CHAPTER 4
DAMON
I stood outside the reinforced steel door of the isolation room listening to the heavy, mechanical hum of the industrial ventilation systems overhead.
The air in this part of the bunker always smelled like ozone and damp concrete, a cold fucking reminder of exactly what kind of fortress I’d built to keep the world out and my property in.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and brought up the internal security feed.
The screen illuminated the dim hallway, showing me the grainy black-and-white visual of the room on the other side of that steel plate.
Margarita was sitting on the edge of the bolted-down metal bed.
She was perfectly still. Her shadow looked unnaturally stiff against the wall behind her, her hands neatly folded in her lap like she was waiting for a goddamn church service to start instead of being locked in a syndicate hold.
I knew the broken lamb act was a complete lie.
She spent the last three hours dismantling the structural support of that bed frame while dodging the camera’s blind spots, and now she was just sitting there pretending the universe had beaten the fight out of her.
I rubbed the jagged, thick burn scars stretching across my ribs right through the fabric of my bespoke black dress shirt.
It was a nervous tic I couldn't fucking kill, a leftover reflex from being left to burn in a warehouse half a lifetime ago. The phantom heat always flared up when I knew violence was coming. I was struggling with the urge to just walk in there and shatter her spirit immediately, strip the room bare and leave her with nothing but the concrete, versus this dark, growing fascination I had with her resilience. I wanted to see her try to kill me. I wanted to walk right into whatever pathetic little trap she’d set just to see the feral fire light up in those exhausted eyes of hers.
"Christ, you’re a terrible liar, Margarita," I muttered under my breath, my voice swallowed by the drone of the vents.
I dropped the phone back into my pocket and rested my hand casually near the Glock holstered at my hip.
I could feel the dull, persistent throb in my liver where she had dug a nine-millimeter slug out of me just days ago.
That same lethality, that precise surgical violence she used to save my life over a bloody metal table, she was gearing up to use against me now.
I wanted that lethality pointed at my chest just so I could catch it and crush it in my bare hands. "Let's see what you've built in there."
I hit the heavy latch and shoved the door open.
It swung inward and slammed against the concrete wall with a finality that made the dead air in the room jump.
I stepped inside, my boots echoing like gunshots off the bare floors.
Margarita didn't flinch. She kept her head bowed, her dark messy hair falling to hide her face, playing the submissive captive to the hilt.
I started circling her like a shark in a tank, taking my time, letting the claustrophobia of the four cramped walls close in on her.
The room was way too fucking small for my frame, and my sheer size seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the space.
I stopped pacing and looked down. I kicked a loose, chalky piece of plaster that had chipped off the wall, watching it skitter across the gray floor until it stopped inches from her bare, pale toes.
"You look comfortable," I said, my voice dropping into that flat, dead tone I used when I was negotiating with cartels.
"For a prisoner." She didn't look up. The silence stretched, thick with the smell of her fear—a sharp, cold sweat cutting through the sterile scent of the clinic soap she was still covered in.
The overhead fluorescent bulb flickered, buzzing like a dying wasp.
I watched the rapid, erratic pulse jumping wildly in the delicate skin of her neck.
I could literally count her heartbeats. I looked at her hands.
Her knuckles were bone-white where she was gripping her own thighs, hiding whatever the hell she had up her sleeve. "Look at me when I'm in the room."
She didn't move. I leaned back against the rough concrete wall directly across from her, crossing my massive arms over my chest. I wanted to prod that fucking ego of hers.
I knew she prided herself on being a savior, a real doctor, even if she was operating in the criminal underground.
I pulled a heavy silver Zippo lighter out of my pocket and flicked the lid open with my thumb.
Clink. I snapped it shut. Clink. The metallic rhythm filled the dead space between us.
"Did you think I wouldn't notice the bedframe was missing a rail?
" I asked, watching my own shadow stretch long and dark over her as I shifted my weight against the wall.
She remained frozen. "You’re a surgeon, Margarita.
Or at least you used to be before you started playing in the mud with the rest of us bottom-feeders.
You should know you can't fix a situation this broken with a rusted piece of metal. You're out of your depth."
I stopped flicking the lighter. I was sick of waiting for the snap.
I wanted the teeth. I pushed off the wall, standing up to my full, towering height, and slowly closed the distance.
Every step was a deliberate, heavy invasion of her territory.
I didn't stop until the tips of my boots were practically touching her bare knees, looming over her sitting form until she had absolutely no choice but to crane her neck back to keep me in her line of sight.
The power play was absolute. I was daring her to make a move while I was standing close enough to feel the frantic heat of her breath against my belt.
I reached out, extending one hand, and hooked a rough, calloused finger right under her chin.
I forced her face up to meet my cold, dead eyes.
Her skin was fucking ice-cold. She looked up at me, her eyes blown wide like a cornered animal waiting for the exact second to bite.
It was beautiful and pathetic at the same exact time.
"Is it in your sleeve?" I asked, my voice dropping to a gravelly murmur. "Or under the pillow?" I let my thumb drag across her jawline. "You're shaking, Doctor."
Margarita snapped.
With a guttural, feral sound of pure, unadulterated rage, she lunged upward off the mattress.
The sharpened metal rail she’d ripped from the bed—a jagged, lethal makeshift shank—flashed silver in the dim, flickering light, aimed directly upward toward the soft tissue of my throat.
She moved faster than I expected, translating all that clinical, surgical precision into a desperate, frantic killing stroke.
Her hair whipped violently across her face, sticking to the cold sweat on her forehead as she screamed at the top of her lungs, shattering the silence.
"Die, you bastard!" she shrieked, driving the metal forward. "Get away from me!"
I didn't even fucking flinch. The adrenaline spiked cold and sharp in my veins, but I had a decade of street warfare on her.
I pivoted hard on my heel, shifting my torso just enough.
The jagged edge of the shank screeched against the air and grazed the lapel of my expensive suit jacket, slicing through the wool but missing my flesh entirely.
Before she could pull back for a second strike, my hand shot out like a bear trap, snatching her forearm right out of mid-air.
The brutal momentum of her lunge collided with my sudden block, nearly pulling both of us down to the concrete floor.
The seams of my dress shirt groaned under the sudden, massive strain of my shoulder muscles as I anchored my weight, absorbing her attack effortlessly.
For a split second, she was pressed flush against me, and I caught the distinct smell of her hair—dirt, iron, and desperation.
"A bit high for a liver shot, wouldn't you say?" I taunted, feeling the vibration of our struggle trembling through the soles of my boots. She thrashed wildly against my grip, her eyes wide with panicked realization. "Nice try, sweetheart."
I didn't give her a chance to readjust. I wrenched her wrist with a sharp, calculated jerk, twisting the joint right to the absolute limit of its mobility.
A sharp cry of sheer pain tore out of her throat as her fingers involuntarily spasmed open, her nerves misfiring from the pressure.
The metal shank slipped from her grip and clattered hard against the concrete floor, the sharp ring echoing through the small room like a fucking church bell.
I kept my grip on her wrist tight, feeling her racing, erratic pulse hammering under my thumb, terrified and trapped.
Without breaking eye contact, I kicked the metal shank hard, sending it skidding across the room and wedging it deep under the bed where she could never reach it.
"Drop it. Now," I commanded, even though it was already out of her hands. I wanted the verbal submission. "You should have aimed for the liver, Margarita. It’s my only weak spot."