18. Damon
18
DAMON
I t was the first full day of the auction, and the telltale hum of adrenaline had buzzed through me all day.
Easy does it. This is not playtime. Remember you’re here doing this for Lucas.
The viewing had happened earlier, and soon, the party would start.
There would, of course, be posturing. Everyone in attendance was beyond wealthy. They were the elite. The see and the be-seens. The very same people I loved to steal from. There were a few here, though, who were like me: wealthy, with an edge of power, and loved control.
When I was a kid, Paul had made it clear that when it came to stealing, nothing was personal. He had all these rules for me to follow. There were three main ones.
1. Never lose your cool.
2. Never attempt to go for something that you couldn’t afford to lose.
3. Never take something from someone you hate. The personal gets you in trouble.
It was that last rule that I sometimes tended to bend. When it came to power, it was always personal. But the rules had kept me alive. The rules had made me wealthy.
It had taken me years, but I’d managed to buy myself a seat at the power table. And I wasn’t letting go.
Lucas had grown up like me, hustling, and like me, he’d somehow managed to do more than survive and came out on top. We’d both learned to be wary, and those skills would serve us well here.
We needed them to serve us well. Or somebody would get hurt.
But still, you twisted her arm into it.
I had. I needed her because it meant keeping Max out of trouble and not having to owe Lucas any favors. Lucas might not keep tabs. But I liked even scales. And she’d thrown herself into the work.
I looked up when the door to the bathroom opened, and out she walked. My breath hitched, and then I couldn’t breathe. She wore gold in some intricate design that covered most of her breasts but still showed enough of her luminescent brown skin on the sides that you wondered how it was being held up. Her hair was pulled back into one long ponytail braid that looked like several connected Afro puffs hanging down her back.
The skirt of the gown was more concealing. It had these swoops and loops that matched the ones on the upper part of the bodice. She gave me a little twirl. “Well, how do I look?”
I coughed. I was pretty sure my mouth was hanging open. “You look...” I had to lick my lips and swallow again. “Stunning.”
She turned around. “It’s not too much? Penny insisted that it had to be this one, but I don’t know.”
I cleared my throat. “It’s perfect, Ari. Don’t change a thing.”
Fabric swished as she strode forward, and I realized the long skirt was actually pants.
If I knew Ari, she had tools hidden in there.
“Pants?”
She grinned, kicking out one leg. “Pants. The best part is no one will know.”
“Wow, genius. You’ll be more comfortable that way, I assume?”
“Yes, and I have places to hide my tools.”
I grinned at her. “Always prepared. That’s my Ari.”
She hesitated for a moment and then reached for me. My gut clenched, and every part of my body screamed to pull her close. She was reaching for me. She wanted to touch me.
Earlier today, we’d had breakfast, explored the grounds, gone over the plans, found our ingress and egress routes, and mapped everything to the letter. Then we’d deliberately made it a point to hang out casually by the pool, where she wore the smallest bikini I had ever seen in my life. Okay, fine. It wasn’t that small, but her curves were lush, and I hadn’t been the only person watching her at that moment.
Not that I blamed them. This was Ari, and she looked like a goddess.
Two of them had even made an approach. One had gotten so bold as to ask if she would be participating in the auction.
And neither of them had seemed to give a fuck about her being on my arm. Not that I’d made it clear she was off-limits. I would have been happy to growl at anyone who dared to even look at her, but she hadn’t needed me.
True to Ari form, she’d dismissed them both handily as if they bored her.
She started to fix my tie, her delicate fingers brushing my neck softly. And my cock was hard and ready to go.
I was convinced she could feel it. It was pulsing with need as the tension swirled around us. I could kiss her now. The curves of her lips were pink and soft looking, and something about the way she’d done the makeup around her eyes made her look like a cat. She was perfection with her textured braid swinging down her back. She wore cuff earrings and one delicate, though enormous, diamond around her neck, which doubled as a camera and matched the ring that I’d slid onto her finger when this all started.
When she was finished with my tie, she patted my chest and backed away. “There you go. You look handsome.”
