Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
T horn had barely recovered from the photoshoot when Anna’s urgent voice crackled in her ear, sending a jolt of adrenaline through her. “Thorn, we have an unidentified object flying over the property. We think it’s a drone. It could be carrying an explosive device. Better get to the saferoom, stat.”
Holy crap.
Drone attacks weren’t common in San Francisco, but the world Damian was mixed up in wasn’t exactly normal. Who knew what these people were capable of?
She didn’t waste a second, barging into Damian’s study. His head jerked up, eyes wide with surprise. “We’ve got to get you to the safe room,” she ordered.
He stood immediately, but confusion flashed across his face. “Why?”
“I’ll explain once we’re there. Now move.”
He grabbed his laptop, but she barked, “Leave it!”
“No way.” He tucked it under his arm and followed her out of the study. They sprinted down the corridor toward the kitchen, the sound of distant gunfire reaching their ears.
“Is that… gunfire?” Damian asked incredulously.
“Yeah, it’s a possible drone attack.”
“Shit.” His eyes widened.
They didn’t stop running until they reached the utility room. Thorn opened the door to the saferoom, ushering him inside before sealing the reinforced door behind them. It hissed as it locked into place, isolating them from the outside world.
“We should be safe here,” she said, her breathing heavy as she scanned the small room. It was well-equipped with essential supplies: a first aid kit, satellite phone, and enough provisions to last several days. The air was cool, filtered through a built-in ventilation system, and the console on the wall displayed security feeds from around the property.
Damian leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath. “What happened?”
“Not sure yet, but we’re staying put until we get the all-clear.” She moved closer, her instincts still on high alert. “Anything like this happen before?”
He shook his head, the tension in his face evident. “No. I guess they’re getting desperate.”
“Why do you have such an elaborate setup in your basement?”
He hesitated, his eyes darkening with memories. “To protect my work. I’ve been developing this upgrade for years, mostly in secret. Only a few of my top developers knew about it. But once it was ready, I let something slip to someone outside my inner circle, and rumors spread. Not long after, I started noticing strange cars following me, hearing noises on my phone.”
“That’s when the FBI got involved?”
He scoffed. “They actually came to me. They’d picked up chatter from some bigshot mafioso about my work. They offered protection in exchange for my cooperation, but I denied everything. If I’d confirmed it, I’d have snipers after me in the street.”
Thorn crossed her arms, studying him. “Which is pretty much what’s happening now.”
“Only a few key players know about the upgrade,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Not everyone.”
“How’d the FBI find out?”
“They were monitoring the communications of some bigshot mafioso and intercepted a conversation about it. Didn’t take them long to connect the dots and knock on my door.”
“Protection is all they offered you?” She raised a brow, skepticism lacing her tone.
“I’m not a criminal,” Damian snapped, stepping closer, his irritation flaring. The harsh light of the safe room cast shadows on his sharp features, highlighting the tension between them.
“Maybe not anymore,” she replied, her voice dropping as her gaze flitted to his lips, the memory of their kiss from earlier still fresh. She quickly forced her attention back to his eyes. “But you were.”
His expression softened slightly, and for a moment, she wondered if he was recalling that kiss too. “How’d you know about all that?”
“I read your file.”
His brows shot up in surprise. “My file? I’ve got a file?”
She looked away, feeling a flush rise in her cheeks—not just from the conversation but from the way he was looking at her. “Of course. Where else are we going to keep the information about you?”
“Can I see it?”
“It’s confidential.”
He shook his head, clearly irritated. “You won’t let me see a file on myself? I assure you, there’s nothing in there I don’t already know.”
“Then you don’t need to see it.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
It was, but it was protocol. Thorn had seen the depths of Damian’s past—his ties to Aleksandar Markov, his hacking days, the shady businesses he’d been involved in. But the man standing in front of her now wasn’t the same person who’d made those decisions.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Damian said quietly, breaking the silence. “All that stuff I did when I was young… that’s not who I am.”
She wanted to look away but couldn’t. His eyes held hers, and she saw the vulnerability he was trying so hard to hide. “You’re saying you didn’t mean to sell people’s private data for a quick buck? Or provide a platform for illegal gambling?”
“It wasn’t like that.” He dropped onto one of the metal benches, resting his head in his hands. For the first time, she saw the weight he was carrying, the regret mixed with anger. “I grew up in the foster system, bouncing from one home to another. The only stable thing in my life was my computer, something I built from scratch with parts I found. At first, I used it to survive, to make a living any way I could.”
Thorn’s throat tightened. She’d read about his past, knew he’d lost his parents young, but hearing it from him was different. It didn’t excuse what he’d done, but it made it harder to hate him. “By hacking into websites?”
He nodded, his gaze still on the floor. “It was easier back then. Security wasn’t as tight as it is now.” He looked up, the intensity in his eyes making her heart skip a beat. “But I didn’t steal money, just so we’re clear. I sold contact lists to marketing companies. It’s how I bought my first apartment.”
She had to admit, part of her was impressed. He’d pulled himself up from nothing, made something of himself. Maybe she’d been too quick to judge.
“What about your relationship with Aleksandar Markov?”
Damian stiffened. “I formed a relationship with Alek’s daughter, Rebecca. Not with him. As it turned out, that was a mistake I lived to regret.”
Thorn’s eyes widened. “His daughter?” This was news to her. Pat hadn’t mentioned anything about a daughter. It hadn’t been in Clayton’s file, either.
