Chapter 5 - THE MAN DAMIAN USED TO BE
Z
Damian did not shout.
That frightened Tessa more than shouting would have.
He took the phone from her hand, stared at the photograph, and called Carlo.
“Get my mother.”
Two seconds later:
“Now.”
He disconnected.
Tessa watched him walk toward the windows.
“Damian.”
Nothing.
“Damian, look at me.”
He did.
The coldness in his face made her understand why grown men feared him.
“This changes nothing,” she said.
“It changes everything.”
“You promised me.”
“I promised not to kill Trent for touching you.”
Her stomach dropped.
“You’re using a technicality?”
“I’m stating fact.”
“He sent a photograph.”
“Of my mother.”
“He didn’t hurt her.”
“Yet.”
The word landed heavily.
Tessa approached.
“Please.”
Damian turned away.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Ask me to protect him.”
“I’m not protecting Trent.”
“You are.”
“No. I’m protecting you.”
That made him stop.
Tessa continued.
“If you kill him now, everything he’s done becomes secondary.”
Damian looked over his shoulder.
“You become the story.”
Silence.
“The police stop investigating him and start investigating you. Every reporter in New York gets interested. Oak Haven gets searched. Your people get questioned.”
She swallowed.
“And if you go to prison because of him, he still wins.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“You think prison is what concerns me?”
“I think losing control does.”
That hit.
For perhaps the first time since she met him, Damian looked genuinely surprised.
Tessa stepped closer.
“Isn’t that what you keep telling me? Trent needs control.”
“Yes.”
“So do you.”
His eyes darkened.
“Careful.”
“No.”
Her heart pounded.
“I’ve spent three years being careful around one angry man. I’m not doing it with another.”
Damian stared at her.
Carlo entered before he could answer.
“Your mother’s secure.”
“Where?”
“Safe house in Brooklyn.”
“Anyone follow?”
“No.”
Damian nodded.
Carlo handed him another phone.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“We found out how Trent got Tessa’s new number.”
Tessa stiffened.
Carlo looked uncomfortable.
“Someone at the phone store.”
“Bribed?”
“Girlfriend of one of Trent’s poker friends.”
Damian exhaled.
“So no leak here.”
“No.”
“Deal with it.”
Tessa immediately said, “Legally.”
Carlo looked at Damian.
Damian’s expression became irritated.
“Apparently.”
Carlo left.
Tessa nearly smiled.
“You’re enjoying this?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m enjoying knowing you can listen.”
His gaze remained on her.
Then he surprised her.
“I’m trying.”
Three words.
Quietly spoken.
They changed the room more than any threat.
Tessa sat.
Damian remained standing.
“Tell me about your mother.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
“Because Trent threatened her because of me.”
“Because of him.”
“I still want to know.”
For a long moment, Damian resisted.
Then he sat opposite her.
“Her name is Lucia.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“She sends cookies to Oak Haven every Christmas.”
“That’s her.”
“She thinks you don’t eat enough.”
“She thinks everyone doesn’t eat enough.”
Tessa smiled.
Damian’s face softened almost imperceptibly.
“My father died when I was nineteen.”
“How?”
Damian paused.
“Officially?”
Tessa immediately regretted asking.
“Never mind.”
“No.”
He leaned back.
“Officially, heart attack.”
“And unofficially?”
“He drank himself into one.”
Tessa released a breath.
“I thought you were going to say—”
“That I killed him?”
She looked guilty.
Damian almost smiled.
“I wanted to.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My mother asked me not to.”
Something passed between them.
Understanding.
Tessa whispered, “So you’ve been here before.”
“Yes.”
“And you listened.”
“Eventually.”
“What changed your mind?”
Damian looked down at his hands.
“She told me if I became him in order to avenge her, then he would have succeeded twice.”
Tessa went very still.
That sentence explained Damian more than anything else could.
The violence around him.
The restraint inside it.
The way he understood monsters without completely becoming one.
“What happened to your father?”
“Nothing dramatic.”
Damian looked toward the window.
“My mother left. I stopped speaking to him. Six years later, he died alone.”
“Did you go to the funeral?”
“No.”
“Do you regret it?”
“No.”
The certainty surprised her.
Then he added, “I regret not helping her leave sooner.”
Tessa understood.
“That’s why you’re helping me.”
“One reason.”
“What are the others?”
His gaze met hers.
The air changed.
Tessa felt it.
Not danger.
Something almost worse.
Possibility.
Damian looked away first.
“This isn’t the time.”
She could have let it go.
Instead, she asked, “Would there ever be a time?”
His jaw tightened.
“Tessa.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You’re leaving an abusive relationship.”
“I know.”
“You are frightened, exhausted, financially compromised, and depending on me for housing.”
“Also true.”
“That means anything else would be inappropriate.”
Her heart gave a strange, painful beat.
Damian continued.
“If six months from now you hate me, good.”
She laughed despite herself.
“If six months from now you don’t…”
He stopped.
“What?”
“Then we talk.”
Tessa looked at him.
“That sounded dangerously honorable for a mafia boss.”
“I contain multitudes.”
She laughed again.
The sound shocked both of them.
It was the first real laugh she had produced in days.
Maybe months.
Then Damian’s second phone buzzed.
The mood vanished.
He read the message.
“What?”
He handed it to her.
A police detective had located Trent.
Not arrested.
Located.
He had voluntarily appeared at a precinct with an attorney.
And Trent had a story.
According to him, Tessa was mentally unstable.
Damian Rossy had manipulated her.
The bruises had been consensual.
The money belonged to them both.
The surveillance camera was not his.
Serena was lying.
And Tessa had recently told him she planned to disappear with company money stolen from Oak Haven.
Tessa stared at the screen.
“He’s accusing me of stealing from you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Damian’s face hardened.
“Because he finally understood your greatest protection is my credibility behind you.”
“What happens now?”
“Now he tries to destroy it.”
Twenty minutes later, federal agents arrived at Oak Haven with a search warrant.
Tessa stood at the apartment window watching news helicopters move toward Lower Manhattan.
Damian’s phone rang.
He answered.
Carlo’s voice came through loudly enough that she heard every word.
“They’re taking the computers.”
Tessa went cold.
The books.
The clean books.
And the other records she had pretended not to notice.
Damian closed his eyes.
For the first time, Trent had managed to hurt him.
Not physically.
Not personally.
Strategically.
Tessa whispered, “He planned this.”
Damian looked at her.
“Yes.”
She stared at the city.
“No.”
Something inside her shifted.
Fear did not disappear.
It changed shape.
For months, she had been saving money to run.
For days, Damian had been fighting to protect her.
Now Trent was attacking everyone around her.
Tessa turned.
“He wants me scared.”
“Yes.”
“He wants me hiding.”
“Yes.”
She picked up her laptop.
“Then I’m done hiding.”
Damian watched her.
“What are you going to do?”
Tessa opened the accounting system.
“The one thing I’m better at than Trent.”
“What?”
May you like
Her fingers settled over the keyboard.
“Following money.”
