NATALIA
I’d been injured before when my car fell from the cliff—cuts, bruises, and fractured rib—but something about this time felt different.
Maybe it was the way the pain lingered beneath my skin like a warning, a slow burn of vulnerability I couldn’t shake. Or maybe it was the gnawing weight in my chest, whispering that the man who might have ordered my death was the same one I once trusted to keep me safe.
Andrei.
I hadn’t spoken his name aloud since the crash, but it never left my thoughts. It clung to everything: the bruises on my ribs, the tremor in my hands, the way I jolted awake each night expecting another attack.
Damon had saved me. Damon had sheltered me. But I was no fool.
If Andrei truly believed I was a threat—because of the child, because of the past—he would not s
