A Brother’s Weakness, A Woman’s Undoing

  Damien POV Night settled over the city, soft and deceptive, the kind of darkness that made men careless. It was almost midnight. I sat in my car a few houses down from a narrow, two-floor residential building. Nothing special. Nothing rich. The kind of place Lucian Verona pretended didn’t exist in his world. Yet he walked inside. I watched him push through the small iron gate, climb the short steps, and disappear behind a plain door. No guard outside, it was just him. That alone told me everything. Lucian never stepped into humble places unless the person inside mattered more than the image he built for himself. Someone he protected, and hid. Maybe someone he could not afford anyone else to know about. I watched the door for a few more minutes. No movement, not light. Whoever he came to see preferred it like this. Or maybe Lucian did not want the outside world to see them together. I filed that thought in the back of my mind. I would return to it.  I started the engine and dr