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Till the end.
My chest was rising and falling, my heart lying out in front of us as I started to walk toward him. Each step precise and calculated, each stride more unnerving than the last. Feeling as though I was making my way over to a stranger that I was unable to run away from. Waiting, holding my breath with every last fiber in my being. I couldn’t breathe the entire thirty steps it took to get to him.
I knew because I counted.
It was the only way to keep myself from passing out from the sensations I couldn’t control for the life of me. He simply nodded for me to sit down on the table beside him, when I was standing a few feet away.
I did.
Cautiously crossing one leg over the other, watching as he eyed me, taking in every last curve of my body, every last inch of my skin. Like he was trying to memorize it, engrain it into his heart and soul. There wasn’t one nook of my figure that he hadn’t already explored with his hands, tongue, lips, or dick. Producing a nostalgic state of mind, although he’d just had his way with me that morning. I anxiously waited for his eyes to stop and look deep into my unsettling glare. All it would take was for him to sincerely look at me for one second, to see how I felt inside. To put an end to this.
The way he was treating me.
Looking at me.
Making me feel alone and afraid.
I needed to see his serene honey colored eyes exactly like I did as a child. A little girl. Only reminding me why I craved them in the first place, causing shivers to course down my spine. He must have noticed the shift in my demeanor because his eyes finally locked with mine. Looking for his girl, his Muneca. Breaking our connection when she couldn’t be found, he moved on. I felt his fingers slip through the knot of my robe, untying it. Ever so slowly opening the silk, similar to unwrapping a gift.
My eyes never wavered from his as he began skimming his fingers along my collarbone to the sides of my breasts, and over to my beating heart. He lingered there for a moment before continuing to slide them down the center of my ribcage, placing his entire hand over my stomach.
I sucked in a breath, knowing what he was thinking. “Damien, I h—”
“Do you have any idea how much I fucking love you?”
Before I could respond, he uncrossed my legs and leaned forward in between them, wrapping his arms around my waist. Resting his chest on my thighs and his head against my belly. He held onto me for dear life, so tight, so hard, so strong.
My heart pounded harder against my chest.
Did he know the truth?
Is that why he was so upset?
All the blood drained from my face, and my stomach dropped to the ground when he followed it up with, “Did Roman know? Can you at least give me that?”
THIRTY-SEVEN
AMIRA
“Oh my God, Damien… you know? You know about—” I went to put my hands on his back to comfort him, to explain, to tell him everything, but he jerked back full force away from me. Not allowing me to touch him for a single second or finish what I was going to confess.
“Do you even feel one ounce of the love I feel for you?”
Tears flooded my eyes from hearing him say that, and I instinctively leaned forward to go to him, instantly stalling when I saw the gun resting on his lap. My eyes widened and my heart stopped. “Why are you holding that?” I asked, barely above a whisper, though a huge part of me already knew the answer.
“Did he fucking know?!” he roared, making me jump from the sharp tone in his voice.
I jaggedly nodded, unable to form words to finally tell him the truth.
“You fucking bitch!” he hissed. “Was this your plan all along, Amira? Huh? Was this fucking payback for leaving you behind in Cuba?”
“What?” I shook my head. “No, of course not. I just… after you left… I mean… fuck… what did you think I would do?”
He grabbed his gun, fisting it in the palm of his hand.
“You’re scaring me… please put the gun away and we can talk. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but not like this.” I placed a hand on his thigh, trying to calm him, but he crudely shoved it away.
“Oh… I see, now you’ll tell me everything. You didn’t feel the need to tell me everything earlier. How fucking convenient for you!”
“It’s not what you think, alright? It’s me. Amira. I’m your girl. I’ve always been your girl. I love you. You know that. You know me.”
“Do I? How well do I really know you? Because right now, you’re a fucking stranger.”
“You know me better than anyone. You fucking raised me.”
