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I couldn’t fathom Damon dying for me.
Damon was a good man, even if he was rough around the edges.
He was my man, my brick wall.
And there was only one thing I had going for me in this negotiation — the fact that Davonte wanted me bad.
Maybe even bad enough to trade.
“I’ll go willingly with you. I will even marry you,” I said, disentangling my hand from Damon’s in spite of his furrowed brow of shock. I took a step toward Davonte, my throat aching from the unshed tears of misery that I wanted to cry. “I’ll give you everything you want in a wife…if you let Damon go.”
“I already told you, that offer expired,” Davonte said with a cruel twist of his lips, enjoying watching me beg for his mercy. “But I’m entertained by your attempt to resuscitate a dead deal.”
Damon gave a minute shake of his head but I was past the point of return. I had to make this work.
“Don’t be stupid. You have plenty of whores. What you don’t have is a woman who can elevate your place in society. I might not come from riches but I know how to act. I’ll be your arm candy if you just let Damon go.”
In spite of Davonte’s claim that I was spinning my wheels, my argument seemed to hit a chord.
“Just let him go?”
“Let him leave Detroit. That way, you never have to suffer his disrespect again and I will be faithful to you and our life.”
I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. Was I really committing myself to a disgusting pig like Davonte for the rest of my life?
His expression turned sly and ugly. “Really? And what if I wanted to fuck you in the ass every night behind closed doors? Rip you wide open so that you couldn’t walk straight the following day? Would you still smile and act the adoring wife on my arm?”
I swallowed the true lump of fear and managed a nod. I could almost feel Damon’s rage billowing out from his pores. Lord help Davonte if Damon managed to get his hands on him. “I will be your loving w-wife in all ways.” I barely got the words out.
I was doing this for Damon.
“I don’t know, boys. Do you think she’s worth it?” It was a rhetorical question his men knew better of answering. This was all for show anyway. Davonte wanted us to squirm. I was already on my proverbial knees offering up my dignity…I couldn’t give much more.
Davonte’s cunning gaze flew to Damon. “Killing you might too kind for what you’ve done. Maybe the ultimate punishment would be leaving you alive so that everyday you knew that I was fucking your woman.”
Damon’s fists clenched but I stayed him with a look. I wasn’t going to watch him die. Not over me.
After a long, tension-filled moment, Davonte said in a voice brimming with satisfaction, “Well then, call me a softie but maybe you’ve persuaded me to put a ring on your finger after all.”
I shuddered and released a pent-up breath.
Davonte grinned, looking as smug as the Cheshire cat. “Come here darling, show me how much you plan to adore your loving and virile husband.”
Lord, give me strength.
I walked on unsteady feet toward Davonte, closing the distance until I was near enough for him to grab. I cried out as Davonte’s fingers curled onto my wrist, bruising the skin as he jerked me into his arms to smash his mouth against mine.
My first instinct was to bit off his tongue as he jabbed the thing into my mouth but I forced myself to stop struggling and accept it, if only to protect Damon.
Davonte twisted my breast as he grabbed at me, fingers digging into tender flesh. Then he made an obscene show of clutching at my mound, jamming his hand down my pants to roughly fondle what he wanted so badly.
I squeezed my eyes shut to endure the humiliation but the roar that echoed sounded inhuman.
Suddenly, there was a blur of motion and the ricochet of fired bullets hitting metal as Damon charged the men guarding Davonte.
Just like that first night, Damon tore through the thugs like a fist through wet paper.
Davonte shoved me away from him so he could grab his gun. I landed on the dirty floor and scrambled away, watching in awe as Damon broke bones and shattered faces.
Like a hot knife through butter.
Grunts, screams of agony, guns hitting cement from nerveless fingers, and Davonte shouting desperate, but ultimately useless orders…it was a symphony of destruction.
The violence was bloody and vile but watching Damon protect what belonged to him…a thing of beauty.
I wouldn’t apologize for the blood-thirst I was feeling.
I wouldn’t apologize for Damon’s actions in a moment of pure fury.
And when he got to Davonte…I didn’t even look away.
“You’re never going to touch her again, you motherfucker,” he promised Davonte seconds before he kicked the man’s trachea down to his ass.
Tiny bloody bubbles danced on Davonte’s lips as he gurgled his last breath, his fingers curling spastically, clutching at the life quickly leaving him.
