Chapter 157: The Devil’s Storm
"Will you just shut your mouth for once?" Damian groaned in frustration.
Valerie pulled an enormous thermos wrapped in floral print from her bag and set it down in front of Henry with a decisive clunk.
"This is an organic bone broth and turmeric infusion," Valerie decreed, her chin tilted at an imperious angle. "He has to drink four ounces every ninety minutes. If you see him scowling... which is his baseline, I know, but if he scowls intensely... you are to bring him the lavender cold-compress gel pack from the office mini-fridge. Do we understand each other?"
Henry looked utterly lost, casting a desperate, pleading glance at the CEO. "Sir...?"
"Throw that thermos down the garbage, Henry," Damian ordered, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that sounded like it had been dragged through gravel. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, the vein in his temple pulsing with violent irritation. "And have building security revoke her floor badge."
"Don’t you dare, Henry!"
Valerie gasped, clutching her lapels in mock scandal before glaring at her brother with narrowed eyes.
"Mom explicitly assigned the medical power-of-oversight memo! If you fire me, Damian, I will call her right now on speakerphone, and you know she will have the elevator bank shut down and bring a cot up here herself."
Damian stopped at the threshold of his private office, turning back to level a stare at his younger sister that would have dissolved titanium. "You’re going to be the death of me."
"Nope! I’m going to give you a second life, you dummy!"
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The heavy double doors of the executive suite cracked open an inch, followed by Henry’s pale face peering cautiously into the room.
The seasoned secretary stood frozen on the threshold, clutching a leather folder to his chest like a riot shield.
Decades of working for high-powered executives had taught him many things, but nothing in his contract had prepared him for the volatile ecosystem currently occupying the top floor. Interrupting a Sterling was hazardous; interrupting two at once bordered on suicidal.
Across the vast office, Valerie was sprawled entirely sideways across the bespoke leather chesterfield, her sneakers kicked off onto a velvet ottoman. Her pink iPad was propped against a throw pillow at maximum volume, blasting the screeching audio of a trashy reality dating show.
"How could you kiss Sarah in the hot tub when you swore on your mother you were here for genuine love?!" A woman sobbed through the speakers.
"Because he’s a spineless sociopath with veneers, Brenda, dump him!" Valerie yelled furiously at the screen, aggressively tossing a handful of artisanal popcorn into her mouth. "Throw his luggage into the pool!"
Behind the massive mahogany desk, Damian looked like a man quietly debating the legal ramifications of defenestration.
He was leaning over a spread of post-board restructuring drafts, his jaw clenched so hard the muscles jumped beneath the skin. A half-drained mug of lukewarm turmeric water sat by his elbow like an insult.
Every dramatic violin swell and screeching argument from the television seemed to chip away at the thin veneer of his restraint, the pen in his large hand threatening to snap clean in two against the parchment.
Henry cleared his throat once... softly, apologetically. "Sir...?"
Damian’s dark eyes snapped up instantly, obsidian and lethal. "If you are bringing more herbal infusions, Henry, you are fired."
"No, sir," Henry stammered quickly, taking a brisk step inside while keeping a wary eye on Valerie, who was now wildly gesturing at the screen. "Mr. Julian Montgomery has just arrived in the building. He bypassed the executive bank and was spotted on the twelfth floor... right outside the marketing department."
Damian didn’t ask questions. He didn’t even ask why.
He shoved his chair back with a sharp scrape of wood, instantly abandoning the contracts. "I’ll handle it personally."
"Wait! Damian!" Valerie called out, pausing the screaming TV show with an imperious wave of her remote. "You haven’t done your ten-minute post-lunch seated relaxation exercise!"
"I am exercising my right to leave," Damian growled, grabbing his suit jacket and sweeping out the door before she could brandish another ice pack.
Down on the twelfth floor, the usual busy hum of the marketing bullpen was strangely subdued.
Stepping out of the elevator, Damian found Julian standing motionless by the decorative marble pillar outside the department’s glass-walled conference room.
The disowned heir was dressed in a rumpled charcoal overcoat, hands shoved deep into his pockets, radiating an icy, homicidal silence.
Damian walked up beside him, his gaze following the line of Julian’s dead-eyed glare through the frosted glass.
