CHAPTER 121: STRINGS AND FIRE

–Damon–

It astonished me—though nothing she does should astonish me anymore—that Livana sent them ahead to the villa, the stage of our inevitable union, while she and I drifted instead toward the old mansion where her mother once lived and breathed. It was deliberate, as everything she does is deliberate, and yet cloaked in mystery. I follow her without question, because wherever she goes becomes holy ground.

Grandpa Reagan greeted us with the familiar affection of family, and to my surprise, my father-in-law was there as well, with his own parents present. Three generations, all under one roof, watching her. Yet none of them see her as I do. None of them can.

"Liva," Grandma Belinda swept forward, pressing kisses to her cheeks. "Where’s your sister?"

"She’s busy pampering herself," Livana replied, smiling with all the poise of royalty. That smile—charming, elegant, but cold. A smile meant to appease, never to reveal. "I’m here to fetch my cello."

"Oh," Grandpa Reagan rose at once, eager, almost childlike in his excitement. "Are you going to play, my little pumpkin?"

She hummed, soft and low, that intoxicating sound that both promises and withholds. The sweetness of it would fool anyone else. But I know her. I alone have mapped the secret worlds of that voice. I have spent my life—my eternity, it seems—studying her like scripture. Every hum, every sigh, every cry she’s ever made belongs to me. I hoard them like sacred relics. I crave them. I drown in them.

And yes—God help me—even now, in the presence of her family, my mind betrays me. I think of her gasping beneath me, her face shattering into those perfect, uncontrollable expressions when I drive her into the abyss of pleasure. Those are the faces she hides from the world, but not from me. Never from me. I should banish such thoughts at this moment, but it is impossible. She has infected me. I am incurable.

"I’m only getting my cello," she said, dismissive yet serene.

"Play, darling," Grandpa Edward urged. His voice quivered with longing. "It’s been so long since we heard from you. The last time was when..." His words broke, silence swallowing the memory that still seared them.

But I know. Of course I know. That was when she stopped, when grief consumed her and music became unbearable. She withheld her gift as punishment—against the universe, against fate. And she was right to. Because how does one play for an empty chair? How does one pour one’s soul into strings when the one who would have listened—the only one who mattered—was gone?

It was then, in that remembered moment, that I first saw her eyes betray her. Those impossible violet eyes, usually so guarded, so resolute, brimmed with sorrow until tears spilled down her cheeks. Even her tears are art. Not clumsy, not raw—but exquisite. Each drop falls as if placed by a master’s brush, painting grief onto her perfect canvas of a face. She is agony made beautiful, and I worship her for it.

"Damon." Her hand reached for mine—small, delicate, commanding. The world bent to her gesture. And I? I obeyed, as I always will. I took her hand, grounding myself in the silken reality of her skin, and led her up the staircase to the music room.

The room was a mausoleum of sound. Instruments slept under dust-proof shrouds, like corpses dressed in white. In the middle, her cello sat veiled, untouched, a bride awaiting her unveiling. Even in silence, it radiated something sacred, because it was hers.

"You know my cello, right?" she asked.

"Yes, my love," I answered, though what I meant was I know everything that belongs to you, because I have made it mine by loving you too much to let it go.

"Take it. Including the stand."

"Yes, baby." My voice was a vow. I moved with ritualistic reverence, peeling away the cloth with slow precision. Dust released into the air like ghostly breath. I lifted the cello as though it were her body, cradled it as though it were alive, and collected the stand. Nothing of hers will ever be neglected while I draw breath.

We returned downstairs. Her grandparents sat waiting—hungry, desperate, clinging to the chance that she might grant them the miracle of her music again.

They know her as a prodigy. They think her talent is her greatest gift. They are wrong. Her greatest gift is her existence. And yet I wonder—if her mother had lived, would Livana still sit at this cello every day, pouring herself into music? Would she let the world hear the depths of her, instead of silencing it in grief?

Or perhaps, in some twisted mercy, her silence is for me alone. Perhaps her music, when it returns, will not be for them, or the world, or even the ghost of her mother—but for me. Only me.

And if it isn’t—then God help me—I will make it so.

–Livana–

We returned to Damon’s mansion—the one he bought, yet placed under my name as though ownership could disguise obsession as devotion. The walls felt more like him than me: towering, commanding, suffocating in their grandeur. I carried a composition in hand and passed it to him without raising my eyes, still wrapped in the veil of blindness I continued to wear like an armor.