I nodded again, my gaze drifting down to her breasts. The urge to pop one in my mouth made me salivate. I wanted to climb out of my body. What would it take to peel back one of those golden pearls around her breasts? Would her breasts fall forward?
She took my arm, and I gave her a tight smile before we opened the door.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
“Honestly, I’m having a hard time focusing. That dress... You look incredible.” That and I wanted to keep her all to myself.
She gave me a shy smile and cocked her head. “This old thing?”
“Come on, angel.”
I let her lead me arm in arm, calmly taking time, double-checking guard placements as we headed down the path that led to the mansion.
I wondered what it would be like if this were real.
Other guests were also starting to make their way to the mansion as the sun kissed the horizon.
Once we joined the rest of the guests, I took in the splendor. Some guests wore masks. And the entire room was a flurry of tuxedos, brightly colored ball gowns, and some costumes. It was a spectacle. The glitterati were out to play. Ari had zero problems walking. I frowned at her. “Are you wearing heels under there?”
“Oh no. I’m wearing platform tennis shoes.”
I lifted my brow. “Are you serious?”
She lifted the hem of her dress just so, and I chuckled when I saw that she was, in fact, wearing platform tennis shoes.
“Of course.”
“You better believe it. It makes this job so much easier.”
I managed to snag us two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and handed her one. She clinked her glass with mine and gave me a sweet smile just as the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention.
From somewhere behind me, I heard, “Do my eyes deceive me, or is that Damon Hunt?”
The chill of the voice struck me, and my back went ramrod straight. No. Fuck no. No, no, no.
No way in hell he was here.
Ari gave me a tight smile and tried for a save. “Simon, darling. You really must have a doppelganger.”
I was beyond saving though. I clamped my mouth shut, my jaw ticking and an icy shiver snaking up my spine.
And when I turned fully, I came face-to-face with the only person I’d ever wanted to kill.
Michael Lane.
What the fuck was he doing here? His name hadn’t been on the list. Had he used an alias?
Doesn’t matter. He’s here. Think on your feet.
He looked the same. Just under six feet tall, with blondish-silvery hair. He’d aged well enough for the average person to consider him distinguished. For years, he’d been that ethereal ghost in the night. Always haunting me at the edges of my sanity. After he killed Paul, I vowed to myself to make him pay. I tried three times. Once in Paris when he tried to steal a Samson Marks painting. I followed him for weeks. Tailed him. Knew his plan.
I called the police on him. Bullshit move, but I was trying to keep my hands clean, the way Paul would have wanted.
Michael got tipped off and managed to escape, sans painting, mere moments before the police arrived.
The next time I ran into him was the grand opening of a Westhorpe Hotel in Dubai. Princess Elise of Norway was there, sporting a massive rock from her fiancé, the football player Ryson Beck. The five-million-dollar ring was a showstopper.
Unfortunately, that son of a bitch Michael posed as a waiter and used a Taser on me midjob, leaving me in the hotel gardens while he made off with the ring.
The last time I saw him was in éze, this quaint little village between Antibes and Monaco. I was actually off the clock for a Xander Chase exhibit with Jazz. He was her favorite artist, so I had to be extra and pay for her ticket to the event and make sure she got to meet him.
The gallery was robbed that night. I was outside on a call for another job when I saw a security guard leaving the gallery very quickly. I recognized him right away when the moon lit his face.
So I hopped in my car and chased him down. And yes, I might have nudged him with my car, but the son of a bitch had nine fucking lives. And a secondary, who shot at me until Lane could escape.
After that, Jazz begged me to cool it with Lane. Yet I’d kept track of him over the years. That hatred was always simmering. But he wasn’t the kind of guy I wanted to take a swing at anymore unless I was sure.
He’d gotten lucky too many times. Next time, I’d better not miss.
If I could avoid introducing them and exposing her to him, I absolutely would. Unfortunately, there was no way to do that.
“Might I ask who your beautiful companion is?”
I turned to face him. “Hello, Lane.”
“Damon, so formal?”
“It’s been a long time,” I said through gritted teeth.
