Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Damon
“ T ime’s up, Mr. Remington,” Belmont greeted me with as soon as I stepped into the office.
He was still positioned in his chair behind the desk, and in front of him stood Amir Shazad. The older Shazad regarded me with the best poker face I’d ever seen.
“I think I’ve been more than accommodating to both parties to get this deal finished. I’m known for being accommodating. I’m not known for being taken advantage of, gentlemen, so I’m going to have to insist we proceed with the original arrangement.”
I fired the two words through my tight teeth, letting my displeasure show.
It didn’t much matter now, I thought, glancing at the clock on the wall.
It hadn’t taken much more than an hour for the Feds to show up at the Sherwood Garage after Robyn had called them about me. Maybe the false alarm now made them react slower. Or possibly the location of Belmont’s chalet.
Whatever the reason, they were on borrowed time. We all were.
A look passed between Belmont and Amir. One I didn’t like.
“You are known for a lot of things, Mr. Remington. Transparency in the services you provide. Authenticity of those services and their results.” Amir leaned forward, his position turning threatening. “Imagine my surprise when my son discovered that the list of women you sent us was fabricated.”
Fuck.
“I was curious to know why, but at dinner, I understood.”
“Are you calling me a liar, Mr. Shazad?” My smooth voice rippled with an eerie calm. Denial was my only option—the only weapon I had to buy some more time.
“I think I’m calling you more than that, Mr. Remington.”
The hair on my arms prickled. Goddammit, where were they?
“Then it sounds like our business here is done,” I said and tipped my head.
If I could get back to the room—to Robyn, we could bunker down?—
“I don’t think so, Mr. Remington,” Shazad said just as one of Belmont’s guards stepped in front of the door, blocking my exit.
“Is this really the route you want to go?” I cocked my head and directed the question to Belmont, insinuating that he was about to start a war with the kind of criminal who would destroy him.
“You made your bed, Remington,” he snarled. “It’s not my fault if you get fucked in it. ”
“I will ruin you, old sport.” I smiled. “And I will take great pleasure in doing so.”
“No, you won’t because you won’t be leaving here alive.”
“I think the thing about ghosts, Mr. Remington, is that when you go so long without being seen, it becomes very difficult to prove you were ever real,” Amir added, his voice as slick as oil. “And with you dead, it’s near impossible to stop someone else from claiming they were the infamous Damon Remington all along.”
Cold rage burned through me that they thought they could do this. Thankfully, I had plenty of safeguards put in place over the years to prevent this exact scenario.
“You can claim all you want, but without any of my assets to back it up, no one will believe you.”
“Oh, I know.” Amir smiled. “Which is why you’re going to give them to me.”
I barked out a laugh, and my ears pricked at the sound of a helicopter in the distance. Or maybe it was just the echo of my desperate hope.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Shazad, but that certainly doesn’t sound like me,” I cajoled. “I can’t imagine why I would give anyone that information, let alone a man who’s already told me he plans to kill me.”
“That’s why I’m as successful as I am. Because I can imagine, Mr. Remington,” Amir said, making a show of the way he stood. His frailty was nothing more than a facade to hide a ferocity that rivaled the outright psychopathy of his son. “And you’re going to tell me because while I am going to kill you, I may be willing to make a deal to spare your wife’s life.”
The demand was as physical as a bullet into the beat of my chest, mangling my heartbeat and infecting my blood with fear.
“If you harm her in any way,” I began, my voice dropping low. “There is no hell that will hold me from coming for you. ”
He came close, his smile poking at his cheeks. “I’ll take my chances.” Extending his ornate walking cane, he tapped on one of the chairs at the round table in the center of the room. “Have a seat, Mr. Remington. There’s a lot we have to discuss.”
“I have nothing to say.” My hand flexed and released at my side as my eyes scoured for a new strategy.
There was only one guard blocking the door. If I could just get through him, I could probably make it back to the room and Robyn, and I could figure something else out from there.
Amir sighed and strode closer, his careless demeanor advertising just how much of an upper hand he believed he had.
Or did have. At the moment.
“Trust me. You’ll want to sit and talk to me, Mr. Remington,” he remarked as he stopped a few feet in front of me.