Within seconds Davonte was dead, and we were standing in a circle of carnage.
I ran to Damon and he scooped me up, holding me tight as if his arms were the only thing tying me to this earth.
“I killed him,” Damon said, his voice shaking. “I fucking killed him.”
“Shhhh, I know, baby,” I crooned to him, kissing him softly, soothing the shock from his face. He’d killed every last one of them protecting me. “I know.”
I wanted to hold him for days, assure him that he’d had no choice but we didn’t have time to go soft.
Not yet.
Now it was time to get the fuck out of there. “C’mon, let’s go,” I urged. “We can’t be seen with these bodies. Someone is going to find them eventually and we need to be far from the scene when they do.”
Damon nodded and gripped my hand as we ran out of the factory, prepared to leave behind the evidence of what’d gone down.
But just as we cleared the factory grounds, another car rolled up.
The window rolled down and Terrance smiled from the backseat.
The expletive scrolled across my brain as Damon exploded in kind. “Where the fuck were you?”
And right then, I wasn’t sure that Damon wouldn’t end Terrance, too for leaving us to twist in the wind.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would stop him.
Chapter 31
Damon
I was seeing red.
Terrance exited the car, buttoning his suit with an approving smile as if I wasn’t glowering at him like he was the Antichrist.
He gestured to his men who then melted into the factory, presumably to clean up the mess. Or maybe to take pictures and gawk, fuck, I didn’t know.
“Where the fuck were you?”
“Waiting to see if you had balls.”
His answer baffled me into stunned silence until it was Charlie who said something first.
“Excuse me? You’re the one who set up this fucking deal. What are you talking about?”
“I wanted to see if Damon had what it took to do what had to be done. That’s the only way he’s going to make a go out of The Underground. Sometimes…business is messy.”
I couldn’t reconcile what Terrance was saying to me. Until understanding dawned and it still took a minute to process.
“You were never coming to kill Davonte. You wanted me to do it all along. You used Charlie to push me to do your dirty work.”
Terrance chuckled and shrugged as if my theory was neither here nor there. “Point is, you proved you weren’t soft, son. Happy ending. You get The Underground and the girl. I’d say that worked out fairly well.”
Charlie shook her head, murmuring. “This was your plan?”
“Not exactly. Chantel helped convince me that you were worth testing. She seems to think highly of you and now I know why. Nothing is for free. You want something, you have to earn it…or have the balls to take it.”
This was all a fucked-up life le
sson?
I couldn’t believe the shit I was hearing but I supposed Terrance was right to a certain extent. I thought his methods sucked but I couldn’t argue the end result.
“I’ll have the legal paperwork drawn up for McConnell’s and put in your name. The Underground is yours.”
“And how exactly are you going to do that?” I scoffed, my head still swimming.
He smiled. “I know people who owe me favors.”
My head felt filled with spiders. I couldn’t quite accept that I’d killed Davonte and his crew. I wasn’t a killer before that moment. But I wasn’t sorry. Maybe that’s what was messing with me the most.
Davonte had gotten what he deserved.
Terrance added, “I’ll take care of the details here. You’ve earned a shower and a hot meal.” Then he handed me a fat wad of cash. “Consider this a gift toward our new partnership.”
Partnership?
I didn’t want to take the money but just as I was about to refuse it, Charlie accepted the cash.
I guess she was thinking faster than me.
Which was a blessing.
Refusing the gift would’ve started a whole new war.
Charlie bobbed a quick thank you to Terrance and then slipped her hand into mine, saying, “You heard the man, a shower and a hot meal. Sounds good to me.”
We climbed into the truck and before I could ask, she said, “Just drive, Damon. My brain is fried and I just want to put some miles between us and what’d just happened.”
I heard the strain in her tone and I couldn’t argue that reasoning.
If we were starring in our own Quentin Tarantino movie, this was the part where we would ride off into the sunset in our bloody clothes while some vintage music played us off into the credits.
But we weren’t in a movie. Endings weren’t always pretty.
Guess that was the true life lesson of the moment and when I was no longer covered in someone else’s blood, maybe I’d give it some more thought.
Until then…fuck it.
A shower and a fucking steak sounded just about perfect.
“Amen, baby girl,” I breathed. “A-fucking-men.”
Epilogue
