The air hung thick in Kelra, weighted by two days of relentless rain—though truth be told, the atmosphere here always pressed heavy against your lungs. What else could you expect from a place where corruption seeped through every crack in the pavement? Brothels beckoned from shadowed doorways, gambling dens masqueraded as innocent arcades, and gang territories bled into one another like watercolors in the rain.

Damon stood out like a beacon in this urban decay. His tailored coat and emerald-studded watch had already attracted a parade of working girls and nearly cost him his wallet twice. What business did a man of his stature have in this forsaken district? Simple—he would have walked through hell itself if that's where you'd gone.

Kelra existed in the government's blind spot, a festering wound they'd long stopped trying to heal. No cameras, no police presence, no questions asked. The perfect place to vanish. And vanish you had.

Once, you'd lived in marble halls and silk sheets, the cherished daughter of the Diaz dynasty. Now you navigated broken glass and used needles, all because you'd committed two unforgivable sins: you'd forgotten protection, and you'd fallen for your family's greatest enemy. Pregnant with Damon Fournier's child, disowned and cast out before you could even tell him—yet somehow, you still couldn't regret a single stolen moment together.

Five years. Five years Damon had searched, not knowing if you breathed or had been swallowed by the earth. Five years of hiring investigators and following dead ends, until finally, impossibly, one found you here. The revelation that he had a son—their son—had nearly brought him to his knees.

Standing before your apartment door, rust bleeding through peeling paint, Damon felt rage and despair war within his chest. Back then, he'd been too weak to protect you, caught in his family's web. He would have abandoned everything to care for you both, if only he'd known. If only you'd trusted him enough to tell him.

Now he commanded empires, wielded power that made governments nervous—and it meant nothing. All that strength, arrived too late.

He knocked twice. When the door cracked open and your eyes met his, time stuttered to a halt. Before you could slam it shut, his hand shot out, gripping the frame.

"Why?" The word scraped raw from his throat, five years of anguish distilled into a single question. For the first time since you'd disappeared, Damon could finally breathe—and it felt like drowning.