Inside, Clara Reed was standing near the whiteboard, a stack of freshly printed audit portfolios under her arm. Beside her was Marcus, the marketing executive, whose arms were wrapped tightly around Clara in a warm, enthusiastic, lingering embrace.
"I couldn’t have pulled the offshore tax cross-references without your data pull, Clara, you’re an absolute lifesaver," Marcus was saying, his chin practically resting on her shoulder as Clara gave him an affectionate pat on the back.
Julian’s jaw ticked. His hazel eyes narrowed to lethal slits, his posture rigid as a loaded spring.
"Woman-stealer," Julian muttered under his breath, venom practically dripping from the syllables.
Damian’s gaze shifted half an inch to the left.
Standing right beside Marcus, clutching a fresh draft of the rebranding brief, was Anastasia. She was smiling brightly up at Marcus, laughing softly at something the young man had just whispered, looking entirely too relaxed, entirely too radiant, and entirely too close to him.
Damian’s hand slowly closed into a tight fist at his side, his dark gaze burning into the back of Marcus’s head with enough raw, possessive fury to incinerate the glass.
"I agree," Damian muttered coldly.
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The glass door of the conference room rattled as Damian pushed it open with uncompromising force, Julian stalking in right behind him like a lethal second shadow.
The laughter died instantly.
Marcus turned around, the cheerful grin still lingering on his face until he found himself squarely caught in the crosshairs of two towering, stone-faced men radiating pure, predatory hostility.
The temperature plummeted. Marcus’s hand fell limply from Clara’s shoulder, his throat working in a dry, audible swallow.
Julian didn’t look at Marcus. He locked eyes with Clara, stepped right up to the conference table, and gripped the edge of the polished wood, leaning down until he was breathing into her personal space.
"We’re leaving, Reed," Julian said, his voice deceptively smooth, though the tight clench of his jaw betrayed the temper simmering beneath. "You’ve spent enough time collecting workplace hugs. Take the audit logs. Now."
Clara didn’t blink. She slowly gathered her files, tapped them into a neat stack, and met Julian’s simmering hazel glare with pure, unadulterated fire.
"I work here, I am the team leader. I don’t remember signing an exclusivity agreement with your bad temper, Julian," Clara said coldly, stepping directly into his path as she walked toward the corridor. She didn’t let him usher her; she stopped right at the doorway, looking up at him with sharp emerald eyes.
"Marcus and I just solved a three-million-dollar tax discrepancy. If you think you’re going to win my heart or my time with petty, childish jealousy, you’re severely underestimating who you’re dealing with."
Julian’s jaw tightened, a lethal, possessive edge flickering in his eyes as he followed her into the hall. "I don’t need petty games to claim what’s mine, Clara. But keep testing me, and see what happens to your precious little colleague’s career."
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Meanwhile, Damian hadn’t spared Marcus a second glance; the marketing associate was already backing out the side exit as if retreating from an unexploded bomb.
Damian walked straight to Anastasia, his obsidian gaze dark, unreadable, and absolute. Without a single word, his large hand clamped around her wrist with iron heat.
"Damian..." Ana started, but the force of his stride left her no choice but to follow.
He marched her across the marble hallway, ignoring the startled stares of two junior copywriters, and shoved his biometric keycard against the private executive lift.
The sleek steel doors slid open. Damian hauled her inside, the heavy doors sealing shut behind them with a muffled hiss.
The car began its ascent, plunging the space into hummed isolation.
Before Ana could catch her balance, Damian crowded her back against the mirrored wall, his broad frame blocking out the light.
His hands planted on the glass on either side of her head, caging her completely, his chest rising and falling in heavy, shallow beats.
"I warned you this morning," Damian rasped, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated through the quiet metal car. "Not two hours out of my sight, and you’re down here laughing in another man’s face."
Ana looked up at him, her pulse leaping against her throat, but she refused to back down. Her hazel eyes met his with defiant heat, a faint, mocking smile touching her lips despite the breathlessness creeping into her chest.
"You’re being completely ridiculous," Ana countered, laying a cool palm flat against his dark shirt, right over his bandaged ribs, feeling the rigid tension in his frame.
"The pain in your sutures must be going straight to your head, Damian. It’s making you look like an absurd, jealous fool."