Chapter 2Blood Vows and Broken Ribs

Damian placed me under house arrest.

He confiscated all my communication devices and weapons. The villa's security system was upgraded to maximum level.

The bodyguards who'd once sworn to protect me with their lives now became my jailers.

Damian came home every day, acting as if nothing had happened, preparing my meals and coaxing me to take my medication.

He sat by the bed, using those hands that had once dealt death, clumsily peeling an apple for me.

"Kira, the doctor says you need rest. When you're better, I'll take you to see the ocean."

The ocean again.

He'd once promised that when we finally escaped that blood-soaked world, he'd take me to see the cleanest ocean in the world.

Now he was clean, with someone new by his side.

I knocked the apple from his hand.

"Damian Blackwood, stop making me sick."

He didn't get angry. He simply crouched down to pick up the pieces, one by one.

"If you don't want apples, how about some soup? I simmered it for hours."

I watched his humble posture and suddenly found it laughable.

The feared crime lord was now kneeling before me, just to get me to drink some soup.

How pathetic.

"Get out."

His body stiffened. Eventually, he left in silence, carrying the bowl of soup.

The door locked from the outside.

I lay in bed, listening to the familiar gunfire from my nightmares, sleepless all night.

The next day, an unfamiliar maid brought lunch.

Under the plate was a photograph.

Of Violet.

She wore a white dress, standing in sunlight, smiling innocently.

Around her neck was a necklace, the one Damian had bought me with his first legitimate paycheck for my eighteenth birthday.

I'd lost it during a mission. I'd searched for so long.

So it had been with him all along.

The back of the photo bore a line of delicate handwriting:

"Kira, Damian says only someone as pure as me deserves this necklace. He says you're too dirty. The smell of you makes him sick."

My hands trembled uncontrollably.

Dirty.

Yes, how could I not be dirty?

To pull him from a pile of corpses, I'd stayed awake for three days and nights, personally stitching seventeen wounds on his body.

To avenge him, I'd stormed the enemy's stronghold alone and killed thirty-seven people.

When I returned to him covered in blood, he'd held me and kissed every scar on my body.

He'd said, "My Kira is the purest girl in this world."

Now he found me dirty.

I gripped the photo and laughed.

That evening, when Damian came home, I was waiting for him in the living room.

The table was set with an elegant candlelit dinner-wine, steak, and his favorite black swan cake.

He froze, then joy flickered in his eyes.

"Kira, you..."

I raised my glass to him, smiling.

"Damian , congratulations."

"Congratulations for what?"

"For finally finding the girl of your dreams."

The smile froze on his face.

I stood and walked over, slapping the photograph against his chest.

"But there's something I need to remind you about."

I leaned close to his ear, speaking in a voice only we could hear.

"I have a problem. Things I've used, even if I don't want them anymore, even if I throw them away, I can't stand anyone else touching them. Anyone who touches them loses their hands."