Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Damon
F ifteen years ago…
“ Who are you?” she hissed, hardly waiting for the door to shut behind Magnus before speaking.
“Not here,” I growled, my jaw locking tight as I released my hold on her warm skin.
My hands still tingled as I stepped back, putting several paces between me and the beautiful redhead. Robyn Foster.
She slid off the desk, her attention immediately shifting to her twisted clothes. I turned to the bookcase, giving her some privacy without giving her my back. No matter how much I wanted her, I couldn’t trust her. I had no idea who she really was . I had no idea if Robyn Foster was really her name.
Gritting my teeth, I listened to her muffled curses and the slide of fabric, waiting until she seemed sufficiently distracted before reaching down and adjusting my cock. This shouldn’t have happened—s houldn’t be happening.
I’d been doing this job for four years. Four goddamn years. And never had I put myself at risk like this. Never. Not for anyone. It was why they wanted me. Why I was so damn good at this. And I’d almost just fucked it all up for her—because of her. I’d almost blown my cover and a year of this goddamn operation to save her. The woman with flame-colored hair and a touch that made me burn.
Fuck .
I shifted my weight, my foot knocking into something on the floor. Her cell phone. I bent down and grabbed it. Thank God, the thick carpet completely muted the flashlight she’d turned on.
“That’s mine.” Her voice was indolent, with only a slight tremor of insecurity.
Gripping her phone tight, I faced her, air pushing through my lips in a steady stream as my gaze raked over her in the shadows. Tousled red hair. Flushed cheeks—from fury or desire, I couldn’t quite say. The poverty of illumination only amplified my ache to see all of her. Every inch wrapped in onyx silk. With her dress back in place, the only thing revealed now was the unsteady thread of her breath as it sewed into her lungs and the unmetered metronome of her pulse beating against her ribs.
Whoever she was, she wasn’t a professional—she wasn’t prepared for this. But she’d still come. Still risked. And still captivated me from the very first moment I’d laid eyes on her.
When Sandrine said she had someone she wanted me to meet, I smiled and went along, commiserating only to Magnus that his wife didn’t understand I wasn’t a man who planned on settling down. A point that was true regardless of who I was or pretended to be.
But then I saw her, and in that split second, there existed not only who I was, who I pretended to be, but also a vagrant, vigilante shadow of who I wanted to be. And that man…that ma n wanted to be with her. An impossibility given the lives I led.
Our eyes locked, hers wild and brazen, reminding me of the moment I’d crushed my mouth to hers. The heat of her body flushed to mine. My hips fitted between hers. The electric fuse of our lips. Everything about us and that kiss was a lie except for what it did to me; its effect was the most real thing I’d felt in a long time.
A rush of fury swept through me. “You have no idea what you’re getting involved in.”
“You know nothing about me,” she declared, coming closer with her intent emblazoned all over her face. “Give me my—” she whimpered, my arm shooting her phone out of reach as I grabbed her wrist and hauled her back against me.
Hostage. I’d be lying if I said it was for her own safety that I held her this close. Lying if I didn’t admit I craved the feel of her like some kind of designer drug.
Fuck .
Maybe I needed sex. It had been long—too long, clearly, if this was the reaction I was having to a stranger. One who’d almost jeopardized the biggest case of my career.
“Your phone will be the least of your concerns if you don’t do exactly as I say,” I rasped, keeping my voice low and my face tucked close to her ear.
I could practically hear the strain of her throat working to swallow down her protest.
“You’ll get your phone back after we talk. But not here. It’s not safe,” I warned, my lips pressed to the sensitive skin where her jaw met her ear.
I knew everything there was to know about Magnus Sinclair, including that he didn’t trust anyone. Not his friends. Not me. Not his wife. Probably not even his own daughter. So, I wouldn’t put it past him to bug his own home office.
“Where?” she whispered back, understanding everything I wasn’t saying.
“We’re going to walk out of this room, and you’re going to do exactly as I say. Do you understand?”
She stiffened.
“Let me be clear. If you don’t, if he gets even the slightest suspicion about you and your intentions, he will kill you.”
At that, she turned brittle in my arms. Frozen so stiff, I was afraid one slight bump would make her break.
“How do you know?” Her voice had no more strength than a shadow.
