Damien's words hit the room with the force of a liquidation order. Mia stood frozen. She looked at the scattering of titanium cards on the velvet-lined counter. "I don't need jewelry," she said, her voice a pristine, quiet line. "I'm not buying anything."

Damien's knuckles went bone-white against his silk-lined pockets. "Mia!" His voice rose, a sharp blade cutting the sterile air. She didn't engage. She turned toward the exit, her silhouette small against the expansive glass. "I'm going home."

She took four steps. The Sovereign didn't move to stop her. The lack of physical restraint made her pulse stutter. She knew that a quiet Damien was a terminal Damien. "If you walk out that door," he murmured, his voice a low, rhythmic rasp. "Don't expect mercy."

Mia stopped. She turned to face the beautiful monster she had married. "Julian said you have rules," she whispered, her fingers twisting the fabric of her coat. "You don't target civilians." Damien let out a short, cold laugh that died in the back of his throat.

"Julian knows what I allow him to know," he said, stepping into her space. He tapped a silver cufflink against the glass. Click. Click. Click.. "I can make Timothy the example that haunts you for the rest of your life."

The blood drained from Mia's face. "You're threatening me." "You're only just realizing that?" he asked, his eyes two pinpricks of dark gray. He tilted his head toward the counter. "Come here."

Mia's palms were slick with a cold sweat. She remained anchored to the marble floor. Damien's patience vanished. His voice dropped into a sub-zero register. "I won't say it again. Come. Here."

She walked toward him, every step a terminal descent. She stood by the counter, surrounded by millions of dollars of cold, glittering ice. Damien caught her jaw, forcing her to look at the diamonds meant to replace her memories.

The image of Mia and Timothy walking in the rain—vivid, nostalgic, and entirely devoid of Damien—ignited a white-hot fire in his gut. He slammed her hand down onto the glass counter. "Pick something," he ordered, his voice thick with a jagged aggression.

He turned his gaze to the row of trembling shop-girls. "Make her try on every single piece in this store," he whispered. "We aren't leaving until the inventory is exhausted."

----

The flagship store was a vault of suffocating silence. High-wattage spotlights hummed, casting a sterile glow over millions in loose diamonds scattered across the velvet counters.

An attendant draped a floral diamond necklace over Mia's collarbone with trembling hands. "Try this one, Madam? It suits your skin perfectly."

Mia stared at her own reflection, her skin translucent in the glare. "Next set," she whispered, her voice like paper. "I'm sorry it's 1:00 AM. I'm sorry you're still on the clock because of me."

"It's no trouble," the girls whispered in unison, their heads bowed.

Damien had been a shadow on the leather sofa, flipping through manifests with clinical indifference. He took a call and stepped out, leaving a trail of menthol smoke in the air.

"Madam, please," one of the girls whispered, glancing at the exit. "He's occupied. Let us sneak you to a car. You look like you're going to collapse."

Mia looked toward the glass doors. Four men in charcoal suits stood like pillars against the San Francisco night. "He isn't gone," she said. "He just moved the perimeter. He doesn't like being lied to."

The glass doors hissed open. The staff snapped into a line. "Master Damien."

Damien strolled back to the counter, the violent energy from the street finally receding into a languid, predatory calm. He scanned the display cases and snatched a pair of heavy drop earrings.

He tossed them onto the velvet in front of her. "Put them on. I want to see them."

"Madam, wait—" an attendant started, her face draining of color.

Mia caught the girl's wrist, stopping the warning. "I've got it. I'll do it myself."

Mia's fingers moved with a rhythmic, practiced precision. She fastened the first, then the second, her expression as smooth as a marble statue.

She shook her hair out and turned to face him. "Is this enough?"

Damien's gaze went heavy, a look of total occupation. The jewelry didn't dominate her; it merely highlighted the elegant sadness he had bought ninety days ago.

He stepped into her space, his hand rising toward her earlobe.

Mia jerked her head to the side, a sharp, instinctive flinch.

The Sovereign's expression sank into a sub-zero chill. He clamped his hand around her waist, wrenching her back toward him with a force that made her gasp. "You don't want me touching you now? Is that it?"

"It's not that..."

He didn't wait. He forced her chin up and ran his thumb over the skin behind her ear.

He froze. His thumb came away wet, the surface stained with a dark, metallic smear.

Mia let out a broken, muffled gasp of pain.

Damien shoved her hair back, the overhead lights revealing the raw, jagged tears on her lobes. The gold posts had been forced through swollen, bleeding skin.

"She never wears earrings," the manager whispered, her voice breaking. "There were too many sets... the metal kept cutting her. She wouldn't let us stop trying them on."

The air in the store turned to stone. Damien's fingers trembled against her skin, his knuckles turning white as he stared at the blood on his hand.

"Why didn't you say something?" he rasped, his voice a jagged fracture of its usual silk. "Why didn't you just tell me to stop?"

Mia looked up at him, her gray eyes vast and hollow. "Would you have listened? Or would you have called it another act of defiance to trigger a liquidation?"

She didn't resist as he pulled her into a crushing embrace, her face buried in his expensive wool coat. "I just wanted the anger to stop. This pain is nothing. I've survived much worse than you."

Damien's grip tightened until her ribs groaned. "You're comparing me to the people who destroyed your life? To the people who slaughtered your house?"

The silence lasted an eternity. Then, Mia's voice drifted up, small and terminal.

"Those people took my parents," she whispered. "You took my friends."