“More than Roman?” he rasped, placing his gun on my thigh and leisurely moving it up my leg toward my chest. Inch by inch, wanting me to feel the cool metal against my frantic skin.
“Damien…” I coaxed, only looking at him.
“Yeah, baby? Why don’t you tell me how you met Roman? Let’s start there.”
My eyes widened and my nostrils flared, causing my face to pale.
How much did he know?
Where do I even begin?
“I know everything, Amira. So start from the fucking beginning,” he demanded, fully aware of what I was thinking. “I want to hear it come from your pouty, lying, dick-sucking lips.”
“Please…” I whimpered, shaking. “I love you.”
“Is that right? How much do you love me? Tell me, baby? Enough to die for me? Or enough to kill for me? Because I’ve done both for you.”
My body quivered, creating goose bumps all over my skin. I sucked in a breath, my mouth suddenly dry. “All of the above, over and over again if it meant I could spend the rest of my life loving you.”
He casually nodded, not believing a word I was saying. Slowly continuing his deliberate descent, making sure to always have a steady finger over the trigger. He needed me to understand that he would always be the one in control. He purposely moved his gun back and forth over my breasts, letting the end of the barrel linger over my rapidly beating heart. Fucking with my emotions the same way he thought I’d fucked with his heart.
“Did you think I wouldn’t have found out? At least answer that fucking question.”
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
The walls were caving in on me.
“I was going to tell you. I swear I was going to tell you everything. I promise—”
“Your promises mean shit to me!” he snapped, abruptly standing so fast his chair flew out from under him.
I jumped, failing miserably at keeping my shit together. Fervently shaking my head, fighting back tears. “You don’t understand. Please, Damien, let me explain. I love you. You’re my world. You have been since I was nine years old. Come back to me. You’re not thinking straight, it’s me… Amira.”
“Then make me understand!” he shouted, placing his gun down at his side.
“Okay…” I put my hands up in the air, slowly sliding off the table to stand in front of him. “Just put the gun down, Damien. We both know this isn’t you.” I calmly and rationally breathed as if I was talking a man down from the fucking ledge of a ten-story building.
He snidely chuckled, “Actually, this is exactly who I fucking am. Now stop wasting my fucking time and testing my goddamn patience. Tell me what the fuck I want to hear.”
“Not until you put the gun down.”
I knew I was playing with fire by telling him what to do, but I had to try to get through to him. He came at me in one quick stride and I was frozen, immobile again. He was close to me, closer than he had been before, and I could smell his scent. It was intoxicating to me, consumed every last part of me, including my love for him. The heat coursing its way through my body made it apparent how badly I wanted him to touch me. He stared deep into my eyes, but I could still feel his stabbing gaze on every inch of my skin. I didn’t move or make a sound, only fueling his rage.
His eyes dilated as he sprang forward, gripping onto my hair by the nook of my neck, tugg
ing my head as far back as it would go. Inflicting an immediate pain on my scalp.
Getting right in my face, he spewed through a clenched jaw, “Little girl, you don’t know who you’re fucking with. You don’t tell me what to do, you’re nothing but a lying whore. Who the fuck do you think you are?” he gritted out with nothing but pain in his eyes.
“I have given you everything.”
“Bullshit! You’ve given me your pussy,” he sneered, cocking his head to the side. “And you give that to everyone.”
The next thing I knew he let go of my hair and shoved me backward against the wall with his hand over my throat. Causing my body to hit it with a loud, hard thud. I gasped as both our chests heaved up and down, almost in sync with one another before we locked eyes. I opened my mouth to reply to his malicious words, but they were swallowed by his tongue when he slammed his lips into mine with so much abandonment and desire. Reaching the back of my throat, claiming me. Branding me. Taking what was his and his alone, almost like he was eating his words right back into his mind.
Just as quickly as it started, he was done tasting me, it was over. He yanked his face away from mine. His hold around my windpipe tightening, pushing me further up the wall till only my toes touched the floor. I instantly clawed at his grasp.
