In stark contrast to the oppressive atmosphere of the Carter Estate, on the other side of the city, in the penthouse of a skyscraper that pierced the clouds, the air was as cold and sterile as a surgical suite.
This was the headquarters of the Obsidian Group, a mysterious empire whose name alone was enough to send a chill down the spines of corporate titans worldwide.
At this moment, the master of that empire, Damian, was leaning back in an office chair as large as a throne. He wasn't wearing his mask, but the expression on his handsome, god-like face was colder than any silver he had ever worn.
One of his arms was still in a specialized sling, and his face was pale from blood loss, but this did nothing to diminish the suffocating aura of power that radiated from him.
Before him stood a line of subordinates dressed in black, each with their head bowed, none daring to breathe too loudly.
"...So, what you're trying to tell me is that a living person simply vanished, right under your noses?" Damian's voice was soft, yet it swept through the office like a Siberian cold front, causing the temperature to plummet.
The man in the lead, his chief of staff and head of security, reported with beads of cold sweat on his forehead, "My apologies, sir. Our people tracked the young lady to the point where she was rescued by a park ranger and taken to a hospital in the nearby town. But... she only stayed at the hospital for less than two hours before leaving on her own. She refused police assistance and had no communication devices on her. We..."
"Useless," Damian bit out, the single word sharp as a shard of ice.
The battle-hardened security chief flinched involuntarily.
"My instructions were to find her and protect her from the shadows until I had dealt with my own affairs," Damian's fingertips tapped a light rhythm on the polished surface of his desk, each tap landing like a hammer blow on the hearts of everyone present. "And you, not only did you let her leave my side, but now you have lost her."
"Sir, we've mobilized all our resources," the head of technology quickly added. "We've hacked into every surveillance system along her possible routes and are analyzing the footage frame by frame. But she seems to have intentionally avoided all cameras. And the private car she hired... we traced the license plate, but it was a fake. It's as if she vanished into thin air."
"Vanished into thin air?" A cold smirk touched Damian's lips. "In this world, there is no one I cannot find."
His gaze fell upon an encrypted file on his desk. The subject line was Seraphina's name. In the attached photo, taken at a charity gala, she was smiling, bright and elegant, like a white camellia untouched by the dust of the world.
But the image that surfaced in his mind was of her in that dark cave, her eyes filled with terror, defiance, and a heartbreaking fragility. And her unique scent, like a rain-washed garden.
That night, he had been ambushed, gravely injured, and cornered. A raging fever and potent drugs had nearly consumed his sanity. He had thought he would die in that cave, until she appeared.
She had stumbled into his dark world like an equally desperate pixie. Her warmth, her scent, her struggles... they had become the sole anchor that pulled him back from the brink of hell.
He didn't know what impulse had driven him. Perhaps it was the most primitive male possessiveness, or perhaps it was the instinctual solace of two desperate souls clinging to each other. He only knew that in her, he had sensed a vitality so raw and unprecedented it sent a tremor through his very soul.
He had to find her.
At any cost.
"Search," Damian issued a command that permitted no argument. "Start with the Carter family. I want to know every social connection she has, every place she could possibly go. And Richard and Liliana—I want all their movements and communication records for the last twenty-four hours on my desk."
"Yes, sir!"
As if granted a pardon, the subordinates turned and left, moving with maximum efficiency.
Damian was alone in the office. He picked up Seraphina's photo, his long fingers gently tracing the smile on her face.
"Seraphina..." he murmured her name, his bottomless black eyes revealing a rare, complex emotion—a mixture of possessiveness and... pain.
Just then, his personal physician, a stern, elderly German man, knocked and entered.
"Sir, it's time to change the dressing on your wound."
Damian nodded, unfastening the cuffs of his shirt.
As the doctor tended to his injury, he handed Damian a report. "Sir, regarding the analysis you requested... on the traces you left on the young lady, and your own blood sample. The results are in."
Damian's gaze sharpened. "Speak."
"That night, your body was in a state of extreme agitation due to the drugs. As for the young lady..." the doctor paused, choosing his words carefully, "her system also showed high concentrations of sedative and hallucinogenic substances. This proves she was drugged before she encountered you."
The result confirmed Damian's suspicions. That vile pair had indeed poisoned her.
The thought of her being kidnapped by those thugs, completely defenseless, caused the temperature around Damian to freeze solid.
"There is one more thing..." the doctor hesitated, then decided to continue. "Although this is only a preliminary hormonal level screening and cannot be fully confirmed... based on the analysis of the young lady's blood report from the hospital... her hCG levels are abnormal. Ruling out certain medical conditions, there is... a high probability that she was already pregnant before she met you."
"What?!"
Damian's fist clenched so tightly that the wound on his arm split open, seeping fresh blood, but he didn't even notice.
Pregnant?
She was pregnant with that scumbag Richard's child, and they still conspired to have her framed and discarded?
An uncontrollable, destructive rage erupted from the depths of Damian's heart. Never before had he wanted to personally crush a man's throat with his bare hands.
His original plan had been to wait. To eliminate the traitors within his own family, to let his wounds heal, and then to approach her under a suitable guise. To protect her, and step by step, to steal her away from that fool Richard.
But now, he couldn't wait.
He could not allow her, let alone her child by another man, to remain in that viper's nest for a second longer.
He had to appear before her. Immediately.
In the most direct, most undeniable way possible.