The city stretched endlessly, its veins pulsing with neon lights and cigarette smoke curling from forgotten alleyways. The streets carried the weight of whispered confessions, footsteps filled with unspoken secrets.

Eve Lancaster had never truly feared the night. She had spent her life navigating shadows, dodging questions, pretending not to notice the way certain corners of the world demanded silence instead of answers.

But tonight, 'the darkness wasn’t just an absence of light.

It was something alive.'

It followed her, pressing against her skin like fingertips ghosting along her spine, an awareness she couldn’t shake no matter how much she tried.

And that was before she saw him.

The Man in the Shadows..

Damian Cross wasn’t just a stranger lurking in the night.

He was something far more deliberate.

He stood beneath the glow of a flickering streetlamp, watching her with the kind of patience that sent shivers across her skin. He wasn’t pretending to be anything other than what he was—a man who had been waiting for her, studying her, learning the way she moved through the world as if she belonged to him.

Eve’s heartbeat quickened, sharp against her ribs, but she forced herself to stand her ground.

The way he looked at her—like he had already unravelled the pieces of her before she had even spoken a word—sent electricity through her veins.

She wasn’t used to being known.

Not like this.

Not like prey caught in a predator’s gaze.

Damian’s lips curved into something slow, calculated, and far too confident.

“Running already?”

His voice dripped into the night like honey laced with poison, each syllable wrapping around her like unseen hands.

Eve swallowed, tilting her chin up. “I’m not running.”

Damian’s smirk deepened, amusement flickering across his features. “Then why do you look like you should be?”

Eve fought the urge to step backward. To put space between them.

Everything about him set off alarms in her mind—the easy dominance in his posture, the lack of hesitation in his presence, the way he acted like he had every right to be standing here, watching her, waiting for something she didn’t understand yet.

But before she could force words past her lips—

A car.

Speeding toward them, headlights slicing through the darkness, tires screeching against the pavement.

Eve barely had time to react, her instincts kicking in too late.

Damian moved first.

His grip was firm, unyielding, fingers curling around her wrist and yanking her backward in a single fluid motion. Before she could process what was happening, she was slammed against the wall of the alley, Damian’s body shielding hers, his presence a force of heat and danger.

The car shot past—fast, reckless, too close.

Not an accident.

Not a mistake.

Someone had aimed for her.

Eve sucked in a sharp breath, the weight of Damian’s touch burning against her skin, her pulse hammering so violently she could taste the adrenaline in her throat.

She could feel his breath against her cheek, steady and controlled, like he was unaffected by the fact that she had just almost died.

Damian’s voice was quiet when he finally spoke, a whisper of something dark.

“That wasn’t random.”

Eve inhaled sharply.

She knew.

Deep down, she knew.

But the most terrifying thing wasn’t the realization that someone had tried to hurt her.

It was the way Damian was still holding her—firm, unwavering, like he had no intention of letting go.

Like he had been waiting for this moment.

Like he had known it was coming.

~TO BE CONTINUED....