“I really don’t think I have any desire to do that.” If I could just drag this out longer—even if they beat me, tortured me, I only had to hold out long enough until?—
“Well, the longer you stay silent, the longer my son has to enjoy the company of your wife.”
Rage and adrenaline collided—combusted—and the world around me went up in smoke.
“Where is he?” I demanded, rage crackling in my throat.
“I just told you, Mr. Remington. From the moment you stepped into this room, Uzair has been in yours. Now, tell me what I want to know if you want her to live.”
“And if I tell you, you’ll bring him here now?”
Amir chuckled, the sound scratching out of lungs that had smoked tobacco for too many years.
“There’s no stopping my son now from taking what he wants…the way he wants it. The only thing I can do for you is order him not to kill her. He tends to like to do that once he’s…finished.”
I was going to kill him. I was going to kill them all.
I stepped forward as though to comply and then used the leverage to spin and launch my fist into the guard’s face.
The man’s head cracked to the side, and he crumpled into a heap.
Robyn. She was the only thought in my mind. The only thing pumping through my veins. The only thing beating in my chest.
Without her, there was no me. Without her, there never had been.
Shouts erupted behind me as I grabbed for the door.
Goddammit, where were the feds?
My Hail Mary was all I had left, and never more was I glad to have made that damn phone call than the second before pain detonated in the back of my skull and everything went black.
Robyn
I spun for the door as soon as I heard it click.
“Da—” His name died on my tongue.
It wasn’t my husband coming back through the door. It was Uzair.
Had something happened to Damon?
It shouldn’t have been my first thought. My first and only thought should’ve been what the hell was I going to do about the sadistic psychopath who’d just let himself into my room?
“Where’s my husband?”
Uzair smiled and closed the door; he didn’t bother to lock it, and I wished I could convince myself that was a good thing.
But no. I knew enough about this man to know he liked to toy with his prey. To make them run. Fight. Let them think they had a chance at escaping. He got off on it.
“Busy doing business.” His eyes looked over me as he moved in my direction.
“What do you want?”
“He didn’t tell you?” His smile curdled his cheeks. “He bargained one night with you to seal our little deal.”
My pulse exploded like a gunshot in my chest. Damon never would’ve agreed, not even just for show. And that meant Uzair and Belmont had never planned on giving Damon a choice…it had all been a ruse.
“Get out.” I lifted my chin.
Uzair laughed, a slice of white teeth cutting through his lips.
“I do love a good fight.” He reached down and adjusted himself, making sure I got the point that I’d just made him hard.
“Leave now.” I curled my fist.
Backing deeper into the room would only create more distance I’d have to cross to get to the unlocked door. So, I waited for him to get closer. If I could strike him and then slip around him, I could get to the exit—get away.
“I’m really going to enjoy this, Mrs. Remington. Especially after your husband thought he could lie his way into this arrangement. I knew the way he looked at you…there was no chance he’d give over anything of importance to you.”
I sucked in a breath. He knew Damon had lied about the women. Damon was in trouble.
As if to corroborate my thoughts, there was a crash from down the hall that was loud enough to make it to us.
Uzair smirked. “Sounds like your husband wasn’t too pleased to hear we were spending some time together.”
Fear didn’t even begin to describe what this man instilled when he looked at me. He was a monster in human form. A soulless, morally vacant figment of a man who used and abused women before killing and discarding them like trash.
“He will kill you.”
Uzair’s sadistic smile spread. “He will already be dead.”
He stepped close enough for me to strike, and I didn’t hesitate. I threw my arm out just like my brothers had trained me and then lowered my center of gravity as soon as my fist connected with muscle.
Uzair doubled forward on the impact, and I pushed off to the side, my heart vaulting into my throat as I lunged around him.
And then pain boomed on the side of my head, the back of his hand slamming into me. I stumbled forward from the blow, only to be yanked back with a hold of pure fire as he grabbed my hair. Pain seared my scalp as he dragged me backward by a fistful of my hair.
“God, I love when they fight,” he snarled and lowered his face to mine, his tongue licking the side of my face where I realized his blow had broken skin. “Love when they bleed.” His tongue dragged my own blood over his lips with a smile.
