Damien POV

The Crimson Cage was suffocating tonight. The air was thick with the stench of cheap gin and expensive Cuban cigars, but it was the mindless chatter of Spencer across the table that was truly grating on my nerves. He was rambling about a delayed shipment from Chicago, but I wasn't listening.

My mind was stuck on the Fifth Avenue penthouse.

I took a slow drag of my cigar, my jaw tight. Isabella’s dead, hollow eyes when I burned her pathetic annulment papers earlier today still irritated me. I had expected tears. I had expected her to beg, to scream, to show some kind of emotion that I could crush and mold back into submission. Instead, she had walked out of my office with a chilling, absolute silence. It was a disruption to my order, a quiet defiance that gnawed at my need for absolute control. She was throwing a tantrum, I told myself. She would learn her place soon enough.

My phone vibrated against the mahogany table.

I glanced at the screen. *Caden.*

My brow furrowed. My bleeding-heart, useless brother never texted me directly. He avoided my presence like a plague.

I picked up the phone and opened the message. The air in my lungs instantly turned to lead.

It was a photograph. Spread across a dark wooden desk was Isabella’s passport, her birth certificate, and a thick, blue leather-bound book. I recognized that book the second my eyes landed on it. The master smuggling ledgers. The true, unredacted lifeblood of the Trevino empire—the ones I kept locked away, the ones she had meticulously charted with her brilliant, wasted mind.

Beneath the image was a single line of text.

*The ledgers are singing.*

A roaring sound filled my ears, drowning out the jazz band on the stage. Betrayal. Fratricide. War. I dialed Caden’s number. It went straight to voicemail. I dialed Isabella’s. Nothing.

This wasn't a wife throwing a tantrum. This was a hostage orchestrating a coup.

I shoved my chair back so violently it crashed to the floor. Spencer flinched, his whiskey spilling over his knuckles. "Damien? Is everything—"

I didn't answer. I stormed out of the speakeasy, the shadows of my Soldiers parting like the Red Sea before my wrath.

The armored Cadillac tore through the rain-slicked streets of Manhattan like a black bullet. My knuckles were white on the steering wheel, my blood boiling with a rage so pure it tasted like copper. I was going to kill Caden. I would mount his head on the gates of the estate for this treason. And Isabella... I didn't know what I was going to do to her, but she would never see the light of day again.

My phone rang through the car's speakers. *Eleanor Trevino.*

I hit the answer button. "Not now, Mother."

"I have already handled your little problem," Eleanor’s voice cut through the tense silence of the car, sharp and unyielding as a guillotine.

"What are you talking about?" I snarled, swerving past a slow-moving taxi.

"Your wife attempted to move her belongings into the guest wing," my mother stated, her tone dripping with aristocratic disdain. "A public separation under our own roof. It is a pathetic display of weakness, Damien. It invites the wolves to our door."

My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. "Where is she?"

"I had Mrs. Higgins lock every spare room and confiscate the keys," the former Mafia Queen lectured, treating me like an incompetent subordinate rather than the Don of New York. "She is locked in the master suite. I corralled your property for you. Now come home, act like a true Don, and make her obey."

*Click.*

She hung up.

The sheer audacity of it all—my brother’s treason, my wife’s rebellion, my mother’s suffocating interference—ignited a hellfire in my veins. I slammed my foot on the gas, the Cadillac’s engine roaring as I ran a red light.

The private elevator to the penthouse felt agonizingly slow. When the polished steel doors finally slid open, the oppressive silence of the foyer greeted me. Mrs. Higgins was standing near the hallway, her face ashen, her hands trembling violently as she clutched a ring of brass keys.

She opened her mouth to speak, but one look at my face made her swallow her words and shrink against the cold marble wall.

I didn't spare her a second glance. My eyes were locked on the heavy double doors at the end of the hall. The master suite. My bedroom. Her cage.

Every step I took echoed like a death knell. She thought she could steal from me. She thought she could use my own blood against me. She thought she could just walk away from the Dark Don.

I reached the doors. I didn't knock. I planted my hands flat against the heavy wood and shoved them open with enough force to crack the hinges.

Isabella POV

The heavy oak doors of the master suite slammed against the walls with a deafening crack. I flinched, clutching my right side as Damien stormed into the room. He looked like a demon dragged straight from hell, his dark eyes burning with a lethal, unhinged fury that demanded blood.

I hadn't touched the massive king-sized bed. Instead, I had dragged a spare duvet and two pillows onto the cold, dark hardwood floor near the floor-to-ceiling windows. It was a pathetic fortress, but it was mine.

He stopped, his chest heaving beneath his tailored waistcoat as he took in the sight of me huddled on the floor. The glittering skyline of New York behind him offered no warmth.

"Get in the bed, Isabella." The Don's command. Low, vibrating with absolute authority.

"No." The word tore from my throat, trembling from the stabbing pain in my gut, but my gaze remained locked on his. "Your mother locked the guest wing, but I will never share a bed with you again."

He kicked the pillow near my feet, sending it flying across the room. "You are my wife. You will sleep where I tell you to sleep."

"I am your hostage, Damien," I spat, the venom in my voice masking my physical agony. "Not your wife."

