CHAPTER 6
DAMON
I stood outside the heavy steel door of isolation cell four.
The fortress’s ventilation system hummed, a low mechanical drone vibrating through the wet concrete walls and the cold ozone air.
In my hands, I gripped a clean black silk-and-cotton button-down.
My own shirt. I ran my thumb over the embroidered JL on the cuff.
The fabric smelled like my scotch, my gun oil, my fucking life.
She smelled like a hospital. Antiseptic and sterile death.
I hated it. I hated the fucking scrubs she was wearing.
I hated that every time I looked at her I saw the underground clinic where she let strangers bleed all over her.
She was in my house now. She was going to smell like me.
She was going to wear my name on her wrists.
I methodically rolled up the sleeves of my suit jacket, pushing the expensive fabric past the thick, corded muscle and the heavy burn scars tracking up my forearms. I flexed my fingers once. Twice. The adrenaline from her patching me up in the med bay was still chewing through my system.
I looked at the two guards flanking the door. They were rigid. Scared to breathe too loud. Good.
"Open it," I said.
The guard swiped his keycard. "Wait at the end of the hall," I told them, not taking my eyes off the metal observation slit. "If she screams, stay where you are."
The magnetic lock disengaged with a heavy clack-clack. The overhead fluorescent light flickered. I shoved the door open and stepped into the cramped, gray box.
Margarita was perched on the edge of the metal cot.
She looked exhausted, her dark messy hair falling in her face, her pale skin stark against the brutalist walls.
But the second I stepped in, she went rigid.
Her posture snapped into a defensive line.
The air in the room spiked ten degrees just from my body heat filling the claustrophobic space.
I didn't say a fucking word. I just loomed over her, letting my shadow swallow her whole on the cot. Then I tossed the black shirt.
It hit her lap with a soft thud. A heavy weight against her thighs.
She flinched, then immediately dug her fingernails into the black fabric, her knuckles turning bone-white as she glared up at me. She looked like a feral cat backed into an alley, ready to bite the hand that fed it. I lived for that look.
"Dinner is served in twenty minutes," I said. My voice was completely flat. "Take those rags off. Put this on."
She didn't move. She just stared at me, her chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid breaths. The rustle of the silk shirt under her tight grip was the only sound in the room.
"Don't make me dress you myself, Margarita," I warned, taking a half-step closer. "We both know you won't like the way I do it."
She hated me. I could see it burning in her eyes, trying to hide the terror behind pure fucking rage. "Keep your eyes on the wall, Locke," she snapped, her voice shaking just a fraction.
I didn't move. I crossed my arms over my chest and planted my boots on the concrete. "I’m not looking at the wall."
A battle of wills over a few yards of concrete. She realized instantly I wasn't going to budge. I wasn't giving her privacy. I wasn't giving her an inch of autonomy. I wanted to strip the last shred of her social standing right here in this cell.
Her movements were jerky, fueled by a suppressed fury that made my blood run hot.
She reached for the hem of her blood-stained scrub top and pulled it over her head.
It hit the floor with a soft slap. For a fleeting second, her pale, bare skin was exposed to the freezing air and the harsh light.
I stared right at her ribs. My eyes dragged over her collarbones.
Before I could process the hunger clawing up my throat, she dove into the black shirt.
It was massive on her. The hem reached her mid-thigh, entirely covering the scrub pants she still wore. The sleeves hung six inches past her fingertips. She looked tiny. Consumed by me. Engulfed in my clothes.
She fumbled with the buttons. Her hands were shaking so bad she missed the third hole entirely, shoving the fourth button into it and leaving the collar completely lopsided.
"You’re fumbling, Margarita," I said, my voice dropping an octave. "Calm down."
She let out a frustrated, sharp breath and ripped the buttons open to start again. The soft snip of the plastic sliding into the cotton holes echoed in the cell. When she was done, she stood there, glaring at me with her hands lost in the sleeves.
"Roll the sleeves," I ordered. "I want to see your hands."
She gritted her teeth, clumsily rolling the cuffs back until her wrists were exposed. The embroidered JL sat right over her pulse point. Perfect.
I closed the distance between us. I didn't ask for permission.
I reached out and clamped my hand on the back of her neck.
My fingers buried into her messy dark hair, the grip heavy and steering.