The expression on his face told me he wanted to hurt me and fuck me at the same time.
“How could you do this to me? After everything…” He squeezed harder. “How the fuck could you lie to me so easily? Did I mean nothing to you?”
“Damien, please.” My eyes shifted down to the gun that was still at his side.
“Please what, baby?”
“I can’t breathe,” I choked out. Shocked, confused, and torn with how I should feel.
By the time he realized what he was doing, what he had already done, it was too late. He immediately let go and my body fell forward to the ground, sucking in the air he was taking away. I was hunched over, placing all my weight on my hands and knees. Breathing in fresh air with tears streaming down my face. There was an unbearable amount of weight sitting on my chest from the betrayal I knew he was feeling from me. Having no one else to blame but myself. It was as asphyxiating as the brutal grasp he had around my throat.
“Fuck! Motherfucker!” he growled, pulling his hair away from his face as if he wanted to tear it out.
His mind finally caught up with his feelings, he couldn’t process it fast enough and he started to wreak havoc around the room. Leaving a path of destruction in his wake. Swiping the contents off the dresser, he shouted, “I loved you!” Tearing the large picture of us off the wall, chucking it at the door. “I fucking loved you!” It shattered to the floor, marring our faces with nothing but glass and debris. Item after item flew through the air breaking into pieces just like my heart was from simply watching him fall apart.
“Please, stop! Please!” I begged, but my words went unheard.
“How could you do this to me?!”
A vase whooshed by my head, crashing behind me. Causing me to cower in the corner, sentenced to watch the love of my life destroy everything we fought so hard for.
Our love.
“I trusted you! And you betrayed me!”
He went after anything he could find. Knocking over the nightstand, the table, the chairs and even threw the television across the room. Losing his shit like he did when he found out about Mama Rosa, except this was much worse.
Nothing but tears blurred my eyes, and my body twisted with the desire to fall apart. “Damien, stop! Please! Just stop!” I broke down to the point of hyperventilating. Hugging myself, trying to hold what was left of myself together. “Please, I’m begging you!”
He abruptly turned at the last second as a painting shattered to the ground. Walking through the chaos caused by his turmoil and my betrayal to grab something from his briefcase that was sitting on the bed. In an instant, he hurled a few files at me on the floor.
“Open them,” he meekly stated a few feet in front of me. When I didn’t move fast enough, he rumbled, “NOW!” Slamming his fists down onto the dresser, practically splitting the wood in two.
My hands trembled as I gathered the first one, turning over the cover to look at the pages. Wincing when I discovered what was inside. Shaking my head in disgust, knowing he’d seen these too. I could feel his fiery stare burning into the pages, the documents, the photographs, every last piece of paper beneath my fingers. One by one, I took in everything he wanted me to see, not knowing what I wanted to focus on more. It felt like hours went by as I saw my past colliding with my present and destroying our future.
Nothing could have prepared me for this.
Not even me.
“No…” I frantically shook my head back and forth with fresh tears running down my cheeks. “Oh, God… no… no, no, no, no, no… this can’t be… please… no…”
The room was spinning faster and faster, around and around, over and over with no end in sight. My whole world tilting on the verge of plummeting. I couldn’t stop flipping through the documents in front of me, all laid out for him to see. My attention went from one to the other, feeling empty.
Terrified.
Ashamed.
Guilty.
I gazed up at him with pleading eyes and a devastated expression, but he backed away with caution. I didn’t know if it was for my protection or his. Witnessing as his eyes glazed over and for a few moments he had returned to me.
He was Damien again.
My Damien.
It was the first time I’d seen him all night. I wanted to run to him and seek refuge in his arms. I wanted to show him how much I loved him. How sorry I was, but nothing could have saved me from this type of darkness in my heart and soul.
“Who gave this to you?” I asked, needing to know.