I tipped back, finding her eyes. “Because he’ll ask me to do it.”
“Sorry about that, old sport.” I clapped Magnus on the shoulder and leaned in. “I got a little carried away.”
Wary, soulless eyes bored into mine, and I let them come. There was nothing for him to find inside my shell. Nothing but a man I’d made just for him.
“I’ve never known you to get carried away, Damon.”
I let his distrust wash over me like cold rain, pretending like all I could feel was the sun.
“I never give myself the luxury.” The words always came easy when they were the truth. “But since this was an offer from your lovely wife, I figured a little luxury was allowed.”
In spite of all his faults (of which there were many), Magnus Sinclair had the one redeeming quality of being recklessly in love with his wife. Not a good kind of love. A jealous, controlling, restricting kind of love, but it was love nonetheless. He never cheated. His eyes never even strayed. And when it came to what Sandrine wanted, he would bend almost any of his rules to make it happen.
And that is why she was the first lever I would lean on to get myself out of this precarious moment.
“But in my office?” He swirled what was left in his tumbler and angrily tossed back the last dregs of his whiskey.
My head tipped, a slow smile cocking my lips, loaded with an answer I’d worked up minutes ago before the woman and I left the room.
“I was ready to fuck her against the door, but she worried your daughter might see.”
Magnus grunted, clearly not having thought about the unwelcome possibility.
I let my eyes flick to where Daria stood, Sandrine’s arm draped protectively around her shoulder, a proud smile on her face as they talked to Robyn. The way Sandrine loved her daughter was without measure or eclipse, and whatever she felt for Magnus didn’t even come close. On some level, I believed Sandrine saw the man her husband was becoming, but it was surprising how much what one wanted to believe could obscure what one knew to be true.
Sometimes, I thought if it weren’t for Daria, she would’ve left him sooner, but then again, to know who he was was to know what he was capable of; he’d never let Sandrine leave.
“Don’t worry.” I let my grin lift. “I couldn’t get my hands off her long enough to even turn on the lights.”
Another grunt, and I knew he’d been successfully lured into my lie. One crisis averted. Now, to deal with the other.
“But on that note, I think I’m going to take this little firecracker back to my place. We have some…unfinished business.”
He waved me away. “Enjoy. But don’t fucking be late to our meeting tomorrow morning. ”
I bled all the emotion from my voice and said, “You know I never let my cock get in the way of business.” I waited for him to look at me again. To test again the veracity of my words. And he did.
And what he found was the year of proof I’d given him. The year I’d been his charming, calculating counterpart. His concierge for all of the criminal activity he sought to involve himself in. Fraud. Theft. Money laundering. Murder. Drugs.
When Magnus Sinclair wanted something done, I was the one he trusted to handle it. And he trusted me because I gave nothing else my attention except for him. Not the money he put in little traps to see if I’d steal from him. Not the drugs he’d offer or gift to me to see if I’d be swayed. And not the women. Not the bare bodies pressed and ground along mine. I’d made sure Damon Remington existed solely for the command of the man in front of me, so he’d never see his downfall coming.
Except for tonight.
Except for her.
Tonight, I’d put a crack in my persona to protect a damsel in a dangerous situation, and now, I needed to get her the hell away from all of this before she ruined everything.
“Why did we have to come here?” Robyn demanded, backing into my apartment like she expected goons to pop out from around every corner and hold her down.
“Because this is the only place I know he’s not listening.” I shrugged out of my jacket, hanging it on the rack by the door, and then placed my hat on top of it .
“Who are you?” Her eyes darted around the large penthouse like a bird shoved into her first cage.
Unbuttoning the top button on my collar, I pulled the fabric loose at my neck. “Sorry, Robber, that’s not how this works.”
“Robber?” Her brows popped high.
“I don’t know your real name, but I presume you were there to steal from him,” I quipped and stalked around her to the bar cart in the living room—the only piece of furniture I used in the living room.
Popping open the bottle of whiskey on top, I set two glasses in the center and poured a healthy amount in each.
“He always tells Sandrine to stop flaunting all those jewels, but she can’t seem to help herself.” She might be married to a bad man, but that didn’t mean she was without her own vices.
A bitter wisp of a laugh rippled behind me.
