CHAPTER 30
ARIANA POV
The plush carpet of the upstairs hallway felt fundamentally wrong under my grime-encrusted boots—it was far too soft, far too quiet, and smelled far too much of expensive, cloying floor wax and those artificial lilies.
The moment the elevator doors had hissed open, I knew with a chilling certainty that I wasn't going back to the guest room to recover or wash the soot from my skin
Nor did Damian head toward the primary office where he handled the "legitimate" roots of his massive empire.
The pretense of luxury was dead, buried under the blackened rubble of the sub-level interrogation room we had just fled.
He marched straight toward a sleek, seamless wall in a corridor I had passed a couple of times before, a hallway that led to his main office.
I had thought there was absolutely nothing there—just a decorative, cold expanse of dark, polished marble and subtle, recessed lighting—until he reached out with a steady hand.