She tried to flinch away, a sharp jerk of her shoulders, but I just tightened my hold, pressing my thumb hard into the sensitive skin at the base of her skull. She froze.
"Move," I said.
I marched her out of the cell and down the brutalist heart of the fortress corridors.
The thud-thud of my boots drowned out the soft slap of her bare feet on the concrete.
Every time we passed a guard post, the men snapped to attention.
Their eyes went wide. They saw the hostage, the 'doctor', completely swallowed by the Boss’s clothing. They saw my hand on her neck.
One of the perimeter guards dropped his cigarette on the floor in pure shock as we walked by.
I stopped. I didn't say a word. I just turned my head and glared at him. The kid visibly started trembling, his face draining of blood under the harsh security grid lights. I held the stare for three seconds to make sure he felt his soul leave his body, then pushed Margarita forward again.
"Head up," I told her, feeling her trying to shrink down. "Walk like you belong here."
She tried to pull away again, pulling against my grip like a stubborn dog on a choke chain. "Get your hands off me."
"If you try to run in this hallway, the sensors will take your legs off before I even have to move," I said casually. The hum of the high-security grid vibrated in the walls. "Keep walking."
We reached the secure wing dining hall. The heavy steel door slid open.
The room was a stark, poured-concrete bunker disguised as a high-end dining room.
Harsh, flickering light from a dying bulb overhead cast long shadows over the long concrete table.
The smell of seared steak and expensive red wine hit my nose, but the only thing I cared about was the rat sitting at the far end of the table.
Cole Holt.
He was already seated, nursing a glass of dark liquor. He looked up when the door opened. His eyes immediately zeroed in on Margarita. He tracked the oversized black shirt. He saw the lopsided collar hanging off her pale shoulder. He saw my hand on her neck.
Cole smirked. A sharp, predatory, oily fucking smirk that made the blood in my veins turn to absolute ice.
He slowly traced the rim of his glass with his index finger, never taking his eyes off the open collar of Margarita's borrowed shirt.
I pulled out the heavy, high-backed chair at the head of the table. I practically shoved Margarita into it. She hit the seat with a gasp, glaring up at me, but I ignored her. I walked around to my own chair and sat down, keeping my eyes locked on Cole.
"You're late, Boss," Cole said, his voice slick. "I see the doctor required some... personal attention."
"Sit, Margarita," I said, ignoring him. She was hovering over the seat, looking for an exit. "Don't make me ask twice."
She sat heavily.
I looked at Cole. "Cole, keep your eyes on your glass."
The silence in the room stretched until it was suffocating. A nameless guard stepped out of the shadows and served plates of rare steak, the meat practically bleeding onto the white ceramic. The clink of ice against crystal and the heavy, mineral scent of blood and charred beef filled the room.
I picked up my knife and fork. I turned my attention to Margarita.
"The inventory list, Margarita," I said, keeping my volume low, conversational. "I want it by morning. Every surgical supply you’ll need for the new clinic we’re building for you."
Margarita didn't look at me. She picked up her fork and her knife.
She cut into the rare meat with the exact same surgical precision she used when she dug the bullet out of my liver yesterday.
It was a lethal kind of grace. She ignored my question entirely.
She ate a piece of steak, chewing with cold, robotic focus.
Then she used her fork to carefully line up her peas in a perfect, straight row on the edge of the plate.
A tiny, useless display of control in a world she didn't own anymore. It infuriated me and turned me on at the exact same time.
"She doesn't talk much, does she, Damon?" Cole sneered, leaning back in his chair. "Maybe she's forgotten how."
"She talks when it matters," I said, cutting a piece of meat. "Unlike you, Cole."
The scrape of a knife against a ceramic plate sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room. Cole’s rhythmic tapping on the concrete table stopped. He leaned forward, the wood of his chair creaking under his weight. He was sensing my frustration with her silence and decided to weaponize it.
"I heard you were a 'mercy killer,' Doc," Cole said, his voice dropping into a mocking taunt. "That cartel enforcer a few years back. The one who brought you heat. Did you enjoy watching him bleed out on your table?"
Margarita’s fork paused for a fraction of a second. She didn't look up. She kept staring at her perfect row of peas.
My grip on my crystal wine glass tightened. My knuckles popped. I gripped the stem so hard the glass groaned in my fist.
"Answer the man, Margarita," I said softly.