Taking the glasses, I turned and held one to her, struck again by how fucking beautiful she was. Even when her eyes glittered red with rage. Especially when her eyes glittered with rage.
“I was there to take what belongs to me.” Instead of taking the drink, she folded her arms.
Shrugging, I set it back on the cart, there if she wanted it. “And what might that be?” I drawled and took a sip of the liquid smoke in my glass.
“Like I’m going to tell you. You’re his henchman. You’re part of the?—”
In an instant, I had her chin framed in my hand, my hold hard enough to make her mouth part and her skin blanch. I wasn’t hurting her— never— but I did want to make her afraid. I needed her to realize just how fucking dangerous this game was that she was playing.
She grabbed my wrists with both her hands, able to pull me away if she wanted…but she didn’t. Maybe I wasn’t the only one drawn to the heat when we touched.
“I just risked everything I’ve worked toward to keep you safe,” I growled under my breath. “If I were his henchman, I would’ve hauled your beautiful, thieving ass in front of him and offered to punish you myself. And make no mistake, however you know Sandrine—whatever she feels about you—none of it would’ve stopped Sinclair from having your head on a platter and then punishing her for the danger.”
It would’ve been one of the few instances Magnus would not have catered to his wife’s pleas. Any shadow or whisper of betrayal awoke in him a paranoia that only blood would satisfy.
I blinked, her vibrant eyes suddenly turning dull, her full, furious mouth parting lifelessly, and the smooth, silk column of her throat decorated with a necklace of blood from where he’d cut it.
Hissing, I released her and stepped back. Unsure how or why the image affected me like a knife to my own gut.
“What’s your name—your real name?” I demanded and downed another gulp of whiskey.
“Robyn Keyes.”
I stared. “You gave him your real name? Are you—” I groaned and took a deep gulp of the whiskey. Fuck. Why would she use her real fucking name?
“What else would I give him?”
“Anything,” I hissed and slammed the glass on the counter, filling it with another slosh of dark oblivion. “Anything to keep him from finding you.”
“If you hadn’t interrupted me, I wouldn’t have to worry about him finding me because I’d have proof. And with proof, he’d be going where there are locks and walls and bars and guards and gates to keep him from finding me.” Her own frustration showed now. She snatched the second glass off the cart and drank from it, wincing at the bitterness of the drink.
“Proof of what?”
She hesitated another beat, her trust issues screaming in the silence. “Proof that he stole from me.”
I knew everything about Magnus Sinclair—including the breadth of his criminal enterprises, and his little Ponzi investment scam was only the tip of the iceberg.
“How much did you give him to invest?”
“Why—”
“How much?” I ground out.
Her gaze was as sharp as shards of glass. “Almost a million dollars.”
Peanuts. At least compared to some of the bigger takes I’d observed.
I grabbed a small notepad and pen from inside my jacket and extended it to her. “Write down your bank account information, and I’ll have the money returned to it tomorrow.”
Something righteous seemed to snap in her, but she took the paper and scribbled onto it. Good. If she had her money, she’d leave this— him— alone.
She smiled when she handed the notepad back to me; I should’ve known I was fucked then.
FUCK YOU was written in all caps on the paper.
“I said I’d get you your money back. Hell, for the inconvenience, I’ll have two million deposited into your account tomorrow. How’s that for a return on your investment?” I practically snarled. “All you have to do is walk away from this. From him.”
“Why? Why are you protecting him?”
Now it was my turn to bark out a laugh. “I’m not protecting him.” Not by a fucking long shot.
“The answer is still no.” Did this woman have a death wish?
She folded her arms, and the baser man in me was distracted for a moment by the way the deep neckline of her dress gaped along her breasts, hinting just a little more at the tempting curves underneath.
“Why not?” I growled through my locked teeth.
“It’s not about the money.”
“Bullshit.” Her hand launched up, but I caught it in time, air seething through my lips as I moved until we were almost flush again. “You have no idea the danger you are playing with, Miss Keyes. I’m trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
“You have no goddamn idea what you need,” I said without thinking—without realizing that my body was already interpreting the needs of hers and aching with ways to fulfill them.
“I need to get proof that Magnus Sinclair stole from me—stole my parents’ inheritance from me,” she said, her voice rising like the tide. “It’s not about the money. I need proof that he’s a fraud. That he took my inheritance and used it for God knows what.”
