The alarm cuts off with a harsh click that leaves the penthouse in a strange, echoing quiet. The red lights stop flashing and the stillness that follows feels colder than the noise. My pulse does not settle. I sit rigid on the edge of the couch, hands shaking against my knees, breath coming too fast to control. My chest feels tight, like fear is sitting inside it and refusing to move.
Security murmurs through Damian’s earpiece, low and clipped. I cannot hear real words, only the tone, the urgency. He steps aside to listen properly, one hand pressed to his brow, his shoulders drawn with a tension I do not know how to read.
I wait. The silence between each breath feels too long.
Finally he turns back to me.
“It was a malfunction. A sensor in the hallway tripped on its own. No one got ins
