All Chapters of ONE NIGHT FOREVER : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The fear thumping in my chest was matched by the cold, merciless cave walls pressing on my back. Even though Damien's eyes were burning with something far more dangerous—resolve—his strong hold on my wrists kept me grounded.Claire had returned. alive. pursuing us.We had stopped running. We were engaged in combat.With his breathing still labored from the pursuit, Damien let me go softly. His piercing eyes scanned the entrance to the cave, every muscle tensed, ready to attack.His voice was quiet but authoritative as he said, "We have to assume she has more men patrolling the area." "This was not a warning; it was an ambush."I forced composure into my shaking palms and swallowed hard. "How did she discover us at all?"Damien tightened his jaw. She has an obsession. She had been following us, waiting for the ideal opportunity.I remembered the picture shot in the dark and the text messages. Claire had been keeping an eye on us for months; she hadn't suddenly discovered us."She refus

After Three Years...Our penthouse's balcony, which overlooked the skyline of New York City, was buffeted by the wind. A familiar, reassuring rhythm was formed by the distant hum of traffic, and lights glistened like dispersed stars. There had always been unrest in the city, but *we* had at last achieved calm.As we watched the city light up below, Damien put his arms around my waist from behind and rested his head on my shoulder. I was brought back to the present by his warmth, which drove away the fall cold."Reminiscing about the past?" His voice was a quiet rasp in the chilly air as he spoke.I leaned toward him and gave him a little grin. "Not this evening. Simply put, thankful.Quiet mornings, dreams shared, and a life forged from the ashes of what we had suffered had characterized the previous three years. Damien had left the shadowy world he had governed and rebuilt his company on fair terms.We had *freedom.It seemed like the past was a faraway memory until someone knocked o

We were still reeling from the planned ambush as we stood amid the penthouse's ruins, and the air buzzed with anxiety. Under the flickering emergency lights, broken glass glinted, and the subtle gunpowder odor lingered like a specter of the fury that had ripped through our house.Damien's jaw remained clinched, and his dark eyes were fixed on the abandoned black tablet that was still displaying the eerie message:"We are only at the beginning."His rage was restrained by merciless control, and I could really feel the storm building within of him. Pulled into hostilities he couldn't escape, he had been here before, but this time the target was us.As she paced close to the walls that were damaged by bullets, Vanessa said, "They were sending a message." "They could have killed us, but they chose not to."The keys flew over Kyle's fingertips as he typed frantically on his portable security panel. All of the penthouse's main monitoring systems are still inaccessible to me. Everything was

As we got closer to the isolated airfield Kyle had set up via one of Damien's last remaining connections, the sharp mountain pass was howling with freezing winds. The ancient but solid cargo jet, designed for such missions, was waiting on the runway.Our next stop was Eastern Europe. Kyle was able to follow the locations from Natalia's distorted signal, which took him far into a mountain region away from any recognized city or government authority.The fortress is concealed. Her new empireWith icy accuracy, Damien loaded our equipment onto the aircraft while Vanessa and Kyle made sure our transit routes were safe. Errors were not acceptable—not this time.My eyes were fixed on the far-off snow-capped peaks that were hardly discernible in the last of the light as I drew my jacket closer against the icy wind. They watched, like silent sentinels, waiting.More for myself than for anybody else, I whispered, "We're really doing this."The wind was broken by Damien's resolute and powerful

Throughout Natalia's castle, gunfire reverberated ceaselessly, with each shot bouncing off the icy, implacable walls. We drove through the maze, hunted but unyielding, the spooky shadows created by smoke and flashing emergency lights.Every movement Damien took was precise, deliberate, and unstoppable—he moved like a force of nature. Kyle was working feverishly at his portable rig, trying to deactivate the locked exits, while Vanessa was a lethal ghost on the top catwalk, cutting down targets with surgical accuracy.As more of Natalia's warriors streamed into the loading dock, I remained beside Damien, firing back with great concentration. Their cool precision made it obvious that they weren't here to take prisoners as their tactical gear shined beneath the glaring fluorescents.“Time is running out!” Vanessa yelled in a steady, strained voice from above. "They are upon us!"Damien had a merciless intensity in his eyes. "This is ending. Now."Breaking ThroughAs the system interface t