“I can’t give you that, and I can’t let you do something idiotic again like you did tonight. You need to disappear from their lives after tonight. I’ll come up with a story, but you need to stay as far away from Sinclair as possible,” I instructed coldly, though it was the only thing cold about me.
The rest of me burned against her softness. Burned for the feel of her. The taste of her. The feel of all of her fire succumbing rather than fighting mine.
“You said you weren’t his henchman,” Robyn accused, her breathing unsteady.
My gaze dropped to the part of her lips, and for a second, I would’ve risked everything to kiss her one more time.
“I’m not.” My voice eked lower, down to a level below the threshold of my restraint. Below the threshold of self-preservation. Of right and wrong. “I’m his hangman. ”
His eyes flitted wide. “What does that mean?”
It meant I’d risked everything to protect her…and even more to tell her the truth. But if it kept her safe…
“It means that I work for the FBI, Robber, and your little stunt tonight almost jeopardized my undercover operation I’ve been running for the last year.”
Now I had her attention. Of course, I did. I just gave myself over on a fucking platter.
“The FBI?” Her smoky eyes widened.
“You think you’re the only one who picked up on his little scheme? And that isn’t even the worst of it.” My thumb traced the skin of her cheek, desire and duty ripping my insides to shreds. “We’ve been watching him for a long time now. There’s a whole task force assigned to tracking down all the little fingers of his operation and following them back to bigger fish.”
“And you…”
“I’m the one hunting him. The only one who managed to get in—to get close. The only one who has a shot at bringing it all down, and tonight, you—” I broke off, afraid even uttering the words would somehow make them come true.
Her expression had the decency to shudder—to shadow with the weight of what she’d almost jeopardized. Her gaze dipped for an instant and then lifted back to mine.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Why would I create a lie that could get me killed?” I inched my head forward. “This is so much bigger—so much worse than you can even fathom, Robber. Take the money and let me handle Sinclair.” Take it before you make me risk a whole hell of a lot more than I ever thought possible.
Her eyes sprung up, looking like she’d just come out of a daze. Whatever I’d said, it was the wrong thing because she backed away from me, leaving my arm to fall by my side.
“When I was sixteen, my parents were killed in a car crash. An accident.” Her tone mocked the word. “On their death, I inherited a trust they’d set aside for me. Everything they’d worked for—everything they’d saved over the years. While I couldn’t access the funds until I was eighteen, my lawyer told me I could invest them. He had a great opportunity in mind, and he said he’d put me in touch with the man in charge of the whole company.”
Her words resonated with Sinclair’s investment scam; it was what alerted us to him in the first place, but that was only the first domino to fall.
“The first time I spoke to Magnus Sinclair, I was seventeen. He told me he had a young daughter, and that if he died tragically, he hoped someone would give her the same option he was giving to me.”
Robyn shifted toward the bar cart, taking up the glass of whiskey I’d poured for her. I swallowed hard when her lips closed on the rim, and her throat bobbed as she took a deep drink.
“I trusted him. I trusted both of them.” She stared into the glass, swirling the last of the liquid like it could take her back in time. “I invested everything I had and tried to move on. A couple of years passed, and when my adopted brothers deployed overseas, I came home from college to clean out a bunch of my things from my adopted family’s home; they’d decided to downsize. In the boxes, I found my mother’s journal and began reading through entries in the weeks that preceded the accident. I began remembering…” She paused and took another drink here. “Somewhere in the shock and grief of it all, I’d forgotten how sick they’d both been before the accident. I’d forgotten their hushed conversations about chemicals and cancer. And suddenly, with that journal, I started to question things I thought I knew—things I’d been told. ”
She looked at me. “I began to question if their accident had really been an accident.”
I didn’t move. My teeth clamped into the side of my tongue, holding back the things I wanted to say, afraid that a single sound would spook her.
“I started to look into the accident. Their deaths. Their research. Every year since their deaths, I’d receive an invitation from GrowTech—the company my parents were working for when they died—to the annual fundraiser for GrowGood, the nonprofit organization that was set up, I was told, to honor my parents’ contributions to the company. I’d never gone until that year—last year.”
