Chapter 14
Damien
“Damien. Damien. Wake the fuck up.”
I snap to and take in the four faces that are staring at me.
“Come on, man,” lashes out Logan’s impatient voice. “We’re talking about important shit. The Feds? Angel? Snap out of it.”
“Sorry,” I mutter, massaging the bridge of my nose. “Migraine.”
It’s not entirely false. I’m literally addicted to my girl. Every moment that I don’t spend by her side, stabbing pain makes my eyes water. Nothing works, not Advil, not Tylenol. Only her.
Corny, but true.
“So, what’s the latest news?” I ask.
“The latest news is the Feds are closing in,” he growls. “We are in hot water. Very hot.”
“I just can’t understand what Angel was thinking, killing the whole family,” I mutter.
The words come out of me like a broken refrain.
I’m well aware that I’m not doing anything to advance the situation.
Overnight, the Feds went from being a distant threat to breathing down our necks.
But the nanochip still hasn’t been found, which means Logan is right.
There is a rat. And if we don’t find it soon, we’re fucked.
“It was just an unlucky situation,” intervenes Vale, repeating the story for the fiftieth time.
“Angel had done its research. The wife and kids were supposed to be on vacation. Lazarus went up to the bedroom to shoot Jonathan Cole, and his wife was lying right next to him. He had a silencer, but of course, the noise was still loud enough to wake her. The second he shot him, she woke up, screaming like a banshee. He had to shoot her. Then the kids came running in. They didn’t have the sense to stay hidden. ”
“Kids at that age don’t even know what death means,” says Everest hotly. “Of course they came. One of them was three years old or something. Lazarus messed up.”
“He didn’t have a choice,” insists Vale, his eyes flashing.
“He shouldn’t have shot Cole in the first place,” spits out Logan. “The second he saw that the wife was there after all, he should’ve left and done it at some other time. That was his first mistake.”
“Well, hindsight is twenty-twenty,” quotes Vale drily.
I inhale my cup of black coffee, willing it to help the migraine. But it does jack shit.
“Vincent,” I call, snapping my fingers at my assistant, who at once goes to fetch me another. Then I turn to the others.
“We can’t afford to work with people who don’t have twenty-twenty hindsight,” I say. “It was a mistake to give this job to Angel. Vale, that’s on you.”
He stands up, looking for a second like he wants to punch me. Then he thinks better of it, and sits back down.
“Angel is a promising up-and-coming enterprise,” he mutters. “Their business goes back for generations in Colombia, and they’re quickly establishing a presence in the States. We want them on our side.”
“We don’t need anyone on our side. We’re Devil.”
“Devil wouldn’t be anything if we hadn’t gotten the loyalty of a whole host of people. Politicians, businessmen…”
“True,” I concede. “But all these people were already in positions of power. They could help us. What can Angel do for us, other than fuck us over?”
“It’s what they won’t do to us,” observes Vale. “They won’t be our enemy, because they’re on a path to power, and we’ve hired them to do a job. So, they’re on our side. Loyalty.”
“Loyalty,” snorts Logan, taking a gulp of his own coffee. “Funny hearing that coming from you.”
This time Vale does throw a punch. But Logan moves aside just in time, and his fist meets air.
“Fuck you, man,” hisses Vale. “How dare you…?”
“We all know you’re just salivating to take over Devil. Stop fucking around.”
Vale faces him, his fists clenched at his sides. “I hope you know, Damien, that it isn’t true at all.”
“Alright, take it easy, boys,” I mutter, rubbing my temples. This is not a fight I feel like dealing with right now. “What we need to do is figure out consequences for Lazarus. I’m not saying let’s cut all ties to Angel. But Lazarus needs to go.”
“Fat chance,” snaps Logan. “Angel’s boss, Gabriel, would never allow that. Lazarus is his little brother.”
“Right.” I close my eyes. This is something I should know. This is something I do know, but the girl is too much of a distraction these days. She’s entered my life at the worst possible time. Right when everything we’ve built is hanging on by a thread. I should be keeping her at arms’ length.
But I can’t. Every stab of pain behind my eyes reminds me of her. “Any news on the rat?” I ask.
“Nothing,” says Logan. “Whoever it is must have protection. A lot of it. I’m starting to think Damien was right. Maybe Angel has been trying to screw us over from the beginning. That would explain the Cole mess-up, and the nanochip that somehow was never given to us.”
“That’s insane,” snaps Vale.
