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“Trust me,” Jim replies. “If Damon wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now.”
“Ah. Very reassuring, thank you.”
And so, I do take the glass of champagne, and I do hungrily stare at the lavish dinner presented in front of me. I’m not going to lie, there is still a part of my brain that reckons the golden liquid in the glass has been tampered with, but my paranoia goes away the moment I taste the bubbly and realize that Damon probably has better ways of getting rid of troublesome girls like me than inviting them onto his private plane and drugging them with expensive sparkling wine and lobster tails.
“You’re lucky to have got the chance to see Damon,” Jim quietly tells me as we take off and I start to devour the food. “He rarely lets strangers into his office, especially crazy, baffling girls.”
“Who are you calling crazy? Or baffling?”
The man raises an eyebrow at me. I can kinda see his point.
I am a little crazy – waiting for three days to see an infamous gangster and then rejecting his offer.
“I am not lucky, though,” I continue. “The man is insane. A monster. He should be locked away behind bars and the key should be thrown away into the deepest, darkest ocean.”
Jim chuckles again. It’s like I’m really opening him up with my charm and wit. “Damon Penmayne is very different once you get to know him,” he says.
I dab away at a drop of creamy garlic sauce that has somehow ended up on my cheek.
“Okay,” I retort. “So, he’s less of a cold-hearted killer and more like a warm-hearted one?”
“The man has never killed anyone innocent or in cold blood,” Jim replies. “That’s not who he is.”
“I seriously doubt that. I think that’sexactlywho he is.”
“Do you have any proof?” Jim asks.
I scoff. “No, I don’t. But I just know, right? I mean, simply take a look at him. The man doesn’t exactly look like an angel, does he?”
This makes Jim actually laugh. “No, he certainly does not. I can admit that. But he really isn’t the terrible monster you make him out to be.”
“How so?” I ask, curious now that I seem to be finally squeezing complete sentences out of the man.
Jim shuffles in his seat. He’s plainly uncomfortable with disclosing too much. “Damon is the only family I’ve ever known,” he mumbles. All chuckles have drained from his face: he’s deadly serious now. “That man has done someimpossiblethings for me, things I can’t even say out loud. I owe my life to that man. He’s dragged me through hell. Without any expectation from me to pay him back in any way. He’s a true friend, and the most loyal person I’ve ever known.”
“Nice speech,” I say. “And it’s clear that you actually mean it. But he still has decided to hold my dad in debt. I personally don’t think that is very nice.”
“He took an immediate liking to you,” Jim says in reply. “I’ve never seen Damon be like that before, especially not with a girl.”
I scoff. “He’s disgusting. Asking me to be his mistress. Blackmailing me to sleep with him.”
“That’s one way to look at the offer,” the man replies. “But there are other ways to view it.”
“It’s theonlyway to look at it, Jim.”
I settle back into my seat, annoyed with Jim and especially annoyed at Damon Penmayne. He really was being deadly serious with that insane offer.
What would Damon’s offer entail, exactly? Two monthsspent with that man in exchange for my father’s freedom? Eight whole weeks in his captivity?Sleepingwith him?
I did say I would do anything for my dad...
But this? In a criminal’s custody?
I take another sip of the champagne as the plane rises through the clouds above New York City and resolve to myself to not even entertain the offer. Not even think about it.
Never ever.
6