Rage slithered down my spine, a serpent with scales of ice and venom that turned my blood cold. Belmont. Dozens of people had been scammed by Magnus Sinclair and his investment operation, and if that were his only crime, he would’ve been arrested a year ago, and I never would’ve become Damon Remington.
But it wasn’t his only crime.
Sinclair was a stepping stone. A tadpole in the ocean of bigger fish. Fish like Bernard Belmont, the CEO of GrowTech.
And Robyn was the first of Sinclair’s victims to have a personal tie to the real villain of this story. I knew about her parents, Elle and Maxim DuBois; they were two in a stack of suspicious deaths tied to Belmont and his biochemical company.
“Your real name is Robyn Dubois.” This I couldn’t hold back.
Her gaze lashed at mine. “I was adopted. My name is Robyn Keyes now.”
But it was DuBois. And that meant she hadn’t given Sinclair her real name.
“I went to the fundraiser because I wanted to talk to him— Mr. Belmont. By then, I’d left several messages for Sinclair’s company to get access to my funds so I could use them to investigate my parents’ deaths. I hadn’t heard back, but I was too preoccupied with the chance to talk to GrowTech’s CEO directly that I didn’t think much of it. Until I got there.” She drained the last of the drink with one gulp. “Bernard Belmont went up on stage, the first to speak and memorialize my parents and their work, and then thank everyone for their generous donations to the foundation. And that was when I saw them up there with him, off to the side and in the shadows. Mr. Sinclair and my lawyer, Mr. McCullough.”
My jaw fired in rapid succession. “They’re all in it together.” It wasn’t a question; it was confirmation.
Her chin dropped, part nod, part anger, part shame.
“I didn’t speak to him that night. I didn’t speak to any of them. Nothing about it felt right. When I went to Sinclair’s offices the following week to ask about my account, the woman at the desk told me there was no account belonging to Robyn DuBois. So, that was when I went to the police, and they asked for proof of the trust—proof that I’d signed everything over to Juniper Investments, and I didn’t have it. I was seventeen when it was set up, and McCullough offered to handle everything.” Her sharp stare lifted to mine. “I’d been duped, and I had no recourse. At least none without getting it myself.”
I didn’t get personally involved. I never had. That was the whole reason the Bureau picked me for this op. But right here—right now—I felt fucking personally involved. I felt it because I’d felt her. I’d felt her velvet-skinned rage and the fiery vengeance on her tongue. And I’d protected her. I’d protected her at a risk to myself, and in doing so, I hadn’t just absorbed her into my bubble, I’d also been taken into hers.
“These men do more than steal, Robyn. They killed your parents. They’ve killed countless people to keep their secrets hidden.”
“And I want them to pay for it all.” She set her glass back on the cart with a soft click, like the shell casing from the bullet of determination she’d just fired from her lips. “They took everything from me. So, no, Mr. Remington—or whatever your name is. I’m sorry. I don’t want your money or your protection, and I won’t walk away from this.”
She turned and headed for the door, her heels landing like shell casings on the hardwood floor.
Dammit .
Did she not understand what I said? Did she not understand how fucking dangerous this was and what she risked to go on her little vigilante mission?
And why the hell did I care?
My jaw spooled tighter. This was an easy fix. All I had to do was contact my handler, Clancy, and tell him she was a problem, and he would remove her. Take her somewhere safe. Make it very clear that the FBI wouldn’t tolerate any interference in their investigation—or in my undercover operation.
Except I couldn’t.
Goddammit . My fist balled tighter at my side. I couldn’t take this from her, too. It would make me no better than the men we both hunted.
“Wait!” I called roughly, my chest heaving like it was bailing water from a sinking ship. “Wait.”
Her hand was on the handle, the door slightly open when my palm flattened to it and forced it shut. She whipped around, fury smoking the reddish glint from her gaze.
“I won’t change my mind.” Her staunch declaration burned through me. Underneath that soft skin of hers was pure fire.
“I know.” I came to a stop in front of her, banding my arms over my chest. “If you won’t change your mind, then you’re going to work with me.”
“No—”
“It wasn’t a question, Robber,” I growled. “Either you work with me, you do exactly what I say, or I have the FBI whisk you away into WITSEC in the middle of nowhere where you can’t fucking jeopardize something bigger than your revenge.”
