side story (this is in case i forgot to put the damien meet terry and the family story)

I wasn’t supposed to be awake for any of it.

That’s important context.

Because if you ask anyone else in the family, Terry and Damien’s story begins in a dimly lit boardroom soaked in tension and expensive perfume and the kind of hostility that usually ends in lawsuits or disappearances.

If you ask me, it begins with a glass of water I didn’t even want.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

Terry tells it better.

She always does.

It started, according to her, on a rain-slick evening that made the city look like it had something to confess.

She walked into the meeting first.

Black dress. Controlled posture. The kind of presence that doesn’t demand attention—it assumes it.

Across the table sat Damien D’marco.

At the time, just a name. A problem. A rival.

His family’s operations had been circling ours for months. Not clashing outright—no, that would’ve been crude—but overlapping in ways that suggested intent.

Expansion.

Encroachment.

Interest.

“Miss Bloodbriar,” he said, voice smooth, measured. “I was wondering when we’d finally meet.”

Terry smiled the way she does when she’s about to either secure a deal or dismantle someone’s confidence piece by piece.

“Mr. D’marco,” she replied. “I’d say the same, but I prefer not to wonder about competition.”

He laughed.

That, she said, was the first problem.

He wasn’t intimidated.

The meeting lasted three hours.

No raised voices.

No overt threats.

Just precision.

Every word chosen. Every pause deliberate.

They discussed territories, partnerships, potential conflicts—all the things polite society pretends don’t exist when money is involved.

And somewhere between the second hour and the third, something shifted.

Not attraction.

Not yet.

Recognition.

He was competent.

Worse—so was she.

“I don’t like him,” Terry told the family that night over dinner.

“You respect him,” Mother corrected, sipping her wine.

“I respect a well-made knife,” Terry said. “That doesn’t mean I want it near me.”

Father chuckled. “Careful. The ones worth fearing are usually the ones worth keeping close.”

I was present for this conversation.

Physically.

Mentally, I was just focused on nothing my was just point blank empty and that was it.

The meetings continued.

They had to.

Business doesn’t care about personal preferences.

But something inconvenient kept happening.

They started… talking.

Not just negotiating. Not just circling each other like well-dressed predators.

Actual conversations.

Books. Strategy. Art. The quiet absurdity of people who thought power came from volume instead of control.

“She listens,” Damien would later say.

“He thinks before he speaks,” Terry admitted.

This, apparently, is foreplay for people like them.

The rumors reached us before the confirmation did.

They always do.

Extended family. Business contacts. The ever-reliable grapevine of people who have nothing better to do than notice patterns.

“Terry is spending a lot of time with a D’marco.”

“Voluntarily?”

“Repeatedly.”

Mother raised an eyebrow.

Father smiled.

Diana didn’t look up from her manga.

“Is she happy?” she asked, turning a page.

“Yes,” Mother said.

“Then I fail to see the issue.”

That was the extent of her concern.

As for me, I was asleep.

Deeply.

Peacefully.

Uninvolved.

I wake up to the sound of footsteps that do not belong to this house.

That’s the first problem.

The second is that I’m thirsty.

I sit up slowly, mask already in place, gloves adjusted out of habit and after bathing i finally put on my usual outfit of a darkened trenchcoat darkened dress shirt anime t shirt cargo pants and my chains and spike boots on. The room is dim, curtains drawn just enough to suggest the concept of daylight without committing to it.

Voices downstairs.

One unfamiliar.

Male.

Measured.

Careful.

I stand, pull on my coat, and make my way down the hall.

I am not curious.

I am hydrating with soda i had stored up.

When I enter the kitchen, the conversation stops.

Terry is there.

Mother. Father.

And a man I’ve never seen before.

Tall. Composed. Watching everything.

Damien D’marco.

He looks at me.

I look at the glass of soda  on the counter.

Priorities.

I walk past all of them, pour the soda, and take a slow sip.

Silence stretches.

I can feel him still looking at me.

People do that.

Eventually, I glance in his direction.

He hasn’t moved.

There’s a flicker of something in his expression.

Calculation.

Uncertainty.

“…You must be Beckett,” he says.

“I must be whats it to you?,” I reply.

A pause.

“You look like a hitman.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

“You’ve been called the Grim Reaper,” Terry adds casually.

“I’ve been called that, yes.”

Damien studies me for a moment longer.

I sip my soda.

“…You don’t seem concerned.”

“I’m not,” I say. “I’m too busy doing nothing to care about anything else.”

Another pause.

Then—

He laughs.

Quiet. Genuine.

Interesting.

After that, things… settle.

Not immediately.

The Bloodbriars don’t immediately accept anyone.

We observe.

We evaluate.

We let people reveal themselves.

Damien keeps showing up.

Not intrusively. Not arrogantly.

Consistently.

He listens to Mother without interrupting. Spars verbally with Father without posturing. Lets Terry lead when it’s her domain and matches her when it isn’t.

Diana eventually meets him.

She closes her book, looks him up and down, and says, “If you hurt her Beckett or any one in this family or my own, I will make it "educational.”

“I would expect nothing less,” he replies.

She nods.

Approval.

The Vonreichsins take a bit longer.

Not because they disapprove.

Because they verify.

Monica circles him like a polite hurricane, all warmth and quiet scrutiny.

Viktor tests him in ways that never quite look like tests.

Damien passes.

Not perfectly.

But honestly.

That matters more.

As for me—

I find him "tolerable".

Then interesting.

Then… familiar.

Not in background.

In disposition.

He understands silence.

He respects boundaries.

He doesn’t ask unnecessary questions.

One evening, we’re both standing on the balcony while the rest of the family engages in something loud and affectionate inside.

“You don’t like crowds,” he says.

“That andI don’t like inefficiency,” I correct.

He nods. “Fair.”

A pause.

“You care about them,” he adds.

“Yes.”

“You just don’t show it the way they do.”

“I show it by staying.”

He considers that.

“…That makes sense.”

And just like that, we understand each other.

No effort required.

The day Terry formally introduces him as more than a business associate is… uneventful.

Which, for this family, is the highest form of success.

No objections.

No dramatics.

Just quiet acceptance, built on observation and confirmed through time.

Terry hugs Diana tightly to the point she can't breathe and she doesn't really complain either.

Mother kisses her cheek.

Father shakes Damien’s hand with something that almost looks like pride.

I nod.

He nods back.

That’s enough.

Later that night, the house settles into its usual rhythm.

Soft conversations. Dim lights. The comfortable presence of people who have chosen each other and continue to do so.

Diana leans against me, her voice low.

“They’re good for each other,” she says.

“Yes.”

“You approve?”

“I don’t disapprove.”

She smiles. “Glowing.”

“I’m exhausted,” I reply.

“You did drink soda today.”

“A significant achievement.”

And that’s how it happens.

No explosions.

No betrayals.

No unnecessary complications.

Just two people who recognize something rare in each other—and a family that knows how to tell the difference between noise and substance.

Damien D’marco doesn’t disrupt us.

He fits.

Which is far more dangerous.

And far more valuable.