Aria's POV
The scream that follows is so loud that it surpasses the volume of the music. As soon as it erupts, hands circle my waist and the back of my head, and suddenly, I am pushed under a table that smells like beer.
It gets louder.
The screams.
"Stay down!" he says, his voice always cool. Always calculated. Footsteps echo all around us. Another bullet goes off, making me flinch. I look beside me, remembering I was on the dance floor with Marcus, only to realize he is nowhere near me.
"Shit! I…Marcus…" I try to get out from underneath the table, but Damien pins my shoulder with his fingers, turning me around.
"I have him," he murmurs, making space with his shoulders through the sea of panicking college kids. Damien brings his other hand to my face, just as the room tilts in my vision. I shake my head and try to keep my eyes open.
But it is proving to be a sport.
The alcohol burns in my stomach, and I feel pretty sick. We get out through the back door, but Damien doesn't stop moving. The winter air slaps my cheeks, just as we stop at the car he drove a few hours ago.
Letting go of me, he moves towards the door.
My head jerks back towards the house when a third shot goes off. "I have to go back in," I yell, my feet already scurrying in that direction. "Marcus is still inside. I cannot leave him there."
"If you cared about Marcus, you should have thought twice about coming to this party," Damien yells behind me. It is the first time he has raised his voice at me. I halt and turn around. "How are they even bloody finding you?"
"Do you think I wanted him to be hurt?"
"He isn't hurt, silly," he murmurs. "I asked my men to send him home. He is in a car already."
I stop. Is he always this controlling, bulldozing his way into people's lives? "What if Marcus didn't want to go home? You can't just…"
"I can," he says. I can see his struggle to keep his anger in check. "And I did."
"I hate you!" It bursts out from my lips just as he walks over to me and pulls me towards the car again.
"Good."
Damien forces me into the passenger's seat and pulls out of the driveway. A muscle works in his jaw as he drives, and his fingers keep thrumming on the steering. He looks like he is about to say something, but he keeps it to himself.
My stomach churns suddenly, and I place my hands over my mouth. He notices.
"Aria, are you okay?"
When I don't answer, he pulls up by the side of the road, and I rush out at once, dropping to my knees on the curb. The cheap vodka and every other thing I have had today pour out of me.
I hear him walk up to me, and in a few seconds, his palm finds the small of my back. He pats gently, while the other hand pulls my hair away like he's done it a hundred times for someone else.
The mere thought feels like a raw strike on my heart.
"Good?" he asks when I sigh, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
I nod.
"Great." The fury in his eyes is back. "What were you thinking, Aria?"
"What?"
"You removed a tracker and slipped past my security only thirty minutes after getting to the penthouse." He doesn't raise his voice, but that only makes it sound more dangerous. Scarier.
"You vanished in a city where men with knives and guns have been searching for you. If you fucking needed air, you have a balcony in our room, use it. If you needed noise, you fucking turn up the speakers. You do not walk into a room filled with people you do not know and just hand them your throat."
I feel his words raking through the core of my being. Swallowing, I walk towards the car. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't cut it." He returns to the car and pulls out a bottle of water and a handkerchief. I watch him from underneath my lashes as he wets the cloth and wipes my mouth and chin, his eyes furrowed with concentration.
The cloth stops on the corner of my lips, and my pulse starts racing. I know it has nothing to do with the second attack on my life tonight.
For a second, Damien freezes and everything else disappears. The night, the crickets, the car. There are just the two of us, his hands on my face, me staring into his eyes.
"Don't," he whispers, and my eyes narrow. I don't know what he means by that or who he is talking to, but suddenly, he pulls away from me and tosses the cloth out. "Get in and use the seatbelt."
We continue our journey back to the penthouse. His phone rings again, but this time, the screen is turned upside down. He doesn't bother to attend to it.
When he kills the engine in the garage, he turns to look at me. "I am going to carry you in. You are going to drink water, shower, and go to bed. In the morning, you will apologize for being reckless, and we can talk about your punishment."
"Bossy," I murmur.
But this time, I don't fight him when he lifts me out of the car.
"You said there would be consequences."
"There are," he replies, striding with me in his arms to the elevator. "You don't leave my sight for the next seventy-two hours. You hand me your phone, and you follow every rule I am going to have pasted on your wall."
"Just three?"
He looks down on me, his eyes laden with meaning. Suddenly, it feels like the temperature has been turned up a notch.
"Don't make me test number four."
The doors spring open, welcoming us back to the penthouse. But just then, a pair of heels clacks through the floors, stopping in front of us.
"Care to explain this?"