Anger prickled in goose bumps along her skin. “And how would that even work? Us working together? Because I’m not going to sit in an empty apartment with an earpiece listening to you do all the work.”
A rough laugh bubbled from my chest. The idea of her sitting on the sidelines was as inconceivable as it was incorrect.
“No, Robber. I wouldn’t have you on the sidelines.” I inched my face closer to hers, the hum in my blood like a magnetic pulse, pulling me to her with an unstoppable force.
“Then what would I be doing?”
My gaze struck hers like a flint against iron, sparks spraying into the room. I framed her chin in my hand and crushed my mouth back to hers. She gasped, and my tongue plundered inside, taking every inch of her warmth, caressing and charting every corner to mark its territory.
I pressed her against the door, feeling her hands rise to my chest as my body fitted to the soft curves of hers. I waited for her to push against me—waited for the shove I’d have to ignore and continue to kiss her. It was the only way for her to understand what she’d have to risk—the things she’d have to do, the lengths she’d have to go.
I had no parents. No friends. No ties. No secrets. I could risk everything undercover because I had nothing to lose, and that was why the FBI picked me. Robyn had to be willing to do the same—to put everything on the line without even so much as a flicker of reservation or Sinclair would know. He’d root out suspicion like a weed and kill it without qualm. Kill her. Kill me.
The thought turned my kiss savage. Brutal, like I wanted to bruise her mouth. Sinclair would have to kill me first if he ever wanted to lay a hand on her, I knew it—felt it in that moment.
But the shove never came. No anger. No protest. Only the gnawing temptation from earlier in Sinclair’s office. The pure want I felt for this woman distilled from who we were and the situation we were in.
I drew back, my chest heaving.
“What was that?” she demanded, breathless. Even though her hands were on my chest, I noted they were curled into my vest rather than flat to push me away.
“The answer to your question.”
“Kissing you didn’t answer my question.”
Well, it sure answered a whole hell of a lot of mine.
“I think it did, Robber,” I said, clearing the husk from my voice. “Kissing me is something you will be doing because if I bring you into this now, the only way is as my girlfriend.”
Her lashes dusted the pink crests of her cheeks, uncertainty clouding her eyes. Good. This should make her think twice. It should’ve made me think twice—bringing a civilian, one with a personal vendetta, into my operation.
“You want to help bring down Sinclair, you come in as my girlfriend.” I repeated the offer, dragging my thumb along the swell of her bottom lip. “You do exactly what I say when I say it. No random jaunts to dark rooms. No picking locks under the moonlight. Either you follow my instructions to a T so I can protect you and this case, or I make sure you are pulled as far away from this as humanly possible. That’s my deal, Robber. Take it or leave it. ”
Her hands that were curled into my vest tightened. “Don’t call me Robber around him.”
I tipped my head, the air around us thickening like our kiss had left smoke in the air. “Just around him?” I rumbled, sliding my hand from its position on the door into the thick silk of her hair.
“Yes.” The word was hardly a sound.
“Fine,” I grunted. “Anything else?”
“No.” Her tongue slid out to dampen the tempting swells of her lips. “Are you going to kiss me again to seal our deal?”
My body jolted. I’d kissed her to make a point, but it seemed the only thing either of us had learned was that desire was a whole separate beast from danger. A beast with its own hooks and hunger. A beast that didn’t care what else it risked in order to be fed.
“And if I did?” At my rough voice, lust sparkled in her eyes, or maybe it was the reflection of my own.
Maybe I’d been in this too long—entrenched too deep in this op that the first moment I broke from it to save her was like the first breath of air I’d taken after a year underwater. And now, I couldn’t gasp in enough.
Robyn slid her palm from my chest to the back of my neck, her fingers teasing the hair at my nape.
“Then this time, please don’t stop.” She pulled herself up on her toes and fitted her mouth to mine.
We sealed our deal with tongues and teeth. With hands and touches, hungry bruises on starving skin. With casualties of clothing and caution until we were nothing but stripped, lonely souls desperate to burn ourselves on something that finally felt real even when there was every sign warning us that it shouldn’t. Warning to be careful of the lines we crossed. Of the truths and lies that blurred into something as indistinguishable as the seam where day turned into night .
I told myself it would be better this way—easier to fool Sinclair if we were actually sleeping together.
It turned out it was easier to fool myself, too.