The word snapped the last thread of his control. In a blur of motion, he closed the distance and clamped his hand around my upper arm. He hauled me to my feet with terrifying ease. A sharp cry escaped my lips as the sudden, violent movement sent a blinding spike of pain through my abdomen.

He froze.

His gaze dropped to where his large fingers were wrapped around my arm. Against my pale, parchment-like skin, ugly red marks were already blooming. For a fraction of a second, something akin to disgust flashed in his obsidian eyes—a fleeting horror at his own loss of control. He released me abruptly, as if my skin had burned him.

He masked the hesitation instantly with a cruel sneer. "Then rot on the floor."

He turned on his heel and stalked into the en-suite bathroom. The heavy glass door slammed shut, followed seconds later by the roar of the shower.

I collapsed back onto my makeshift bed, curling into a tight ball. The pain in my gut was a relentless, gnawing beast, sharper than it had been at The Plaza. The cold seeping from the floorboards made my teeth chatter—a pathetic, clicking sound I couldn't suppress in the dead silence of the room.

The water stopped. Damien emerged, a towel slung low on his hips, water dripping from his dark hair. He stopped at the edge of the rug, his jaw clenching as he listened to my uncontrollable shivering. It wasn't pity in his eyes; it was the deep irritation of a king whose property was malfunctioning. He could not tolerate disorder in his domain.

Without a word, he crossed the room.

Before I could scramble away, his arms slid under my knees and behind my back.

"Don't touch me," I gasped, weakly pushing against his solid chest.

He ignored my resistance completely, carrying me like a broken doll and tossing me onto the center of the massive mattress. He threw the heavy Egyptian cotton duvet over my shivering frame, trapping me in the suffocating scent of his cedarwood cologne.

I immediately scrambled to the absolute edge of the mattress, turning my back to him. The bed dipped as he lay down on the opposite side, facing the other way. We were in the same bed, but an ocean of silent, cold space stretched between us. I squeezed my eyes shut, clutching my burning abdomen, dreading the morning light.

Isabella POV

Morning broke through the bulletproof glass, painting the master suite in a cold, unforgiving gray. I hadn't slept. The stabbing agony in my lower right abdomen had morphed into a relentless, burning beast that consumed my every breath.

Beside me, the mattress shifted. The heavy scent of Damien's cedarwood cologne washed over me, mixing with the suffocating memory of his violent grip last night. My stomach violently lurched.

I clamped a hand over my mouth, scrambling out of the massive bed. My knees buckled the moment my bare feet hit the hardwood, but pure adrenaline and nausea propelled me forward. I practically crawled into the en-suite bathroom, collapsing over the cold porcelain of the toilet just as my stomach emptied itself.

I gasped for air, my forehead resting against the freezing rim, trembling so violently my teeth clicked.

A shadow fell over me.

Damien stood in the doorway, already dressed in a crisp white shirt and tailored trousers, looking down at me like I was a stain on his pristine marble floor. There was no concern in his obsidian eyes—only a lethal, simmering irritation.

"Is my presence so repulsive to you?" he demanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that echoed off the tiles.

"Damien... please," I choked out, clutching my side, my vision blurring with tears of pure agony. "I'm sick. I need—"

A heavy Egyptian cotton towel hit the side of my head, dropping onto my shaking shoulders.

"Stop this pathetic performance," he snapped, his tone dripping with absolute disgust. "You think gagging on my floor will make me forget your little stunt with the ledgers? Or your brother's treason?"

I stared at the white tile, the last fragile thread of my humanity snapping. He didn't see a dying woman. He saw a malfunctioning piece of property throwing a tantrum.

He turned on his heel, walking back into the bedroom. I forced myself up, using the sink for leverage, and dragged my broken body out of the bathroom.

Damien was adjusting his silver cufflinks in front of the mirror. On the velvet bench at the foot of the bed lay a midnight-blue silk gown.

"The Children's Hospital charity gala is tonight," he stated, not bothering to look at me. "You will wear that dress. You will stand by my side, and you will smile. We are going to show New York that the Trevino family is perfectly united."

"I can't," I whispered, my voice raw. "Damien, I need a doctor. I can barely stand."

He finally turned, closing the distance between us with that terrifying, predatory grace. He stopped inches from my face, his towering frame blocking out the morning light.

"The Davenport Estate's maintenance is paid for by my personal trust," he said, his voice dropping to a silken, deadly whisper.

My breath hitched. The blood drained from my face.

"If you are not in the car by seven," he continued, his dark eyes locking onto mine with absolute ruthlessness, "I will cut it off. I will let the bank seize the land, and I will throw your grandfather into a state facility. And not even your little traitor brother can help you with this."

He reached out, his knuckles brushing my deathly pale cheek in a mockingly gentle caress. I flinched, but he merely smirked, stepping back.

"Seven o'clock, Isabella. Don't be late."

The heavy oak doors clicked shut behind him, leaving me alone in the sprawling, gilded cage.

I sank to the floor, clutching my burning abdomen. He had weaponized the only thing I had left to love. Aurthur Davenport was my only weakness, and Damien knew exactly how to twist the knife.

But as the blinding physical pain washed over me again, a cold, terrifying clarity settled in my chest. If I died here today, my grandfather would be left at the mercy of a monster. I couldn't just survive tonight; I had to burn his empire to the ground. But first, I needed to make sure my body didn't betray me before I could strike the match.