between you and the rest of the world."
But Marcus was getting impatient. Damian wasn't dying fast enough. And Marcus had noticed the guards outside the master guest suite. He had noticed the way Damian looked at the maid and her kid.
