Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Damon
“ I don’t like this, Damon.”
Running my fingertip along the felt edge of my hat, I met Pat’s eyes in the rearview mirror and smirked.
“There aren’t too many things you do like, Pat.”
The larger man grunted, and I turned my eyes to the window.
GrowTech’s headquarters stretched like a hangman up to the sky, the shadow of the towering skyscraper swinging like a noose over the surrounding buildings.
“At least let me come with you.”
“You know I can’t.” Belmont specified I come alone, and I wouldn’t jeopardize my plan even though I knew what awaited me inside.
Few people were allowed to get close to me. A hazard and necessary caution of the world I operated in. Of those who did, few were people I liked. And of the ones I liked, only Pat did I trust with my life .
I’d had less than a handful of close associates over the years; some might consider those men my friends, if men like me had such things. Less than a handful knew the truth of my auspicious origins, Pat being one of the lucky few. He saved my life no less than a dozen times, taken a bullet for me twice, and for some reason, that made the surly bastard believe he had the right to voice his opinion about my decisions.
“He’s going to hurt you.”
My jaw pulsed, and then I smiled. “Can’t be worse than what the Yakuza did to me in prison.”
Pat’s eye twitched. “You say that like you didn’t continue their torture after we left.”
Pat knew me before I’d become him. We’d met back when Damon Remington was little more than a caricature in Sinclair’s operation. And if it wasn’t for a terse but ruthless Irishman, that caricature would’ve rotted in a Japanese prison rather than becoming… me.
Those were the early days of my infamy. The days when I was desperately swindling and scrounging money together while building a reputation for the cover I’d assumed: Damon Remington. In fact, I’d wound up in that prison because I’d taken a high-ranking member of the Yakuza for a very large sum of money in an illegal casino one night. He wasn’t happy, and that was the last thing I remember him telling me before everything went dark.
When I woke, I was on a ship being raided by the authorities; the cargo, a shipment of methamphetamines. I’d had nothing to do with the meth or the smuggling operation, but prison was simply my punishment for being better at poker than a Yakuza gangster.
Pat was in the same prison for other crimes. Far more violent ones. But apparently the tale of my hunt to find my wife was one that struck a chord, and so he’d taken me with him on his escape.
“Not afraid of a little pain, Pat,” I told him, checking my watch again. “A wise person once told me, ‘ There’s nothing quite as frightening as the power of the unknown.’”
I chuckled at his untampered curse because it was his advice I quoted. When he’d first said it, it had been in reference to Robyn’s disappearance. But from the jagged cracks of my broken heart, it seeped into my soul and formed the bedrock upon which I’d built an empire, one any criminal would be proud of. The irony was I’d never wanted to be a criminal. I was just a man who’d turned himself into a monster to protect the woman he loved.
My bodyguard’s attention shifted to the buzzing on the console. Pat looked at his phone, frowned, and then resumed his stare of displeasure.
“What is it?” I turned my wrist. Seven minutes until my meeting with Belmont.
“She’s not happy.”
Now, it was my turn to frown. “Safe is better than happy,” I returned, not liking the shade of scrutiny infecting his stare. Safe was better than content. Safe was better than mine.
“You could just tell her the truth, Damon.”
My hand stilled on the rim of my hat, my heartbeat along with it. “Did she ask you?”
“No,” he said, giving his head a small shake. “But she’s your wife. She should know?—”
“She’s my wife. Mine. ” Even if she loathed me. Currently , I told myself.
“She would understand. She would forgive you,” he said, his voice gentling.
He didn’t understand. There was no forcing my forgiveness or my innocence on my wife. The hurt I’d caused her was too deep. Too great. And after crying wolf for almost two decades, what person in their right mind would believe me at the first instance that I meant no harm? That I’d done no harm?
No, I had to prove certain things to Robyn first. That my feelings had never wavered. That I would do anything for her. That I wouldn’t use the truth against her. That I wouldn’t leave her again.
I had to prove it was my life—my heart that hung suspended from her beautiful neck, not an albatross. I’d never strayed. Never wavered. And I could tell her. Hell, I could even prove it. Not many men came with evidence of their abstinence embedded in their cocks.
But to simply force her to hear my truth would be like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It wouldn’t remove the betrayal or cauterize the pain. It wouldn’t stave off the potential for fear and distrust to infect everything moving forward.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion on this, Pat.”
Truth was like a sword. Only a fool would use it as a weapon against the woman I loved rather than an offering of loyalty once I’d earned back her trust. Only a fool, who cared more about exonerating himself, would choose the easy path to cut the veil from her eyes and force her to see our past clearly.
The Irishman went unbothered by my tone. “You never ask for my opinion, but I’m still going to give it to you.”
My finger twitched with frustration, but I said nothing. Maybe that would get him to shut up.
