Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Darryl sat on the couch with his back turned to Damian. The man was probably asleep, but guessing by the half empty liquor bottle on the television stand, he had some help getting that way.
Easy.
Too easy, even.
Damian flicked the safety off his gun, cocked back the hammer, lifted, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
He didn’t even think about it.
Darryl’s body flew forward with a quiet gasp and blood splattered on the wall next to the couch when the bulleted entered the back of his head.
A rattling, hard last breath.
It didn’t matter who you were.
You could be rich or poor.
Famous or unknown.
Dirty as shit or as clean as an angel.
The death gasp was always the same.
Killing was a messy business, Damian thought.
He could hear the telltale drip, splat, drip as blood hit the carpet just a few feet away.
Damian let out a sigh, unscrewed the silencer from his gun, and then looked around the apartment quickly.
Tommas believed that Darryl and Joel had been planning something. While Damian was taking care of the Darryl problem, Tommas was going through Joel’s office, electronics, and whatever else he could find to see if there was anything. Damian would be the one digging through Darryl’s place for any clues.
Damian didn’t know if anything would come up.
He supposed that didn’t matter.
Time to get to work.
*
Damian pulled off his driving gloves, jacket, pants, and shoes. He opened the garbage bag and stuffed the items inside. Tying the bag up tight, he hoisted it over his shoulder and turned on his heel to go inside his house from the connecting garage.
Lily stood in the doorway, watching him in that way of hers.
Shit.
“You should be asleep,” he told his wife.
Lily cocked a brow. “I told you that I would wait up.”
Damian shook his head, and took a couple of steps closer to his wife. “I would have woken you up when I came to bed, Lily.”
“I worried about you tonight.”
“I’m fine,” he promised.
“Are you?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
Lily flicked a look at the bag he held. “I take it you don’t want me to wash those clothes.”
Damian was always honest whenever Lily asked. “No, I’m going to burn them.”
“Bloodstains?”
“Not likely, but I don’t want to take chances.”
Lily frowned. “Who?”
Now, Damian was a little surprised to hear that coming out of his wife’s mouth. Lily was never so brazenly open about asking the exact details of Damian’s business. Sometimes a simple, I took care of something, sufficed her curiosity.
“That enforcer of Abriella’s,” Damian admitted.
Lily’s expression turned to stone—blank and unreadable. “I didn’t like him—I heard things he said to her.”
“We all have.” Damian tossed the garbage bag to the side as he came to stand in front of his wife. “You still should be sleeping, Lily.”
She smiled. “I told you—”
“I know, you were worried. I’m fine.”
“Liar. You won’t sleep tonight.”
She knew him too well.
It was the after part of his job, see.
And he overthought that every time.
Maybe being Tommas’ underboss wouldn’t be such a bad thing. There was less killing in his current position, after all. Less killing meant less overthinking.
“Do you want a coffee or something?” Lily asked.
Damian snagged her wrist and pulled her closer. His palm rested on the swell of her stomach, feeling his baby boy move within.
“No,” he said.
“You sure?”
“Positive. I’d like a kiss, though.”
Lily gave him a tiny smile. “Yeah?”
“Right now”
She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth.
Damian instantly stopped overthinking.
Fathers and Sons
It took one tiny breath to change a man.
One blink.
One second.
One last push.
One gasp.
One cry.
One soul.
One life.
One little boy swaddled tightly in blue, and staring up at his father with hazy blue eyes, and silence all around.
Just the one.
“Damian?”
He thought ... months ago ... he had been changed forever. That it had been his one moment for his life to turn on its side and be irrevocably different.
And it had been a good thing.
This was not the same.
This was not the same at all.
“Damian,” Lily said again.
He didn’t blink.
He didn’t breathe, or move, or make a sound.
Damian just kept holding his son all swaddled in blue, watching him with familiar eyes and pouting lips.
“Hello, sweet boy,” Damian said.
I’ve been waiting to meet you.
You look just like your mother.
I’m terrified.
Do you know who I am?
All of those questions ran through Damian’s mind. He thought about saying them all, or even saying nothing at all.
Instead, he murmured, “Everything’s going to change now that you’re here.”
Damian just didn’t know how much.
“Damian,” Lily said one more time.
He turned to his wife, stepping close enough to her hospital bed that she could reach out and run her palm over their son’s soft, misshapen head. The baby’s dark hair was one of the only features he had taken from his father, Damian mused.
From the baby boy’s little lips, to the shape of his eyes and his jaw, he took after his mother. Damian didn’t mind—his wife was beautiful.