Business and Bloodlines
Elena POV:
The next morning, it had finally dawned on me what it really meant.
Damien Cross didn’t waste time on unnecessary things.
He was in motion before the sun rose, already showered, suited, and reading reports while sipping his espresso like a general studying maps before a war.
His mansion buzzed with quiet efficiency: staff moving like shadows, phones ringing with muted urgency.
I had barely woken up but I had to drag myself from my bed when I heard a knock on my door then his voice reached me in my room.
“Ten minutes, Elena”
Ten minutes for what exactly, I had barely woken up, now I had to get ready quickly.
I stumbled in, hair barely tamed, and found him waiting by the door with his jacket slung over one shoulder. He looked me up and down once—cool, appraising—and handed me a slim folder.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Your welcome gift,” he said dryly. “Also known as a crash course in the company you’ll be working for.”
I opened it, skimming the first page. Reports. Graphs. Terms I recognized only vaguely from overhearing Ethan’s endless monologues at galas. My throat went dry.
“I thought you hired me to help ruin Ethan,” I said.
Damien’s eyes gleamed. “That is what we’re doing. But if you think that means standing around looking pretty and whispering secrets, you’ve underestimated the battlefield. Business is blood, Elena . And I don’t fight with amateurs at my side so you need to be strong to be able to fight.”
He pushed the elevator button and glanced back. “Now hurry. You’ll be late for your first war council.”
Cross Industries towered over the city like a steel titan.
Walking through its marble lobby was like stepping into another world—sleek, fast-paced, intimidating. Every employee I passed turned to stare. Some whispered. Others openly gawked.
“The runaway bride,” I heard one hiss.
“Why would Mr Cross hire her?” another murmured.
“She would tarnish the company image” another said
“Publicity stunt,” someone scoffed.
I kept my chin high, even as the weight of their eyes pressed down on me. If I flinched here, they’d devour me.
Damien strode ahead, a shadow I followed, until we entered a glass-walled boardroom where a dozen men and women in suits were already waiting.
The room went tense at my arrival. One of them—a silver-haired executive whose smugness radiated like cologne—arched a brow. “Mr. Cross, is there a reason you’ve brought…her?”
The emphasis made my skin prickle.
Damien didn’t blink. “Yes. She’s my apprentice .”
The room erupted into quiet shock. I wanted to melt into the polished floor, but Damien’s voice cut through the murmurs like a blade.
“Elena Mendez will shadow me directly. Every meeting. Every negotiation. Every deal. Consider her my second set of eyes. Any objections?”
The silence that followed was brittle. No one dared speak.
“Good,” Damien said smoothly, sliding into his chair.
“Then let’s begin.”
What followed was an avalanche of information.
Spreadsheets.
Market reports.
Pending acquisitions.
I scribbled furiously, my head spinning. These weren’t the polite charity boards Ethan dragged me to. This was war dressed in Armani.
Halfway through, Damien slid a thick dossier toward me. “Read this.”
Inside was the profile of one of Ethan’s subsidiaries—shaky finances, outdated tech, and looted money.
And yet, it was critical to the image Ethan showed to investors.
“If this collapses, so does Ethan’s expansion into international shipping and businesses," Damien said.
His voice was calm, but the room leaned forward, hungry. “Acquiring it will surely cut his legs from under him and weaken him.”
I stared at the pages, pulse racing. “But if it fails and people trace it back to you…”
“It won’t fail,” Damien said simply.
“But if it does,” I pressed, surprising myself, “you’ll look reckless. Investors will say you’re distracted, even desperate.”
The room went quiet. For a heartbeat, I thought I’d overstepped or had crossed my boundaries.
Then Damien’s eyes locked on mine, sharp as lightning. “Exactly.”
He leaned back, hands folded across his chest. “And that’s why you’re here, Miss Mendez. To see what others don’t. To calculate risks I sometimes overlook and sometimes what others don't see.”
A shiver ran down my spine. Was that a compliment? From Damien Cross?
But he was already moving on, issuing orders, assigning tasks.
The meeting moved forward, and I realized what he’d done. He hadn’t just tested me—he’d announced to everyone that I wasn’t just a pawn. I was a player.And I can't deny it, It gave me a sense of security.
By evening, when the last executive had left, I was tired. My notes were a mess of ink and questions. My head pounded. I had so many questions that needed answers.
Damien poured himself a drink and stood by the window, the city sprawling in lights behind him.
Without looking at me, he said, “You didn’t cower.”
I blinked. “That’s your standard for success?”
“That’s the standard for survival.”
He finally turned, gaze steady. “But you also noticed the weak point in the plan. That’s more than most of them managed.”
Something twisted in me—pride, disbelief, maybe both.
“So I pass?”
“For today.” His lips curved, that slow, smirk that always made my stomach flip and my pulse race
“Tomorrow, you’ll earn it again.”
The next few days were a blur of brutal lessons.
Damien had me shadow him in every meeting.
He drilled me on terms, on negotiation tactics, on how to dissect a deal in seconds, and on how to know good and bad deals.
He was relentless—cutting down my mistakes, forcing me to think faster, and outside the box.
But somewhere in the chaos, something changed.
At first, I felt like an imposter and a prey, clinging to scraps of confidence.
But each time Damien pushed, I pushed back.
Each time he tested me, I refused to break. And slowly, impossibly, I started to see patterns.
I started to predict questions and possible problems.
I started to think not like prey but like a predator.
Still, there were moments—brief, treacherous moments—when business blurred into something else unexplainable for a brief moment.
When I challenged him in a meeting and his lips twitched, as if he enjoyed the fight.
When he leaned close to correct a mistake, his voice low, his cologne dizzying, and it always made my heart skip a beat.
When I laughed once—just once—and he stilled as though the sound had cut through his armor.
Each time, he stepped back. Each time, I reminded myself of his rule and boundaries: No falling in love.
But at night, alone in my room in his mansion, I couldn’t shake the truth.
This wasn’t just about Ethan or Revenge anymore.
It was about Damien.
It was about me.
And it was about the dangerous battlefield we were both walking into—together.
And like all wars, someone was going to bleed.