“You need to stop punishing yourself, Damon.”
My jacket started to feel tighter than normal around my chest. I looked at my watch again, the seconds not moving fast enough. I was going to be right on time for my meeting with Belmont, a sign that I had no interest in playing any games for power.
“All this time. Everything you went through?— ”
“Enough,” I clipped, rancor texturing my voice with razor blades. An uncharacteristic anger rolled through me, forcing me to shift in my seat. “You can have opinions on everything else—anything else—but not my wife.”
“Fine. Stubborn bastard. Should’ve left you to the Yakuza.” He huffed under his breath, and that made me smile.
“Well, they certainly prepared me for this.” I settled my hat on my head and reached for the door. “Plus, it sounds like you have your hands full out here.”
I tried to not think too hard about how Robyn was texting him; yes, she had his number in case of an emergency, but was this an emergency? Because I didn’t bring her with me? Or did she regularly text Pat?
Since I told her the puzzle in the living room was his, they’d been working on it together the last several nights. I knew she was doing it to make me jealous. At least, partially. But it was fully working. I was jealous of the man who’d give his life for me—who’d cut off his own arm before he even thought about touching something that belonged to me. And yet, I. Was. Fucking. Jealous.
“I wouldn’t if you just told her even a little about what’s going on.”
And risk Robyn putting herself in more danger? Not a chance. She’d be right up there next to him insisting I didn’t take this meeting alone.
“It’s safer this way.”
Pat snorted.
“He won’t kill me. He needs me too much, and you can’t get rid of me that easily.” I opened the door and exited the car, leaning back through the opening to say, “If I’m not back in an hour, then you can come find me.”
His expression was flat. “Hopefully, it’s in better condition than the last time I rescued you from prison. ”
“The only time you rescued me from prison,” I corrected, winked, and then closed the door, patting the trunk as I rounded the car and strode toward the building.
There were plenty of other times Pat had rescued me those first few years. From beatings. Torture. Injuries inflicted with as brutal finesse as the suits that covered up their scars. Plenty of times the man he saved looked more mangled than a man.
Head down, hat angled just right to obscure my face, I strode through the glass doors of the entry, my footsteps resonating with an unmistakable frequency.
“Hi, I’m here to see Mr. Belmont.” I smiled at the perky receptionist, and that was all it took for her face to flush and a nervous giggle to erupt.
“Can I…have your name?” Her lashes batted, Morse-coding her desire to have more than my name.
“Tell him Mr. Remington is here.”
She stamped her teeth into her bottom lip, fumbling with the phone twice before she entered the correct number, another giggle escaping when she said my name the second time.
The phone clicked into its rocker.
Here we go, I thought, tipping my head up to the towering ceiling and taking in the light.
“So, Mr.—”
“Mr. Remington.” Belmont’s voice boomed from across the lobby, obliterating whatever gumption the receptionist had worked up to flirt with me.
The stocky man was flanked by two very large men with grim, heavily scarred faces. But Belmont, he smiled. In fact, he had the distinct look of glee on his face like a cat with cream. Or maybe more appropriately, like a pig in shit.
“So glad you could make it,” he purred, taking my hand in a hard shake .
“So glad we could come to an arrangement, old sport.”
There, disgust flickered on his face for a nanosecond before he wiped it clean. “Please come with me. We’ll want to discuss these matters in private.”
That night when I’d won that money and pissed off the Japanese gangster, I’d had no idea what was coming my way. I had no idea that celebratory shot of sake was drugged and would lead to my arrest, a Japanese prison, and a slew of Yakuza inmates who were just as pissed off as their friend on the outside. And because I didn’t know then to not look a gift horse in the mouth, I knew now that this win with Belmont wouldn’t come without cost.
I’d brought his company to the brink of ruin. Destroyed the lives of his friends. Ruined his opportunity to partner with Shazad more than once. And then I’d strolled into his home, into his Christmas party, and rubbed it in his face that after all of that, I was the only one who could help him.
There were going to be consequences for that, and they were going to hurt. But for her…for my wife…I’d endure any pain if it meant I could give her peace. And Pat could hold his damn tongue about this being just one more unnecessary opportunity for me to punish myself.
The bag hit my side again, and the sickening thud registered before the explosion of pain. My insides felt lined with landmines, each strike demolishing more blood and muscle. Hopefully not organs.
My eyes shut for a split second before I forced them open and focused on the man executing my torture. Belmont stood front row and center to where I was currently strapped to a pole in the basement of the building, masquerading as his personal pinata.
Even though I wanted to gasp and curse, I only took a measured breath, knowing another blow was coming. Sure enough, the guard ordered to do the dirty work of actually beating me, launched his arm forward, and the weighted bag hit my stomach this time.
Now, I gasped, a fresh citrus scent bursting into my nostrils.
