Seraphina's POV
Damien's hand wraps around mine. His grip is firm. Possessive. Like he's claiming something he's been waiting years to own.
He doesn't pull me toward the bedroom like I expect. Instead, he leads me to his study—the room I've been forbidden to enter for five years. The room where he conducts his business. The room where he became someone else's god.
The door closes behind us. I hear it lock.
My heart is pounding so hard I think it might rupture.
"The wheelchair," I say, my voice shaking. "The condition. The degenerative disease. All of it was—"
"A performance." He moves to a cabinet and pours himself whiskey. He doesn't offer me any. "To keep my enemies comfortable. To make them underestimate me. To keep the police looking in the wrong direction while I built an empire under their noses."
He takes a sip. His expression doesn't change.
"And to bring you into my life without raising suspicions," he continues. "If I'd approached you as a healthy man, a wealthy man, a man with power—you would have run. You would have been afraid."
"But a dying man," I whisper. "A dying man was safe."
"Exactly." He turns to look at me. "You needed to save someone, Seraphina. You needed to be noble. So I gave you that. I gave you the chance to be a hero."
I want to scream. Instead, I ask the question that's been burning in my mind.
"How long have you been watching me?"
Damien smiles. "Since that night at the gallery opening. Six years ago. You were nineteen, serving champagne. A drunk banker grabbed you. You smiled. Apologized." His voice hardens. "You were kind to people who hurt you. That's when I knew you were mine."
The way he says it—like I'm a possession. Like I've always been his property.
"Your family's debts weren't an accident," he continues. "Your father's gambling markers? I bought them. Every single one. Your stepmother's medical bills? I made sure her insurance lapsed at exactly the right moment. Madison's college tuition fell through? That was me too."
He's describing manipulation like it's poetry.
"I created a crisis," he says. "A perfect, inescapable crisis. And then I offered the only solution. Marry me. Five years as my wife. And then you'd be free with wealth beyond your imagination."
"Except I wasn't supposed to be free," I realize. "This was never going to end."
"No." He sets down his glass. "This was always forever. I just needed you to believe it was temporary so you'd sign the contract without fighting too hard."
"You're insane." But I don't move away from him.
"I'm obsessed." He steps toward me. "Every moment of the past six years has been planned. Every decision calculated."
He reaches out and touches my face. "I hired people to follow you. I listened to your calls. I knew your schedule better than you did."
"That's not love," I whisper. "That's surveillance."
"With me, they're the same thing." His hand slides to my throat again. "Love means control. It means knowing every move. Every breath. Every secret."
"And Madison?"
"Touched what's mine. Hurt you. Humiliated you in front of everyone." His voice is absolutely final. "I don't tolerate that."
"You killed her." It's not a question.
"Yes. Personally. One shot. Clean." He says it like he's describing the weather. "And I'd do it again. I'd do it a thousand times for you."
"You're the Ghost," I say quietly. "New York's most feared assassin."
"Yes."
"How many people have you killed?"
Damien's smile is dark. "Does it matter? They were all problems. All obstacles. All people who needed to be removed."
I should be horrified. I should be running. I should be calling the police.
Instead, I'm asking: "Who else?"
"Who else what?"
"Who else have you killed? For me? Or just... in general?"
He walks to a painting on the wall—expensive, abstract, beautiful. He presses something behind it. The painting slides away, revealing a safe. He opens it with a keypad code I don't catch.
Inside are files. Hundreds of files.
He pulls one out and hands it to me. I open it.
It's a photograph of a man I've never seen. A newspaper clipping: "BUSINESSMAN FOUND DEAD IN APPARENT SUICIDE."
"That one made a comment about women at a charity event. You were there. I saw your discomfort." Damien pulls out another file. "This one cut you off in traffic. Made an aggressive gesture."
He's pulling out file after file. Each one a person. Each one dead because they somehow touched the edges of Seraphina's world in a way that displeased him.
"How many?" I ask, my voice hollow.
"Seventeen," he says. "That I've done personally. There are more handled by my people. But those seventeen? Those are mine. Those are the ones I killed because they hurt you or disrespected you or simply existed in a way that irritated me."
Seventeen people. Seventeen murders. Seventeen files.
"You've been protecting me," I realize. "But not protecting. Controlling. Killing anyone who might ever hurt me because you want to be the only one who matters."
"Exactly." He takes my hand and places it on one of the files. "You're starting to understand."
I flip open the file he's guided me to. It's a woman. Young. Pretty. Blonde like me.
The name written across the top makes my breath catch.
It's my name.
Seraphina Winters. Before she was Ashford. Before she was married to him. Before she became his wife.
The file contains everything. Every moment of my life. Photographs of me sleeping. Showering. Alone in rooms I thought were private.
"This is who I fell in love with six years ago," Damien says. "And I've been collecting every piece of you."
My hands are shaking so badly I can barely hold the file.
"You're not just a killer," I whisper. "You're a stalker. A psychopath. You've been—"
"Devoted," he says. "Completely devoted to knowing and owning every inch of you."
He steps close enough that I can feel his breath. Close enough that I can see the absolute certainty in his eyes.
"And tonight, Seraphina, we're going to make it official. We're going to move you out of that separate bedroom. We're going to show the world that you're not just my wife."
He leans in, his lips almost touching mine.
"You're going to become the Ghost's queen."
The door to the study explodes inward.
A man I've never seen storms in—tall, dangerous, with a gun at his side. Behind him are three more men, equally armed.
Damien doesn't react. Doesn't move. Doesn't seem surprised.
"Boss," the man says urgently. "We've got a problem. Victor Constantine knows about your wife. He's planning something. Something big."
And just like that, the obsessive moment shatters.
Because outside of the glass penthouse, in the darkness of Manhattan, a war is brewing.
And I'm standing at the center of it, holding files full of my own documented life, realizing I'm not just married to a monster.
I'm married to a marked man.
And his enemies are coming.