"You composed this?" His voice carried that astonished reverence he always reserved for me, as if everything I touched turned into something rare.

"Yes."

"Since when?" His fingers traced the score, reading the notes with sharp concentration.

"Since Laura began spinning her dreams into a wedding gown," I answered softly, my memory carrying me back as though yesterday had never left. Laura’s laughter had filled the room then, her endless chatter weaving stories about our mother showing us designs, the gowns she had envisioned for us to wear on that imagined day. A magical day that was not hers alone, but a tapestry she insisted we all be stitched into.

"Ohhh." Damon’s arms were around me before I could retreat into thought, his embrace as immediate as it was possessive. "That’s thoughtful of you. Why not compose a song for me?" He tilted my chin, stealing a kiss from lips that belonged more to silence than to him.

"Let’s get working," I murmured, brushing away his suggestion as I would a persistent feather. "It’s been some time since I played this piece."

"But are the notes familiar in your head?" His curiosity was boyish, persistent.

"Yes," I replied with serene finality. "I composed it."

"Perfect. Then let me hear you practice."

He guided me with the attentiveness of a man rehearsing devotion, placing me upon my chair as though seating royalty. He extended my cello toward me like an offering, then carefully guided my hand to the bow. His care was meticulous, but I wondered if it was love—or a need to remind himself that I needed him. My fingers brushed the horsehair strings, testing the texture, confirming the rosin’s preparation. A preparation he had made.

"Alright, babe." I gestured toward the grand piano, where I heard the echo of his fingers pressing keys.

"Let’s perfect this piece, yes?"

He chuckled, a sound that always reminded me of arrogance dressed as charm.

"Darling, music isn’t meant for perfection. Let it control us. You are a prodigy."

"And you as well," I countered, rolling my eyes though he could not see it. "But idiotic most of the time." I hated the word prodigy. It reduced me into a label, stripped of the scars, the grief, the silence that shaped my music.

He laughed, unbothered, and began to play. The notes unfurled from his piano, and I joined, caressing my strings, adjusting my sound to blend seamlessly with his. He kept to the tempo I had written, respectful to the architecture of my composition. Romantic, deliberate. This piece was never about us. It was the story of Laura and Damien—the harmony I had always seen in them. Their love was effortless, like constellations finding each other in the night sky. My composition was their mirror.

I had foreseen this moment, though not like this—playing at their wedding, giving life to the love I imagined for them, even before they believed it themselves.

For four minutes, we were bound to that song, until it dissolved in a final G-sharp, resonant and unresolved. I turned my head toward Damon—not meeting him directly, always maintaining the illusion of blindness—but he was watching me. I felt it. I knew his eyes, heavy with adornment and something darker: possession. His sly smile curled—too sharp, too seductive. He played again, without asking. Different this time. Something unfamiliar. Yet my hands followed instinctively, my bow dancing across strings in dialogue with him.

It was our first true duet. I had always played with Laura; accompaniment was our sisterhood. But now... Damon was the fire against my ice, and I yielded to it, if only to test how long before flame turned destructive. From accompaniment, it shifted into a duel. The music became us—his hunger, my restraint. His chaos, my calculation.

When the duel ended, silence hung between us like smoke after battle. One practice, and he was already at my side.

"Darling," his voice dropped, molten and unrestrained. "I’m horny."

I tilted my head, brow furrowing, gaze deliberately distant. "What?" My tone carried more irritation than surprise. "We were just playing—"

"You are so unbearably sexy when you play the cello."

I scoffed, shaking my head. Music was supposed to elevate, not reduce into lust. Yet inevitability was Damon’s second skin. And so, we ended up making love atop the grand piano—an altar now desecrated by passion.

Afterward, his smartwatch vibrated, urgent, its shrill reminder cutting into the fading warmth of our intimacy.

"Damn it, we have to go," he sighed, pulling me upright with the same urgency that had undone me minutes earlier. "It’s an emergency, love."

"You’re the one who insisted on fucking in the music room," I retorted coolly, adjusting my dress with irritation.

He laughed, shameless as always.

"There are cameras here, right?" I asked sharply, suspicion edging my voice.

"I had them disconnected," he assured me between laughs. "But the secret cameras are connected to my line. No one else can access them. So, don’t worry, my love."

"Fuck." The word slipped from me in a hiss. Rage flared like steel unsheathed. "I will kill you if you don’t delete it."

"Chill, alright?" he said, his tone infuriatingly casual as he fixed my dress.

But he never returned my panties.