“Oranges.” I chuckled, trying to hide my heavy breathing. “Never pictured you as a Grifters kind of guy, old sport.”
I’d never been beaten with a bag of oranges before. I’d heard of the custom—or of the rumors at least—that it caused more internal damage without leaving a lot of, or any, physical marks. I guessed I’d find out how true the rumors were tomorrow.
“I want to make a point, Mr. Remington, not leave a trace.” Belmont signaled, “Again,” and a scarred buzz-cut man whipped the bag of oranges at my other side, a grunt of pain dislodging from my throat.
Fucker .
I breathed through the pain, which, while terrible, wasn’t the worst pain I’d felt. Not that it was much consolation because it still hurt like a bitch, every blow radiating fire through my organs. The only real consolation was that I was right; Belmont had no intention of killing me or seriously maiming me. No, this beating was to soothe the jollies of a man with a big ego and a tiny dick.
I was wrong about one thing, though. There were only three of Belmont’s guards in this basement office with us, not four. Pat would be relieved.
Thwack .
Okay, maybe not exactly relieved .
I wondered how many oranges were in the bag. Two? Thwack. Three? Thwack.
Fuck. I lurched forward at that last blow, feeling like some part of my intestines had just burst in my gut.
“Enough,” Belmont said curtly as though he were directly in a business meeting and not a beating.
My chest and stomach released their bottled tension, and I lifted my eyes to the clock hanging above the door.
We’d only been down here for thirty minutes. Not too bad. His tirade about all the grief I’d caused him hadn’t been nearly as prolific as I’d expected.
“To be clear, Mr. Remington, I do not trust you. I do not like you. And if I had any other viable option, it wouldn’t be oranges in the bag.”
“If you had any other viable option, I wouldn’t have done my job right.” I smiled, and Belmont looked for a second like he might break his unspoken rule of “no trace” and punch me in the face.
“You didn’t do your job right,” he spat. “You ruined too much for me to just show up here with your pretty face and your glowing reputation. I might need you, but make no mistake, I know you’re here because you need me. You need this deal.”
On a normal day, I wouldn’t worry about him perceiving the subtle stiffening of my body. But this wasn’t a normal day, so hopefully, if he noticed at all, he chalked it up to my injuries.
“I’m here because I see an opportunity for us both to make a lot of money, old sport. And I like those opportunities. I’m good at making the most of those opportunities.” Fuck, my insides were starting to scream.
Belmont made a sound. I couldn’t tell if it was disbelief or something else .
“Well, Remington, you’re going to have to earn this opportunity after all you’ve done.”
“And letting you play…Whack-a-Man to soothe your ego didn’t do the trick?”
He snarled. “Maybe I will kill you.”
I smiled. “If I thought you had the guts, I never would’ve come in here alone.”
Stupid men got angry. Stupid men showed their hands—showed how easily they were thrown off by words. Belmont was a stupid man who’d weaseled his way into a powerful, wealthy position.
“You owe me, Remington. More than this opportunity. You owe me for what you took. For what I can’t get back.” His lip twitched as he spoke.
“What do you want?”
Belmont regarded me for a long second before nodding to the scarred bald man who interpreted the wordless message and approached me.
“In a little over a week, I’m hosting the annual fundraiser for my nonprofit organization.”
“GrowGood. I’m familiar.” Familiar with how he used the charity to funnel funds from criminals to other criminals and their enterprises. “I’m happy to donate to your cause.”
“Oh, you’ll be happy to donate sizably to my cause,” he declared and then shook his head, for a second giving me a look like we were both in over our heads. “But I need more than money. He wanted more than money.”
Rage simmered under the surface of my skin.
I knew Shazad wanted more than money. He wanted access to the sex trafficking ring run by the Chinese Triad so Uzair could have his pick of victims. I’d made sure Robyn and her brothers had destroyed that operation and any chance for that psychopath to harm any more women .
“Release him.”
Thug number two cut the ties around my wrists, and my arms dropped to my sides, causing me to wince.
Belmont stepped toward me and lowered his voice.
“If you want us to have this opportunity, you come with more than money. If you don’t, then the next time I see you, we’ll find out if I do have the guts to kill the infamous Damon Remington.” He bent to pick my hat off the ground, examining it like he could tell a Borsalino from a Brixton and then snarling as he handed it back to me. “Maybe I’ll even hang your hat on the wall at my lodge, right next to the rest of my trophies.”
I smiled, not because I liked what he said or because I’d anticipated this and had a plan. I smiled because I’d found that the most unnerving thing you could do in a situation where you were up shit’s creek without a paddle was smile.
“Until next time then.” I took my hat from him, ignoring the pain it cost to do so.
Belmont grunted and then waved his hand at his men. “Take him out the back.”
I kept my smile all the way to the car, but Pat already knew something was wrong.