I threw my elbow back with a cry, the pointed bone nailing him in the stomach.
He didn’t completely release my hair, but I was willing to sacrifice strands if it meant escaping him.
It didn’t.
Hair ripped from my scalp, the burning pain like an acid bath on my skin, but for all my efforts, I only made it another step before his boot landed on my spine.
I flung forward, crashing into the nightstand and toppling the lamp to the floor.
I grabbed the edges, steadying myself and realizing that another two inches to the left and I would’ve been impaled on the sharpened elephant tusk mounted on the wall .
“God, you’re going to be so good. I knew it.” Uzair salivated and gripped the back of my neck, crushing my head to the wall and pressing himself against me.
His other hand roamed over my body, pinned like a rag doll between him and the nightstand. I felt how hard he was. He pulled my head back and then rammed it into the wall hard enough to see stars.
Darkness fizzled at the periphery of my vision, but no pain or threat of unconsciousness could hide how he grew harder from hurting me.
I let out a scream. Of pain. Of fear. Of fury.
And Uzair only laughed.
“Don’t worry. They’ve been trained to watch,” he snickered in my ear.
He slammed my head into the wall again, and I sagged from the impact.
This couldn’t happen. I couldn’t let this happen.
I had to fight.
I had to find Damon.
Distantly, I felt him tug at the waist of my pants. I blinked, the familiar surroundings of the room swimming into focus.
I tried to scream again, but his hand grabbed my throat, his fingers gouging my neck.
My vision blotted. The expensive scent of him burned my throat.
And then I saw the elephant tusk hanging loose from the wall. He’d broken its moorings when he’d grabbed it as leverage to slam my head again.
The sharp, pointed tip hung toward me. An invitation. A calling.
I heard the click of a knife. Presumably to cut away the clothes he didn’t feel like removing, and then probably to cut me .
Pain drenched my head like a torrential storm, making it almost impossible to see through, but I had to.
For them. The women he’d abused and killed. The ones I hadn’t been able to save. And for me.
Because I hadn’t fought to face my demons for this long only to fall short.
I grabbed the tusk. Just the weight of my arm was enough to break the wires it hung by.
“Wait until your husband sees what I’m going to do to you,” Uzair muttered with a kind of maniacal tone, like the devil inside him had overtaken his barely civil veneer. “I’m going to bury this knife in your ass and then fuck you as you bleed?—”
I shoved off the nightstand, the sudden show of strength startling him as he stumbled back, tripping over his pants that he’d lowered over his penis.
“Fight me, bitch,” he snarled. “It’ll make the fuck that much?—”
I spun and buried the sharp end of the tusk into his side, his eyes bulging in complete shock.
Warmth gushed against my hand. Blood oozed thick and hot, spurting from the deep wound.
He choked and garbled, his head lifting, disbelief flooding his dark gaze as it found mine.
He was dying, but he didn’t seem to care. No—he seemed to enjoy it. The pain. The bloody end.
I shoved him away and ran for the door.
“Fucking cunt.” His lopsided footsteps dragged after me, and my heart collided with the front of my chest.
I swung the door open and bolted into the hall, stopping quickly when three of Belmont’s guards turned and drew their weapons.
I spun, and Uzair was there like some cursed creature who couldn’t die .
I was surrounded. “My husband will kill you for this,” I warned the guards, my hands raised to keep them at bay.
One of them was already signaling to someone about Uzair, the man like a bloodied zombie, as he stumbled out of my room.
Step after step after—stumble.
Uzair looked down at his chest, his shirt completely soaked with blood, and I saw the moment—the fury in his gaze when he realized he was dying.
“Robyn!”
I turned at Damon’s shout, panicked when I saw him restrained by Belmont’s guards. Belmont and the older Shazad followed behind them.
No.
My gaze tangled with my husband’s, fury and relief marring his gorgeous face.
“Uzair!” The older man’s hoarse cry exploded through the space, and I swore it made the windows rattle.
Amir Shazad rushed forward, his gait unsteady but his eyes wide and locked on his son.
