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

53. Cal Walker

W alking into Damian’s office felt even shittier than it usually did. Vox had insisted on coming with me despite the fact that I had begged him not to.

Nothing good would come of it.

We walked in to find Damian where he always was, sitting at his pristine desk, typing away with the two pictures of my sisters facing him.

He didn’t look up as we entered, but he did speak.

“I didn’t call for you, Mr. Moretti. Leave us,” he drawled in a flat, bored tone.

Vox didn’t move, and I nudged him urgently.

“Get out of here,” I hissed, but he ignored me, his burning silver eyes locked on Damian.

Damian sighed and looked up, meeting Vox’s gaze head-on.

“Leave now, Mr. Moretti. You’re not doing Mr. Walker any favors.”

Instead of leaving, Vox walked slowly toward Damian’s desk. I fidgeted nervously as my friend placed both hands on the desk and leaned over it, bringing his face so close to Damian’s they could have kissed.

He stood like that for what felt like forever and just stared at him. Damian stared right back.

After a long moment of silence, Damian finally spoke.

“If you think this little act is going to make me take you downstairs instead of your friend, you are sorely mistaken, Mr. Moretti. Unless you want what happened to Mr. Willis to happen to Mr. Walker, I highly suggest you leave my office. Now.”

A shocking mix of rage and fear shot through me at Damian’s words. He had basically just confirmed Vox’s suspicions that he had killed Gavin.

Vox lunged across the desk, but I snatched him around the waist and threw him back away from Damian.

“Get the fuck out of here, Vox!” I roared, shoving him toward the door. “I’m not fucking kidding!”

Vox wasn’t listening. He was full-blown trying to fight me to get to Damian, who was watching us with an annoyed, bored expression on his face.

I grabbed a fistful of Vox’s hair and put my mouth directly against his ear so Damian couldn’t hear me.

“I need you to fucking get a grip and make sure nothing happens to Ryan or my sisters. You can’t help me protect them if he fucking kills you. Please. Just go.”

That seemed to do the trick. Vox shoved off me and gave Damian one last disgusted look before turning on his heel and leaving, slamming the door behind him.

“Such a temper on that boy,” Damian drawled, and I rounded on him, seething with barely controlled rage.

“You said he died on a mission!” I snarled, taking a menacing step toward Ryker.

He didn’t flinch. His face remained completely expressionless as I tried to get myself under control.

“Grow up, Callum. Of course I killed him. No one leaves Apex without my blessing. You think I didn’t know what he was planning? You think I didn’t know he was trying to take you away from me?”

Damian stalked toward me, his movements slow and unhurried. He was slightly shorter than me, but it didn’t matter.

I was afraid of him.

The little boy inside me cringed and curled up into a ball in my chest.

Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me…

When he was inches away, he stopped, locking those whiskey eyes on me. I flinched as he raised a hand to gently stroke the side of my face.

“You’re mine, Callum. You. Belong. To. Me. It’s time I remind you of that.”

Rage, terror, and self-hatred were warring within me. My fingers twitched at my side, aching to wrap around his throat and snap his fucking neck, but every time I tried to tell my arms to move, nothing happened.

It was like he had me hypnotized. I was working against years of conditioning and brainwashing. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t lift a hand against him, and I hated myself for it.

“I don’t belong to you,” I snarled, “I fucking hate you.”

He cocked his head to the side, still stroking my face. I hadn’t managed to step away like my mind was screaming at me to do.

“Who do you belong to then? Certainly not that new man you’ve been spending so much time with.”

Dropping his hand away from my face, he pulled a tiny black remote out of his pocket and clicked a button. Suddenly, all the screens behind his desk were filled with images of Vox and me standing in front of Fairview Funerals.

My eyes widened in fear.

How had he gotten those pictures?

They weren’t traffic surveillance photos, it looked like they had come from a fucking camera. Was he having me followed?

He pressed another button on his remote, and all the screens combined to show one large closeup of me kissing Ryan. Both of us looked deliriously happy with smiles on our faces despite the fact that our lips were touching.

“If you touch him, we’re done,” I growled, and Damian’s eyes flashed, telling me I had just confirmed what he already suspected.

“If you want to keep your little toy alive, Callum, you know what you have to do.”

The rage that was storming inside of me felt like it was literally smashing up against my internal organs. My face was hot, and my hands were shaking. All this anger and resentment had nowhere to go, no outlet. I had to stuff it deep down inside of me and take this punishment so I could keep the people I cared about safe.

After a long, tense moment, I managed to swallow everything down. The dead feeling I had been cultivating since I was a child rushed through me, putting out the burning flames of my hatred like water over a forest fire.

“Fine.” I nodded, and a smile curved across his lips.

“Good boy, Callum,” he purred and walked toward the door. He paused, glancing back at me, where I was still standing, staring at the black and white photo of Ryan and me kissing.

“Come, Callum,” he ordered, and my head snapped away from the screens. My body moved to do as Damian commanded. I followed him through the concrete hallways of Apex and down into the basement, with the image of Ryan’s smiling face burned into the fabric of my mind.