16. Damian

The music in the hotel gym was pumping out the kind of beats that made Damian want to smash each and every one of his PB's. It may have been a weekend away, but Damian simply couldn't resist pushing himself on the deadlifts and bicep curls.

‘Fucccccccccck!' Damian grunted, forcing himself to complete what was a truly epic set of tricep-busting lifts.

Damian dropped the heavy weight onto the soft, well cushioned gym floor and took a seat on the bench. With each wall covered in floor to ceiling mirrors, the basement gym was perfectly equipped to provide the tools for a no holds barred workout.

Damian was feeling good. Not just from the workout, but from the status of his relationship with Jake. Wearing his customary all-black gym attire, Damian took a long gulp from his glass bottle of mineral water.

Damn. I needed that.

Note to self: drink more water!

Jesus, I'm sweating hard.

Damian got up from the bench and completed a couple of basic warm-down stretches. But just as he was about to go into one final round of stretches, he noticed his phone flash up with a message from Nico.

With his mind immediately wondering whether it was Nico bringing news of Connor Reed, Damian immediately reached for the cell phone and read the message…

Yo! Just checking in. Nothing new to report at my end. You have a good time with that cutey-pie boy. Don't do anything I wouldn't do! ROCCO.

Damian grinned. It was good to hear from Nico, and it was even better to know that Connor Reed hadn't been causing any more chaos in his absence from New York.

But before Damian could even put his cell phone down in order to complete his stretches, a new message popped up onto the screen. But this time it wasn't from Nico or Antonio, it was from Jack Bouquet…

Boss. We need to talk. Or, you know, you need to listen? This Jake kid has to go. I can't have people in my kitchen like him. It's not good for my energy. And if my energy is off, then so is my cuisine. Jake has to go – and I don't care if you're sweet on him. BOUQUET OUT.

Damian couldn't quite believe what he was reading. This message was crossing a line, and there was no way that Jack Bouquet didn't realize that himself.

Damian fully appreciated the fact that chefs could be temperamental, but this was something else altogether. Jack had always been respectful to Damian, but this was absolutely not respectful at all.

Does this asshole think he's above me?

Does he consider himself out of my control?

In MY fucking restaurant of all places?

Suddenly, Damian felt like he needed to do a whole new super-set of the heaviest weights imaginable. This was totally outrageous behavior from Jack.

‘Maybe this asshole is forgetting who he is?' Damian growled. ‘And maybe he's forgetting who I am too!'

Damian felt angry. But rather than enter into a futile argument over text, decided to take a cooler approach with Jack….

We'll speak when I return from the Hamptons. Damian.

Damian knew all about negotiating tactics, verbal powerplays, and how important it was to not show your hand too early. Had he sent Jack a furious response, it would have given Jack more ammunition. But by sending a short, clear and calm response it kept Damian it control of the situation.

But as much as Damian knew this was the right approach to take, he couldn't help but feel unsettled and irritated by Jack. Perhaps Damian should have seen this coming, but Jack was so far out of line it was hard to see any way back for him.

For Jack to target Jake in his text seemed like such a deliberate provocation that Damian had pretty much made up his mind. Jack Bouquet would have to go. Damian's Den would soon be looking for a new chef.

‘Fuck. A quick round on the heavy bag should help,' Damian muttered as he walked over the to the punch bag hanging from the gym ceiling and began to pound it over and over again. ‘That fucking chef should be grateful it's not him I'm punching.'

* * *

After completing his much-needed assault on the gym's punchbag, Damian made his way up to the hotel suite. As much as he'd hoped that pummeling the heavy bag would help, Damian still couldn't shake his anger at Jack Bouquet.

Usually, Damian was able to apply logic and cold, calm rationale to situations such as this. It was this kind of clear thinking that made him successful as not only a restaurant owner but a mafia hitman too.

But something was different this time.

Jack had crossed a line by dragging Jake into all of this.

And as Damian was beginning to realize, Jake was so special to him that anyone even attempting to threaten or upset the boy was going to run into serious problems.

Damian paused outside of the hotel suite door and took a deep breath.

Okay. Keep cool.

Don't let the boy know what's going on with Jack.

That's my business and my business alone.

Turning the doorknob, Damian entered and was ready to see his darling Jake and maybe even have some fun and games with him. Sure, Damian was frustrated by the Jack Bouquet situation, but that didn't mean that some rough and tumble with his boy wasn't on the menu.

But it soon became clear that Jake wasn't quite himself either…

‘Is everything okay?' Damian said, walking into the suite and spotting Jake sitting on the large couch with his knees tucked up to his chest and Cosmo the pelican snuggled up to him too.

‘Um…. I don't know,' Jake replied, a worried and distracted tone in his voice.

‘What do you mean you don't know?' Damian said, a little impatiently. ‘Tell me what's up and I can help.'

Damian waited as Jake tried and failed to get his words out. Damian could feel himself getting frustrated. He knew he should be more patient with the boy, but Damian felt very low on patience.

‘Are you going to tell me or not?' Damian barked, taking off his soaking wet training top. ‘I need a shower and I'd like to have it before all this sweat dries if that's at all possible.'

‘I'm trying!' Jake replied, his voice sounding a little too bratty for Damian's liking.

‘Well try harder!'

‘Urgh. It's nothing,' Jake said, pouting. ‘You go for your shower. I'm reading my book anyway.'

Damian stood momentarily and gave Jake a long, hard stare.

What the hell has gotten into him?

Why's he being so rude?

If he only knew how much I was doing for him over the Bouquet situation….

Damian stood a little longer, waiting for a further response from Jake. That response didn't come, and Damian turned and walked into the bathroom for a much needed shower.

As Damian stripped and got his well worked-out body under the hot water, he couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right.

Why had Jake suddenly started acting so brattily? There was sass, and then there was the kind of brattiness that Damian could really live without.

Damian felt a touch overwhelmed. There was the Connor Reed situation to contend with, the problem with Jack Bouquet, and now he had a sulking, pouting boy to handle too.

It wasn't ideal.

In fact, it was far from ideal.

Maybe coming away for the weekend had been a mistake? After all, Damian and Jake had barely known each other for five minutes. It might have been too soon for a romantic getaway.

There was another thought that crept into Damian's mind too. The kind of thought that Damian truly didn't want to consider, but knew it would be foolish not to…

‘Is the kid playing me?' Damian whispered, his gravelly voice drowned out by the powerful shower water. ‘Was I right about him all along? Once a sneaky sonofabitch thief, always a sneaky sonofabitch thief?'

Damian shook his head.

Damian didn't want to believe that could be true. And he knew it probably wasn't true. But now that he had allowed the thought into his head and even spoken it too, Damian knew that he would struggle to forget it.

In that moment, Damian knew there was only one option.

It was time to go back to New York City and start finding solutions to the problems in his life. Damian was a ruthless, ice-cold killer. And it was time to make sure that everyone was respecting him exactly as they should be.