THE MIRACULOUS RETURN OF DAMIEN BLACK

Chapter 4

The moment Penelope's words about his sister left her mouth, something inside Damian snapped. All the control he'd been holding onto, all the calm he'd forced into his voice, everything just shattered like broken glass. His expression went from cold anger to something far more dangerous, something that made the air around him feel heavy and suffocating.

"What about my sister? Where the hell is she?"

Penelope folded her arms across her chest, a smug smile playing at the corners of her lips like she was enjoying every second of this.

"Well, I'm not supposed to be exchanging words with you because you are below me. You're not even qualified to be my maid. But I'm going to bring you back to reality, the reality where you think you can just show up here after five years, after everyone believed you were dead, and start demanding answers, start asking questions like you have any right to. You are nobody now. You are trash. A good-for-nothing fool. A pig."

She paused, letting those insults hang in the air between them, watching to see how they would land.

"But let me tell you something. This is exactly what your sister did, trying to disobey us, disobey me specifically. And yes, I did what I needed to do to break her, to crush her down until she became a shadow of herself."

Her smile widened, turning cruel.

"So I don't know if she's even still breathing. She's at the Zed Bar, and if you run there quickly, maybe you'll be able to salvage her corpse. Maybe. I don't know. But I know she's nothing to write home about anymore. The last time I saw her, she looked like death warmed over. She's probably dead by now, honestly. So I think it's better you go look for your sister instead of standing here committing nuisance and asking me questions, because I have somewhere important to be. I'm traveling today, so you need to leave immediately."

Before she could say another word, before she could even blink, Damian's hand shot out like a striking snake. His fingers wrapped around Penelope's throat and squeezed, cutting off whatever poisonous words were about to spill from her mouth next. Then he lifted her clean off her feet, raising her into the air like she weighed nothing at all.

With a voice so low and deadly it could chill bone marrow, Damian spoke through gritted teeth while his fingers stayed wrapped around Penelope's throat.

"You didn't just try to sell my mother's land and destroy her grave. What did you do to my sister? What did you do to Rebecca?"

Penelope felt Damian's grip tightening around her neck like a steel trap closing, and she couldn't understand where this boldness was coming from. The Damian she remembered was supposed to be fearful, supposed to cower before the Nathaniel family name. He was supposed to be afraid of her, of what her family could do to him. But this man standing before her didn't seem afraid of anything at all.

"Get your hands off my neck! Let me go!" she gasped, her voice coming out strangled and weak. "If you don't, you're going to bring the wrath of the Nathaniel family upon yourself. Do you think we're the same as we were five years ago? Even then we were powerful, but now we are ten times more powerful than we were before. Nobody dares to talk to us anymore. So let go of my neck immediately!"

Instead of loosening his grip, Damian tightened it even more. This time Penelope's face started turning red as oxygen became harder and harder to find. She knew that if she didn't say something fast, she might actually die right here on her own doorstep, and this fool wouldn't think twice about going to jail for it.

"Well, just know that you're going to pay dearly for this," she choked out, her words barely making it past his crushing grip. "But your sister, like I said before, is at Zed Bar and she's working there. You can go search for her immediately, but I know she's not in good condition the last time I heard about her. So now let go of me!"

Damian released his hold on Penelope's throat and she dropped back to her feet, gasping and coughing as air rushed back into her lungs. Even though he was still visibly angry, even though every fiber in his body wanted to crush her neck completely for what she'd done to his mother's grave, one thing was crystal clear: his sister's safety was his number one priority now. His late mother wouldn't be happy with him if something bad happened to Rebecca.

At that moment, with rage still coursing through his veins like liquid fire, Damian fixed Penelope with a stare that could have burned holes through concrete. His voice came out steady, controlled, but underneath that calm surface lurked something far more terrifying than any amount of shouting could convey.

"You all just have to wait for my return." He paused, letting each word settle into the air like stones dropping into still water. "Pray. Pray that I find my sister in one piece. Pray that when I locate her, there's not a single scratch on her body, not one mark, not one bruise."

His jaw clenched so tight the muscles in his face stood out like carved marble.

"But if I find any scratch on her, any amount of damage whatsoever, I'm going to double it. Every single injury, every bit of pain she's suffered, I'm going to multiply it by two and deliver it straight back to the Nathaniel family. You're all going to feel my wrath in ways you can't even begin to imagine. When I'm done with you, you're going to wish you were never born. You're going to curse the day your parents brought you into this world for what I'm going to do to all of you."