Chapter 22
DAMIAN
Too many whispers. Too many shadows. I’m tired of living in the dark.
I park two blocks from the gambling recovery center and pull on a mask that covers my face. I’ve been wearing a mask my whole damn life, anyway. The killer. The Beast. The man who will do anything to anyone as long as he gets a paycheck.
Leaving the car, I stalk through alleyways, sticking to the dark. The air is icy cold. No snow has fallen for a few days. Celine wouldn’t like that—
No, I can’t think about her. She has no place here.
I approach the center from the rear, my nerves calm, my breathing steady. Kissing Celine, touching her, being with her makes me hyperventilate like
I’m going to have a goddamn panic attack. But this is my world. Darkness and death.
A lone guard paces the rear, the smoldering orange tip of his lit cigarette visible in the dark.
It’s 2 AM, so hopefully he’s tired. Hopefully, he’s thinking about the end of his shift.
I slide through the dark like I’m a part of it, moving from one trash can to another. Then a car. Soon, I’m close enough to hear the rattly sound of his breathing, a wheeze that’s impossibly loud in the winter dark.
When I sneak up behind him and press the gun to the back of his head, he stops dead.
“You got any idea who you’re fucking with?” I don’t recognize the man’s voice. The Family is big.
I reach into my pocket and take out the piece of paper. I shove it into his hands.
Option A: Show me what’s going on in there.
Option B: Eat a bullet.
Time to decide: ten fucking seconds.
I prod him with the barrel of my gun as my other hand efficiently searches him. I’ve done this too many times to miss the gun he’s strapped to the inside of his jacket, on his forearm, an unusual spot.
I tear off his jacket and strip the gun. He hangs his head and walks toward the door.
He leads me through the dimly lit corridors, turning a corner toward what appears to be a storage room at the back.
“This ain’t a good idea, man,” he whispers.
I just shove him with the gun again. He takes me to the storage room and leans against the wall, hands in his pockets, staring at me with bloodshot eyes. He’s in his early twenties, with a mop of dark black hair and a scar on his chin.
Since I don’t recognize him, I risk a growling command. Mask my voice with a deep guttural husk. “What’s the fucking game here?”
He swallows. Nods at the floor. “I don’t know if you want me to do that, man.”
“There’s a hatch?”
He nods, trembling.
“Open it before I open your skull.”
He kneels and brushes away a bunch of old magazines, revealing a small trapdoor, not dissimilar to the one in my kitchen. He grabs a loop metal handle and pulls hard.
Fuck.
He tricked me.
The handle comes away. An alarm trigger.
Instantly, a high-pitched squeal cuts through the entire center.
“I told you,” he yells over the sound.
I should put a bullet in his head, but I don’t know him. Don’t know how far he’s gone. Don’t know if he fits my code.
I don’t have time to hang around. The alarm is no doubt linked to a response force. Men with guns, who’ve been waiting for a chance to fight. Men who want to make a name for themselves by protecting the Don’s passion project.
Rushing through the center, I burst out the back door and run through the night.
On the ride home, I pass sparkling houses with Christmas decorations out front. A big red Santa waving his mechanical hand. Artificial snowflakes glittering on an enormous tree in a front yard.
Each one makes me think of her. Celine. My decorator, the woman I only really knew for a few days, the woman who changed me and broke me.
At a red light, I close my eyes. Try to calm myself down.
I call Agent Keane on speaker, though I know it’s probably a waste of time. But I’m getting sick of this crap.
“Damian–it’s late.”
“I got inside the gambling recovery center.”
A pause. “Yeah, and?”
“Got a basement door with a false handle on it, triggers an alarm which leads to a rapid-response force. Something bad is going on down there.”
“Something bad,” he repeats. “Any specifics? You can’t expect me to…” He cuts himself off, realizing his tone is less than respectful. “Sorry, Damian. I’m tired.”
He’s always doing this, as though he thinks one day I’ll turn the Beast on him.
“You know I can’t do anything without specifics. I’m risking my job working with you as it is. What if we bust in there and it’s a bunch of electronics or some other crap?”
I hang up. He’s right. I shouldn’t have even called him.
But I just want this to end.
Halfway home, I bring the car to a stop in an alleyway.
Something is tugging at my consciousness. An instinct, and I never ignore those. Something about the storage room where the trapdoor was.
I close my eyes, replaying it in my mind. The rush of a job is often so fast and stressful that I have to do this sometimes, use the calm after the storm to discern the true shape of the downpour.
In the room, there were shelves lined with magazines and crates of coffee and cups and folded cardboard boxes and…
And a pair of pink underwear, hooked to a corner of one of the shelves. Like a flag marking territory. Like a sick joke. A pair of underwear with kittens on it.
I’d almost think I was imagining it if I hadn’t gone through this several times before. The hyperfocus of handling business narrows my vision. Obliterates my periphery. It’s only when I look back on it that I can widen my scope.
I’m sure of it.
I call Thomas back.
“They’re trafficking women…” I swallow sickly. “And probably girls.”
“You saw this?” Thomas asks darkly.
“Saw a pair of underwear. Didn’t remember until just now. You know how it is on a job.”
“Details get lost until after the fact, yeah,” he agrees. “But a pair of underwear–that’s not much.”
“A pair of underwear with fucking kittens on, in the same room, there’s a trapdoor.
That’s the sort of thing these sick bastards do.
A twisted inside joke. It has to be that.
That’s why the Don wants it kept secret.
He knows half the Family would riot if they knew.
Sure, some of these men are evil. But some aren’t. ”
Some walk the line like me.
“Did you get visual confirmation?” he asks.
“No,” I admit.
“Then we’re back to square one.”
I hang up again, grinding my teeth, certain my theory is correct.