“Think of it,” insists Logan. “Angel was supposed to kill Cole. They do it in the most newsworthy way possible. Then they’re supposed to give us the nanochip. Next thing you know, the girl is stealing the perfume bottle where it’s supposedly hidden, and yet, it’s not anywhere on her.”
“A rat means someone on the inside,” I point out. “Even if Angel is screwing us over, they don’t have all the info the Feds have somehow gotten. Clearly someone in our inner circle is sharing information.”
“That’s right,” agrees Logan. “Someone here isn’t to be trusted.” He looks at Vale, who bristles under the insinuation.
“I hope you’re not suggesting…”
“Enough, both of you,” I order. “Once a Devil, always a Devil. Devil protects its own. If we can’t even put our faith in our mottoes, what chance do we have?”
Logan shrugs, grumbling under his breath.
As we all stand to return to our offices, I nod at Everest.
“Need to talk to you for a moment.”
He nods in surprise. I don’t usually keep him in the loop of important decisions. He knows he’s soft. But this isn’t related to an important decision. It’s related to her.
“You got your Monday visit last week, as promised,” I mutter, as we reach my office. “That was your one and only visit. If you made any plans with your work-out coach for today, cancel them.”
“What?”
He clearly wasn’t expecting that.
“No more going to see her or taking her to the workout room,” I reiterate. “I want her to stay in her apartment.”
“Okay, okay,” he hedges. “ I guess this is about me blabbing to the others last week. I was way out of line, repeating what she said. I just found it cute and a bit funny, that’s all. No more oversharing. Okay?”
“Okay. And no more visits.”
“Come on, man!” he protests. “Don’t punish her for something I did. She’s lonely. Having some visits breaks the monotony. It makes her happy.”
“I don’t want her to be happy,” I blurt out, biting down on the rest of my sentence: without me.
He raises an eyebrow in surprise.
“What I mean,” I add hurriedly, “is that it’s not a concern of mine. What is, is that she’s a liability.”
“She’s innocent,” he says hotly.
“Right. But that doesn’t mean someone couldn’t try to contact her. The more visits she gets, the easier it will be for someone on the outside to get in touch with her. And after all, we are holding her in captivity. You could hardly blame her for going to the police, given the chance.”
I know that’s an argument that will carry weight. He hates hearing the abduction put into plain words. I can only imagine the mental gymnastics he must do to justify our actions. Still, he holds firm.
“It’s just me and my coach, Bradley,” he says, exasperated. “Working out gives her a reason to get up.”
“Too dangerous,” I insist.
He looks at me shrewdly. “I know the apartment is bugged and you’ve got cameras everywhere. You spend your time staring at the feed on your phone instead of working. You really want me to believe all this bullshit is you speaking, instead of your hard-on?”
“Enough, Everest. We’re not talking about this any longer.”
I wave him away, pain stabbing again at my eyeballs. He slams the door behind him in a huff.
I let out a deep breath, my body relaxing. Only for it to bristle again as a light knock is followed by Logan’s head popping in.
“Damien.”
From the look on his face, I can tell he already knows what Everest is only guessing at. The guy reads me like an open book.
He sits down across from me, visibly worried.
“Listen, man, I wasn’t kidding at the meeting. Vale is about to fuck you over.”
“Sure.”
“I mean it. He’s circling around you like a vulture. He wants to take control of Devil.”
“Well, you won’t let him, will you?”
“Not sure I’ll be able to stop it. That is, if you continue like this.”
I lean back in my chair, rubbing my head. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying…” He hesitates. “It was fine when she was some distant obsession. I know you spent a lot of time looking at the footage, but she didn’t distract you. Not really. It was like… like a glass of whiskey to relax you after a long day. This is different.”
I close my eyes, waiting for him to continue.
“She’s literally in the building. And when you’re not downstairs ball-deep in her, or whatever, you’re thinking about her. I’ve never seen you like this. You’re usually the type to fuck a girl without even knowing her name.”
“I barely know this girl’s name,” I snort.
Liar. It’s Seraphina. Seraphina with the violet eyes. My little pet.
He clicks his tongue impatiently.
“You know what I mean.”
“So, what are you suggesting?” I ask, my voice guarded.
“Kill her.”
I jump up, and before he’s had time to blink, I’ve got him crushed against the wall, my hand closed around his collar.
“Okay, okay!” he says, raising his hands. “Don’t kill her. Fine. But see what I mean? Other girls would be dead if they so much as vaguely threatened Devil. This one is the literal reason we’re falling apart, and you can’t even stand the idea of harming her.”
I push him again, violently, so that the back of his head bangs against the wall, and my hand closes around his neck.
“She’s not other girls,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Got it, man.”