“Yeah, I married his daughter. That’s how Alek got his claws into me. We were family.” A dark look came into his eyes, and Thorn caught a glimpse at how torn up he was.
“I didn’t know.”
“It’s not common knowledge. Anyway, it doesn’t matter since our marriage only lasted two days.” He gave a humorless snort. “It was shorter than this one’s going to be.”
He was still messed up about it, she could tell. “It didn’t work out between you, then?”
His hands clenched and unclenched. “You could say that.”
“How’d you meet?” she asked quietly.
A faraway look came into his eyes. “It was after I developed the gambling site that I met Rebecca. I thought it was a coincidence when we bumped into each other, but now I know her father sent her to seduce me. It had been his plan to recruit me all along.”
“Markov used his daughter to get to you?” Thorn’s chest tightened at the thought. What kind of man did that?
“Yeah,” Damian said, the word heavy with resentment. “We dated for a couple of months, and I fell for her hard. Then she invited me to her father’s place. That’s when I met Alek and he offered me a job. I was so in love I couldn’t see I was being played.”
“What kind of job?”
“To help him hide his illegal transactions.”
“You mean money laundering.” Her tone was sharp, but she couldn’t keep the edge out of it.
He nodded, his voice tired. “I was an encryption expert. I knew how to hide things so no one would ever find the trail. That’s when I came up with the idea for Lydian.”
“Your super-anonymous cryptocurrency.”
“That’s it. Alek backed me, and a few months later, we had the foundations in place. I released the open-source code and started building it from there.”
Thorn listened, captivated despite herself. His story wasn’t what she’d expected. It wasn’t black and white.
“But after Rebecca… I couldn’t do it anymore.” The tension in his jaw betrayed his emotions. “I left everything behind.”
Thorn wanted to believe it was because he’d had a change of heart, but she wasn’t so sure. Yet something in his expression made her think twice. Maybe he wasn’t the man she’d pegged him to be.
“I’m surprised Alek let you go,” she said cautiously, “considering what you knew.”
“He knew I’d be incriminating myself if I talked. Lydian was mine, and nothing could be traced back to him. My silence was my own protection.”
“That, I get.”
“So where did you go?” she asked, curiosity piqued despite herself.
Damian arched an eyebrow, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. “So not everything is in my file.”
She tilted her head, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Not that.”
He took a deep breath. “I went to the Middle East.”
“The map in your study.”
“Yeah. I wanted to get as far away from here as possible. Ironically, I went from one conflict straight into another.”
“You went to a war zone?” Her disbelief was evident.
“I fought on the front line against ISIS for almost a year.”
Thorn stared at him, shocked. “You? On the front line?”
“It wasn’t intentional. I went over there to work on a tech project for the Kurds in northern Syria. I ended up fighting because I had no choice.”
Her heart pounded in her chest. This was not the story she’d expected to hear. “What happened?”
Damian leaned back against the wall, staring at the ceiling. “I was met by a man in army fatigues. During the drive into town, he handed me a Kalashnikov and said, ‘If you’re not dead in two weeks, you’ll know everything there is about fighting a war.’”
“But you had no military training.”
He shook his head, a wry smile on his lips. “Zero. The closest I’d come to war was playing Call of Duty.”
Thorn didn’t know what to say. She’d been so focused on his past crimes that she’d missed the bigger picture.
“After eleven months of fighting, things started to settle down. The government pulled me out and put me to work repairing the phone network.”
“I had no idea,” she murmured, still reeling from the revelation.
“It wasn’t in my file because I’d disappeared after Rebecca left. No one knew where I was. I didn’t use my passport, didn’t take anything that could trace me back here.”
Thorn was impressed despite herself. If anyone could disappear, it was him. “And you stayed? Why?”
Damian looked at her, his gaze intense. “Once I saw what they were fighting for, I couldn’t leave. The fight for democracy is still going on in Syria, and the good guys are finally winning. I keep in touch with my friends there. They’re building something new, something better. How can I regret being part of that?”
Thorn felt a pang of guilt. She’d been so quick to judge him, to label him as the bad guy, when in reality, he was far more complex than she’d given him credit for.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
“For what?”
“For misjudging you. I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
Damian stepped closer, his voice a low rumble. “Maybe we can work together now, instead of against each other.”
Her mouth went dry. The way he was looking at her made it hard to think, hard to breathe. She’d been so intent on disliking him, but now… now she wasn’t so sure. Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded.
He leaned in, dipping his head as if to kiss her. Every nerve in her body screamed at her to move, to step back, but she couldn’t. She just stood there, heart pounding, waiting.
“Come in, Thorn.”
The voice in her earpiece jolted her back to reality. She jumped away from Damian as if she’d been burned. What the hell was she thinking? This insane attraction to him was dangerous, irrational. He was her principal, the man she was supposed to protect, not someone she should be fantasizing about.
“Yeah, I’m here,” she replied, trying to steady her voice. “Go ahead, Anna.”
Damian’s gaze remained locked on her, his expression unreadable.
“We’ve neutralized the threat. You can come out now.”
“Okay, great.” She nodded at Damian, who moved to open the heavy door. “Thanks, we’ll be out in five.”
As Damian held the door open for her, he caught her arm, his grip gentle but firm. “I’ve never told anyone that before. Please don’t repeat it. I don’t need the added complication.”
“I won’t.” She hesitated, meeting his gaze. “I’m glad you told me.”
His voice was a deep rumble. “So am I.”