CHAPTER 1 — THE THING SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE SEEN

Rain always fell heavier in Blackwell City at night, as if the sky itself carried secrets too heavy to keep.

Aria Valkyrie pulled her hood tighter as she hurried down the cracked sidewalk, her breath cold in her lungs, her hands numb from the wind slicing across the abandoned street.

She shouldn’t have taken the shortcut.

She knew it.

But the streetlights had gone out again, her phone battery had died, and the last bus had ignored her waving arm the same way life usually ignored her existence.

Her shift at the diner had run late, the manager had yelled about missing receipts, and by the time she escaped the shouting customers and greasy counters, her entire body felt like it was held together by exhaustion and stubbornness.

She just wanted to get home.

That was all.

But life had a way of twisting simple wishes into dangerous detours.

Up ahead, a black SUV sat parked across the alley, its headlights off, its engine quietly humming. She slowed down instinctively — not because she was scared, but because something inside her jolted awake. A quiet warning. A whisper in her bones.

Don’t go there.

But the alley was the only way through.

Aria inhaled, steadying herself.

She’d survived enough in her twenty-two years to know fear didn’t listen unless you spoke to it first.

She stepped forward.

The sound reached her before the scene did — a dull thud, followed by someone gasping for breath. Aria froze at the mouth of the alley, her pulse slamming into her throat.

Another thud. A choked groan.

She shouldn’t look.

She should turn around, pretend she didn’t hear anything, walk home, and sleep like nothing happened.

But curiosity was a trait she inherited from her mother — the kind that pulled her toward shadows instead of away from them. So she moved closer, just enough to see between the thin slice of brick walls.

And her heart stopped.

Two men in dark coats were kneeling beside a third man, whose face was bruised and bloodied, his shirt torn open. The taller of the two held a sleek silver device in his hand — not a knife, not a gun, something else entirely — something she’d never seen before.

But it wasn’t the injured man that froze her in place.

It was him.

Standing in front of them, dressed in a charcoal-black coat that seemed untouched by the rain, was a man whose presence swallowed the alley whole. His posture was relaxed, hands casually resting behind his back, as if what he was witnessing was nothing more than a business transaction. His eyes — cold, steady, unreadable — followed every movement with the precision of a man who judged life by its usefulness.

He didn’t look like a criminal.

He looked like the kind of man who made criminals obey.

And his voice…

When he finally spoke, it drifted through the alley like smoke.

“Last chance,” he said quietly. “Where is the file?”

The injured man spat blood onto the ground. “I told you—I-I don’t—”

The tall man pressed the device to the man’s shoulder.

A scream cut through the night.

Aria stumbled back, her breath shaking, her heart pounding against her ribs. She clamped a hand over her mouth, terrified the sound of her panic would echo through the narrow alley and give her away.

She needed to get out.

Now.

Right now.

But as she backed away, her foot slid on wet pavement. Her heel smacked hard against a metal trash bin.

The echo rang out like a gunshot.

The three men froze.

The injured man whimpered.

The two guards turned sharply—

And the man in the black coat lifted his head.

His eyes found her instantly, cutting through the darkness like a blade.

Aria’s entire body locked into place.

For a moment, no one moved.

Not them.

Not her.

Not even the rain.

Then he spoke, voice calm, almost gentle.

“Bring her.”

Aria ran.

She sprinted back toward the street, lungs burning, fingers scraping against brick walls as she pushed herself forward. Her feet slapped against the pavement, slipping on puddles, skidding around corners she didn’t recognize.

She didn’t look back.

She didn’t have to.

She could hear them.

The footsteps.

The quick, sharp commands.

The heavy thud of someone much larger closing the distance with terrifying ease.

She burst onto the empty main road just as headlights flashed ahead — another SUV barreling toward her. She spun right, but a hand caught her arm mid-turn, strong and merciless.

She screamed, twisting and fighting, but the grip only tightened.

“Stop,” a deep voice ordered from behind her. “Don’t make this harder.”

She kicked, elbowed, clawed — she didn’t care. She didn’t know these people. She didn’t want to understand what she’d seen.

But then another presence stepped in front of her.

The same man from the alley.

The man whose eyes had cut through the dark.

He stood there in the rain, tall, composed, not even breathing hard, as if chasing her had been nothing more than a small inconvenience.

He looked down at her, his gaze sharp and unreadable.

“You shouldn’t have been there,” he said softly.

Aria glared through panic-clouded eyes. “Let me go.”

His jaw flexed once.

Not anger.

Something more complicated.

“You saw something I can't allow you to run around with.”

He took a step closer.

“And now you're part of a problem I need to control.”

Her heart hammered painfully. “I don’t know who you are.”

He leaned in, his voice a low whisper that slid beneath her skin.

“Damian Blackwood.”

She felt the name like cold water down her spine.

Everyone in Blackwell City knew that name.

The billionaire.

The ghost.

The man whose enemies vanished without explanation.

She trembled, not just from fear — from the overwhelming sense that her life had just cracked open.

Damian studied her with quiet intensity, rain sliding down his hair, dripping from his lashes.

“You witnessed something you shouldn’t have,” he said. “Now I have a decision to make.”

Aria stared back at him, defiant even through her terror.

“What decision?” she whispered.

His lips curved — not a smile, but something darker.

“Whether to let you walk away…”

He reached out, brushing his knuckles along her jaw, almost tenderly.

“Or whether to keep you exactly where I can see you.”

Her breath caught.

He didn’t mean for an hour.

Or for a night.

He meant permanently.

Because the devil didn’t chase people.

The devil claimed them.

And Aria had just become the one thing Damian Blackwood refused to lose.

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END OF CHAPTER 1