Naiara was still trembling in Damian's arms.
He held her carefully, as if the warmth of his body could chase away the ghosts clawing inside her.
Every breath she took was shallow, broken, half-sobs trapped in her throat.
Her skin was cold, yet Damian could feel the furious pulse beneath it, the heartbeat of a creature cornered and fighting to survive.
"Breathe, Tigna…" he murmured, his voice low and husky. "It's over. You're safe now."
She shook her head, clutching the sheets as though they could shield her.
Her eyes glistened: wide, terrified, shimmering with memories she couldn't silence.
"It's not over. He's back. Every time… the same nightmare. I can't wake up."
Damian looked at her, his jaw tense.
Something inside him cracked, a small, unfamiliar ache that had nothing to do with duty.
He wanted to promise she would never be hurt again. But he couldn't. Not him.
"Who?" he asked quietly, though the answer already felt like a wound forming in his chest.
"Javier," she whispered.
The name fell between them like broken glass.
Her breath shook as she continued, her voice trembling but unstoppable.
"We were at a bar. He'd been drinking. He started yelling at me, in front of everyone. Then he grabbed me, dragged me outside. People just stared. No one moved. Out back… he threw me on the ground and started hitting me. Kicks. Punches. Slaps. I could hear the dull thud of every blow. My face was burning, bleeding. I couldn't see anymore. Then… the knife. Two strikes, one in the back, one in the stomach. I thought I was going to die. But then… I heard a voice. A voice telling me not to close my eyes. That voice kept me alive."
Her words faded into the silence, the only sound the steady rhythm of the sea against the hull.
Damian's blood froze.
Those words, "don't close your eyes", they ripped open a door in his memory he'd long kept locked.
Barcelona. A side street, wet with rain.
Screams echoing between the walls.
An enraged man with a knife. And a girl lying on the pavement: beige dress, soaked in water and blood.
Her face… unrecognizable.
So swollen and broken he could barely tell she was human.
Only her eyes, those eyes, full of fear and life at once. And her voice, faint, desperate:
"Don't let me close my eyes… please."
He had held her hand. Told her to stay awake. Then the sirens. The flashing lights.
And he had walked away before anyone could see him, soaked, breathless, haunted by that voice.
Now, years later, he was hearing it again, in her.
"You said someone saved you that night?" he asked, barely recognizing his own voice.
"Yes," she breathed. "But I never saw him. Maybe he wasn't real. Maybe I just imagined him."
"He was real," Damian said.
She blinked. "How do you know?"
"Because I was there."
Her lips parted in disbelief.
He looked down, his voice breaking.
"I was in Barcelona that night. Calle del Sol. I heard screaming. There was a man with a knife and a girl on the ground. I stopped him. Disarmed him. You were lying there, in the rain… your beige dress ripped, covered in blood. I called for help. But your face…" his voice faltered "… it was unrecognizable, Nay. I couldn't have known it was you."
Her breath caught.
"The dress… beige," she whispered, almost to herself.
Then her eyes filled with tears. "It was you. You saved me that night."
Damian couldn't answer. He just reached up and brushed his fingers along her cheek, his touch trembling. In his gaze burned a storm of guilt, tenderness, disbelief, and something deeper, rawer, that he didn't yet dare to name.
"I didn't know, Nay," he murmured. "I swear I didn't know. But now… everything makes sense."
She stared at him, her tears falling silently.
Her heart beat in her throat, heavy and wild.
"What if it wasn't an accident?" she whispered. "What if you were always meant to be there, even before I knew who you were?"
Damian closed his eyes. He pulled her closer until their foreheads touched.
The world outside was just the sound of the ocean breathing against the yacht.
Inside, two souls that had already met once in blood and darkness finally recognized each other in the faint light of dawn.
And neither of them knew whether that recognition would save them, or destroy them forever.