Page 20 of Damián

Okay, weird place to kill me…

Oliver slams the door, locks it, and I turn around to stare directly at him.

If he’s going to kill me, this fucker better believe he’ll do it while I look him in the eye.

The moment our eyes meet, his transformation is instantaneous. The swaying stops, the glassy haze in his eyes vanishes, and he looks as sober as I am.

Oliver sets the wine bottle down on the vanity and leans closer to me.

“Did you really…” he says, his voice a bit softer than before, but still full of anger, “…just break my fucking phone?”

I freeze.

And I know it might sound like an exaggeration, but my brain literally just went into pause…

Did he just say, “my phone”?

My gaze shifts from his hazel eyes to his left ear… nothing. Then I move my gaze across his face, past his rosy cheeks, to his right ear… And there it is.

Glittering against his neck is the long, dangling chandelier of blood-red rubies and golden chains.

“You?” I breathe, full of shock…

The druggie manwhore… is the heir?

The fucking mass murderer is the informant?

Oliver’s expression doesn’t soften. If anything, he looks like he wants to wrap his hands around my throat and squeeze.

“Me?! What about you?! I can’t believe you dropped and broke the phone,” Oliver hisses, grabbing my wrist. He opens a makeup compact and begins to apply a thick coat of concealer over my tattoo. “You had one job. Do you have any idea what I went through to arrange this meeting?”

“We have a spare phone in my coat if that helps you feel better.”

“It doesn’t. There are five guards in the coatroom, and we don’t have time to deal with them.”

I start laughing, and he glares at me. “Sorry.” I stop and lift my free hand in surrender. “I thought you were bringing me here to kill me, but instead you’re here applying makeup and telling me off.”

“You thought I was going to kill you, and now you’re laughing?”

“Well, I’m a Harknett and a Latino; I recover quickly.”

Oliver steps closer, his eyes narrowing even more than they already were. “You should be more guarded. Haven’t you read my file?”

I hold his stare, my heart rate finally slowing down, and grin. “If you wanted me dead, I would already be a corpse. Besides, a man who puts his own life on the line to save thirty strangers from being trafficked… well, he must have other reasons why people believe he is a sociopathic mass murderer.”

For a second, the anger in his face fades, and a glimmer of something else passes through his eyes… hope? Relief?

But before I can analyze him, Knox’s voice comes from the comm.

“Damián…?”

“I’m Okay,” I say, speaking to my team and to the man in front of me. “The mission has not been compromised. Oliver West is the informant.”

Oliver snaps his fingers. “Give me your freaking mic right now.”

I pull the tiny, flesh-colored bud from my ear canal and hand it over.

“I said microphone, not earpiece.”