The Mercenary and the Mortician (The Silent Hollow #1)

26. Cal Walker

T he conversation with Damian did not go well.

I was in big shit.

Turns out, Kyle Bradshaw had been a middleman between Apex and another black hat group that ran all sorts of trafficking rings.

The main product they trafficked was drugs. However, they had big stakes in human trafficking as well.

“We had an agreement, Damian,” I growled, though I kept my gaze cast downward as he slowly walked the room, stalking around me like some sort of predator circling its prey.

“I don’t do shit that involves kids. I found ownership papers on the guy’s laptop with missing children listed as the product.”

Damian continued his slow circle around me before coming to stand in front of where I was kneeling. He curled his fingers under my chin and forced my head back to meet his gaze.

He ran his thumb over my lips, and I jerked my head away from him, scowling. I was too angry to play into his fucked up ‘Daddy’ games. My gaze flitted to the pictures of Naomi and Cass sitting on his desk, and I clenched my fists to hide the tremor that had started in them.

I was so fucking angry.

Ryker was pressing the only two buttons that made me see red, and if I didn’t think he already had arrangements in place to wipe out my sisters, he would be a fucking dead man right now.

Damian sighed as if I were a disappointment but let his hand drop away from my face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” he said, and I glared up at him, not trusting him at all. “Callum, I promise. When I made the deal with them, there was a clause stipulating that Apex didn’t deal with child trafficking. If they were running children, it’s news to me.”

I narrowed my eyes on him. Nothing was news to Damian Ryker.

“They had our code on the papers,” I snarled. “Why would they use 2739 if they weren’t clearing the deal with someone from Apex?”

Damian frowned, rubbing his jawline pensively. “They were using our code? Are you sure that’s what you saw?”

“I wouldn’t make it up,” I snapped. It was difficult to be menacing when I was literally on my knees, and he was towering over me… Which was exactly why he made me sit like this.

He wanted to look down on me, to remind me of my place.

“I will look into it. However, in the meantime, I want you to put a stop to your little hobby. I have another job for you that will be taking up much of your focus, anyway.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but he walked back to his desk and picked up the picture of Naomi, smiling down at it like he was some sort of deranged, doting uncle.

I almost cracked a fucking molar.

“Several of the higher-ranking officials we have on payroll have been turning up dead. We think it’s a vigilante group. A man, maybe ex-police, and another man who’s making kills with a tattoo machine of all things.” Damian chuckled at this. “It’s unclear if they’re working together, but they seem to be targeting the same people, so they may be connected.

“They’ve been working through the ranks, killing some rather influential people that our benefactors have been sorry to lose,” Damian said idly, setting the picture of Naomi down on his desk before circling to the other side to sit behind his monitors.

He typed several words into his keyboard, and my phone vibrated in my pocket.

“I have just sent you everything we have on these… pests. I would like them eliminated as quickly as possible. Is that understood?”

“What about the child trafficking?” I insisted, doing my best not to glance at the pictures of my sisters.

Damian sighed and leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “I told you I would look into it, Callum.”

I scowled at him, and he softened slightly, some of the ice melting in his whiskey eyes.

“I’m serious. I will look into it, and if they are using our code to trade children, I will remind them of the clause in our contract. Other than that, I don’t know what I can do to make it up to you. You know what this business is and the types of people we work with. These things happen.”

I chewed on my lip ring, still too pissed off to respond.

He leaned forward on his desk, crossing his arms and giving me a smile that he had used on me countless times as a child. I had this vivid memory of him taking me out for ice cream after the first time he made me kill someone.

I had never tasted ice cream before, and he let me choose any flavor I wanted. He handed me a massive waffle cone with my disgusting choice of bubblegum and pistachio. The smile he had given me had been so warm and full of pride. No one had ever looked at me like that before. Especially not an adult.

“Tell you what. I’ll let you keep your new pet that you seem to have taken a liking to… what’s his name? Ryan, right? Ryan Fairview?”

An icy spike of anxiety shot through me at Ryan’s name coming out of Damian’s mouth. I narrowed my eyes on him again.

“Maybe if you spent more time paying attention to your investments and less time stalking me on my time off, you would have known about the child trafficking deals going on directly under your nose,” I snarled.

I knew it was inevitable that he would have found out about Ryan. I just hadn’t expected it to be this soon.

The coldness returned to Damian’s eyes, though his smile remained.

“Oh, but Mr. Walker. You’re one of my most important investments. I will always be paying close attention to everything that you do.”

I forced down another wave of fury. It surprised me how angry it made me to hear him refer to Ryan in such a callous manner… as if his life were disposable.

He was treating Ryan like an object, a toy that he could take away from his bratty, unruly child as a punishment if the child refused to behave.

He knew I cared about Ryan on some level, which meant I had just handed him one more way to control me on a silver platter.

Fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck!

“What do you say, Mr. Walker, do we have a deal? You take care of my vigilante group. In return, I’ll look into the child trafficking and let you continue to play with your funeral director, assuming, of course, you can ensure the man keeps his mouth shut. From what I understand, he knows far too much now not to be considered a loose end.”

Swallowing back all the things I actually wanted to say, I nodded.

“Fine,” I snapped, and Damian’s grin widened. He cupped his hand over his ear and put on a mock frown.

“Sorry, Callum. I didn’t understand that. I asked you if we have a deal.”

That tint of red was creeping into my vision again, and I forced myself not to outwardly snarl and instead gave him what he wanted.

“Yes, sir. We have a deal.”

I watched my boss’s eyes flash with an unhinged sort of glee before he nodded.

“Good boy. You’re dismissed.”