“Run,” Damon ordered as the commotion picked up steam.
I couldn’t run. I couldn’t leave him.
Uzair fell forward, dead before his face hit the ground.
“ No!” The father screeched wildly, a torrent of commands snarling through his lips in Pakistani at his own security who veered toward me. Their boots shook the ground underneath us, and I wasn’t the only target.
Amir clearly blamed everyone in this room for his son’s death and had now turned not only on Damon and me but also on Belmont.
Pandemonium erupted.
Belmont, seeing the rapid decay of the situation, grabbed whichever of his guards he could reach and pulled them in front to shield him so he could flee out the back of the house.
“Run now, Robber,” Damon shouted, struggling against his captors.
And then I saw him. Peter. Heading straight through the chaos toward my husband. His bandaged hand rose, and then I saw the blade flip open and glint off the light. And Damon had no idea he was coming up behind him.
“Damon!” I screamed, but it wasn’t enough.
Damon turned just as Peter buried the blade in my husband’s side with a vengeful smile. No.
Silver eyes found mine, pleading, but I wouldn’t leave him. I couldn’t.
Bodies blurred. Sounds distorted. There was nothing but the distance between me and Damon and what I had to do to close it.
Hands grabbed at me. Pulled me back. I screamed and clawed—fought as my husband dropped to his knees, his black jacket glistening with dark blood.
I felt them holding me back. Threatening me. In my periphery, Amir’s hate- and hurt-scarred face locked on mine as he grabbed a weapon from one of his men.
He only had one intent: to bury a bullet in my chest.
I struggled and twisted until I was sure I’d ripped my shoulder from its socket.
Amir stalked toward me, tears scraping down his cheeks as he lifted the gun. He said something—I knew because I saw his mouth move, but all I heard was the sound that erupted from Damon’s chest.
He’d broken free from the men holding him and was lunging toward me.
Amir swung the gun toward Damon.
I screamed.
And then the building shattered with a deafening boom.
The room swam into focus along with the men in it. Dozens of men wearing uniforms marked with three letters.
FBI.
My arms protested as I tried to push myself up. I had to get up. I had to get to Damon—get him out of here.
“Easy, Miss.” One of the agents grabbed my arm to help me, and when I tried to pull away, he assured me, “I’m with the FBI. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
No. I wanted to scream, but my throat wouldn’t work.
I lifted my head, squinting through the smoke that just started to settle from the flash bangs they’d let loose as soon as they’d crashed through the windows.
The men who’d held me were on the ground, one with a gunshot through his head, the other possibly just unconscious. My gaze stumbled farther, seeing the cuffs tightening on a barely conscious Amir Shazad, who was now just shaking his head and crying at the loss of his son.
“Miss. Are you all right?”
I tried to swallow, my tongue feeling a thousand pounds in my mouth.
The FBI was here.
How? Who—a strangled cry exploded from my lips when I saw him.
Damon.
They had him in custody. An easy feat since it looked like he was about to pass out from the blood loss. There was no color in his face, and his hold on consciousness was tethered by a single thread about to snap .
A thread that was waiting for me. To see me. To know I was okay.
I saw it the second his gaze connected with mine. The relief. The apology. The love.
And then the plea.
Don’t tell them.
About me. About us.
And then his eyes fluttered shut, and he collapsed into their custody, and all I could do was sink to my knees and feel my chest crack and strain with each sob.
“You’re safe now. We’re going to get you checked out,” the agent assured me, and another one put something around me, maybe a blanket. “It’s going to be okay.”
I listened to them. I took the water bottle they offered. I let them escort me outside. And the whole time my gaze never left Damon as they moved him onto the gurney—handcuffed the unconscious man to the support—and carried him from the building.
“Where are they taking him?” I croaked, surprising the female agent who’d been tasked to get me comfortable and to probably take my statement once I was able.
She looked at me, surprised. “Do you know who that is?”
“The man who saved my life.” And who stole my heart.
The agent’s eyes widened, and then she gave me a sad smile. “You were lucky then. I wouldn’t think too much more about that man. You’re never going to see him again.”
But he promised.
He promised he’d come back to me.
He made me a vow.