He scoffed, “Why didn’t you give it to me?”
“Damien, it’s not what you think. Please, just let me explain.”
“Did you know I’d be at the warehouse in Detroit that night?”
“No!”
He didn’t falter, sneering, “Get up. Get the fuck up!” Once again slamming his fists on the dresser and this time I screamed, shuddering in terror as he harshly loomed over me. “I won’t ask again,” he snarled, placing the gun at my chest.
I nodded, my body quivering so fucking bad it felt like everything was vibrating around me. I stood on unsteady legs, unaware of how long my body would be able to support me. Surrendering my hands out in the air in front of me.
“Good girl,” he praised in an eerie tone.
“Damien, please don’t do this… please…”
Cocking his head to the side, he took in my pathetic pleas that meant nothing to him. Leaning into me, he softly moved his lips against my cheek. “Answer me. Did you think I wouldn’t have found out?” he rasped into my trembling mouth.
“I… please…”
“Choose your words wisely, Amira. I already know you’re a fucking liar. And you know more than anyone, what happens to people who fucking cross me.”
“Please… just let me explain… I didn’t…” I couldn’t catch my breath. For the life of me, I just couldn’t catch my breath.
“If you’re not with me, you’re against me. Traitors, as I call them. Do you know what we do to traitors?”
My eyes widened and I swallowed hard, hearing him repeat Emilio’s words from the night my family was savagely murdered in front of me. “We make them pay,” I whispered, my glossy eyes fixated on the gun as he moved directly over my heart.
“I’m going to ask you one last fucking time…”
I would remember the next words that came out of his mouth, even after he killed me because in the end… I took his light and turned it into his Hell.
The rest proceeded in slow motion as he spoke with conviction, executing us both.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t have found out that you’re an undercover FBI agent?”
THIRTY-EIGHT
DAMIEN
>
It was like déjà-fucking-vu all over again. Except, nothing could compare to the way this was mutilating me inside. Carving, cutting, slicing me up into tiny little pieces, making me bleed from the inside out. I never expected Amira to have it in her to completely fucking destroy me. Burying me alive to suffocate in the lies and deceit she had spun for over a year. I was blinded by rage, by her presence, by her love for me.
And my love for her.
I needed to keep going.
I had to remain strong.
I dug my fingernails as hard as I could into the palm of my hand to keep from giving in to my true nature, her only saving grace was I truly loved this woman. I had to keep reminding myself of every last promise I ever made her. Every last word I ever told her.
Starting and ending with, “Te amo.”
This was the only thing that would keep her alive…
This the only thing that would keep me alive…
I should have put a stop to this, to her. Knowing that all it would take was a pull of my trigger finger, but the thought alone had the power to bring me to my knees.
She had the power to bring me to my knees.
I missed her so fucking much, and she was standing right in front of me. I was wrong in thinking Giselle had ulterior motives, bringing me to Oak Island. She was trying to save me, while Amira had been trying to fuck me over. I had to concentrate on that, stay focused on my hatred for her, on her web of lies that bonded me to her betrayal. Even then, it still felt like it wouldn’t be enough, it wouldn’t matter because my love for her would prevail. Possibly ending us both.
“I was going to tell you! I just didn’t know how!” she argued, pulling me away from my persecuting thoughts as she pleaded her case that meant shit to me.
“When? When were you going to tell me? After you fucking locked me up? What did you need to close your case? More information? More evidence? More of my fucking soul?!”
She violently shook her head. “No! It’s not what you think! I swear to you, it’s not how it looks, Damien! You were never my target,” she bellowed as more tears slid down her beautiful, deceiving face, and I incessantly fought the urge to comfort her. Tell her everything was going to be okay. That we were going to be okay. You’d think after everything I discovered, I’d have the will to keep her at arm’s length. I didn’t. If anything, my desire to hold her was stronger, more vivid, and alive. Beating into me with each breath I took.