He grinned at me. “It has been a moment. How are you? You’ve grown up since I last saw you.”
That piece of shit. I was going to kill him. But I needed to get Ari out of here, as far away from him as possible.
“I see you have no intentions on introducing us. I’m Michael Lane. Pleasure.”
When I gritted my teeth, Ari stepped forward. “Hello, I’m Michelle Christopher. His wife.”
Ari
I was missing something. Some kind of nuance, a trick, an inside joke.
Except it didn’t seem like a joke. Something about Michael Lane made Damon edgy, so much so that his grip on my side tightened. What was going on here?
The man’s brows lifted. “You’re married? I almost feel insulted that I didn’t receive an invitation. After all, I was there during one of the formative moments of your life.”
They knew each other? Our cover was blown. But I also had no other choice but to stick to the script we made.
“Well, with Simon so busy, it took a while for us to figure out how and when we were going to do things. But we finally got it together. When we got married, he took my last name. Ticked my father to no end.”
As I spoke, I still got the impression that I was missing a whole thread of nuance.
He cocked his head, a derisive smirk playing on his lips. “Simon, you say? Fine, I’ll play along. Young love. How did you two meet?”
My heartbeat thundered in my skull, and my palms began to sweat. We were so fucked. What was the right play, and who the hell had heard him call Damon by his name?
Instead of answering, Damon tried to tug me away. What was he doing? We had to deal with him. We had a plausible script for what to say and how to act. But we had to say something. If we ran away, wouldn’t he alert Reaper?
“Sorry, Michael, we’re needed over here.”
“Oh, but your wife and I were just getting acquainted. Michelle, sweetheart, you bear a striking resemblance to an old friend of mine. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
I froze. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Based on the way the man was staring at me and almost smugly smiling at Damon, this was someone who knew Damon from his time in my father’s life.
I needed to catch up. They were playing a game I didn’t recognize.
Michael kept asking me questions. “Where did you grow up?”
“In California.”
“Could have sworn I hear New England prep school in your accent.”
“You don’t. I’m from California,” I said, lying through my teeth.
“Interesting. I must have mistaken you for someone else. But what do I know? Accents are so hard. Whereabouts did you grow up in California?”
“Oh, you know, I’d like to say LA, but really what I mean is Pasadena. Not that entertaining. Far away from the glitz and glamour. Just your average girl with a father who was wise with investments.”
He studied me like a bug under a magnifying glass. “Huh, well, how did you find this gem, Simon ?”
Damon was stone next to me. With no choice, I kept to the script. “He found me. At an auction in LA.” I squeezed Damon’s hand conspiratorially. That seemed to snap him out of it.
“Michelle works for a collector. She was quite upset with me about a vase.”
“Oh, my goodness, seventeenth century. Baroque design. Exquisite, honestly. He swooped in and stole it from me.”
Michael’s brows rose. “He stole it?”
“Yes. I don’t know how he did it, but he somehow found out the max bid my client was going to pay and outbid it by a dollar. How rude is that?”
Michael seemed engaged in the rehearsed story. Damon, meanwhile, looked like he wanted to scream. However, he contained himself.
I shook my head and squeezed Damon’s arm, which was rigid underneath his tuxedo. Who was this man? I’d never seen Damon act like this before. Generally, he was snarky, a pain in the ass, arrogant. And how did this man know him? Damon had been clear that he kept a low profile. I was missing the bigger picture.
Was he someone Damon had stolen from? I didn’t think he was in law enforcement. He didn’t have that edge to him. Plus, few cops could provide enough in escrow to get in the door. And if he wasn’t law enforcement, that likely meant he was another thief or somehow related to Damon’s business.
The moment that it dawned on me, my gaze flickered to Damon’s and a chill enveloped my body, making my skin prickle.
The night of my father’s death, Damon had muttered, “ What the hell was he even doing there? ” Someone else had been there who wasn’t supposed to be, and something told me that someone was looking at me now, smiling in my face. I couldn’t explain why, but given Damon’s protectiveness and the green pallor of his skin, he hated this man. And I needed to know why exactly.