Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

DAMON

"Try not to look too conspicuous." I addressed the remark to Gianni and the twins. I didn't have to tell Mina that. In spite of being stunning, she knew how to blend into her surroundings. She held herself with a casual alertness that wouldn't draw excessive attention.

Gianni and the twins on the other hand, did nothing to disappear into the background.

Hunter and Parker walked behind Mina, and Gianni beside her, looking like a guard of honour. Somewhat appropriate, given she was a queen, but in no way subtle.

"Have you forgotten this is Dusk Bay?" Hunter asked. "Everyone knows us here. They know who we are and what we do. At least three people have crossed to the other side of the road instead of walking past us, and we've only been here for a handful of minutes."

He wasn't wrong about Dusk Bay. Reuben controlled most of the city. Almost everyone who lived here worked for him, directly or indirectly.

Still, strutting around would draw further attention to us and that would have people talking. We didn't need the scrutiny or speculation. Reuben's presence in town would generate enough of that.

"Maybe you stink?" Gianni teased. He ducked to the side as Hunter took a playful swing at him.

I rolled my eyes and turned my back on them.

"Who is this contact?" Mina caught up to me while the other three were joking around. Her gaze seemed to be everywhere, taking everything in, while focused on me at the same time. How much of that was training and how much was a result of the trauma?

She was hyper-vigilant all the time. I suspected she slept with one eye open.

"Her name is Clarissa, but I don't think that's her actual name," I said. "She runs a vegan grocery store." I waved in the general direction of her business. "We're meeting her out the back."

I led them through an alleyway and around to the rear of the block of shops. In the back was a car park and several large skips. Heavy iron doors indicated entrance to each of the businesses.

The vegan grocer itself was nestled between a gymnastics school, and a shop selling musical instruments and music lessons.

The back door was open and Clarissa herself leaned against the door frame. As tall and sturdy as me, she regarded us all, unflinching. If I had a fistfight with her, I wasn't sure I'd back myself.

"Look what the cat dragged in," she drawled. Her voice was a deep rumble. "Damon Riviello and…friends."

She glanced around me, curious but not intimidated. She offered her hand and shook mine in a grip that made me wince.

"Nice to see you too," I said sarcastically. I shook out my hand and briefly introduced Clarissa to everyone.

Her eyes lingered on Mina before taking in Gianni and the twins.

"I've heard about you two," she said to Hunter and Parker. "Don't touch anything." She waved a thick finger at them.

Both twins raised their hands.

"We wouldn't dream of it," Parker assured her.

She squinted at him, but stepped back inside, gesturing for us to follow.

Mina glanced at me, but followed me over the threshold.

"Nice place," Gianni said.

The storage area was neat, lined with shelves and shelves of boxes. Most would contain stock for the grocery store, but it wouldn't surprise me if some contained guns or other contraband. Where better to smuggle things like that?

Clarissa grunted and picked up a phone from the desk in the corner. She turned on the screen and held it out in front of her. "I got this message two days ago."

Even before she started playing it, Mina's body stiffened.

Instinctively, I moved closer to her, as did Gianni and the twins. A protective wall of muscle between her and the ghosts of her past.

A male voice echoed through the space, tiny from his surroundings and ours.

"Hey, Clarissa, it's Leon. I have a delivery arriving in Dusk Bay in three days and need you to intercept. I'll text you the details." The call ended.

Mina's face was drained of colour. "That's him. I know that voice."

"Did he send you the details?" I asked.

Clarissa's gaze lingered on Mina again, but she tore her attention away and tapped on the phone again. "Just a time and location." She held the phone out to me.

"Any chance he's sending some bacon?" Hunter asked.

The look Clarissa gave him was drier than the Simpson Desert. "Chances are it's bacon, attached to the rest of a person. They're coming here to Dusk Bay. Leon doesn't want anyone to know. He's expecting me to pick them up."

"You work closely with Leon?" Mina asked, her tone this side of dangerous. Any associate of Leon was a potential enemy of hers.

If I thought Clarissa was tight with him, she'd be dead right now.

Clarissa shrugged her broad shoulders. "On and off. He's done me favours and I've done him favours. All within the umbrella of Brantley business. So he claimed. If he was working with Kurt Lasalle against you, I was unaware. I would have told him to fuck off. That's why I'm here telling you about this. I don't want anyone to think I'm not loyal. I like breathing."

"Has he given any indication who he wants you to pick up?" I asked.

"Nope," she said lightly. "What I've shown you is all I have."

I rubbed my chin. "I want you to follow through with the pickup. Don't let on to anyone else that we know. Once we have some idea who it is, we'll move."

Mina swallowed audibly. "You think it's Kurt?"

"Why else go so hard to hide it?" I asked. If anyone was going to arrive like this, it would be him. Trying to sneak in the back door without being noticed. Like the snake he was.

"I'll do whatever you need me to do," Clarissa said. "I've heard some disturbing rumours about Lasalle." Once again her gaze was on Mina. She knew better than to ask and we weren't going to enlighten her, but that wouldn't keep her from being curious.

"We'll be right there with you," Gianni assured her.

"You better, because if he suspects I'm working with you, shit might get ugly," Clarissa said. "I have a feeling you want to get your hands on him before I stab him in the throat."

Of course she hadn't meant that he'd try anything with her, or that he'd succeed. People fucked with her to their own detriment. Personally, I would have paid good money to see her eviscerate him, but that honour went to Mina first.

"Yes, but we don't mind if he loses a few fingers," Gianni said. "Just leave a couple for us."

Clarissa punched him on the shoulder hard enough to make him wince. "I like you."

He grimaced and rubbed his shoulder. "I'd hate to see what you do to people you don't like."

She grinned. "Stay on my good side and you never need to find out."

"I'll keep that in mind," he said. He took a moment to glare at the twins who were both laughing, but keeping a safe distance.

Mina was the only one who didn't look amused at the exchange. If anything, she looked slightly green.

"Stay in touch," I said to Clarissa. I took Mina's hand and guided her back out to the street.

"If it's really Kurt…" She sat down on the curb beside the car park.

"He'll be dead this time tomorrow," I finished for her. I lowered myself down beside her and put my arm around her.

"It doesn't seem real," she said, her tone hollow. "After all those years, he'll finally be gone. I can put all of this behind me."

My heart ached for her. The fact he continued to breathe was starting to piss me off more and more. It was past time for that to stop, and for her to get on with the rest of her life. While he was out there, she'd be in some kind of limbo. Always looking behind her and wondering if he'd appear. Wondering if she'd wake up in that filthy cage, the strap around her ankle. Her naked body dirty, hair matted. Living through hell day after day. Treated like some kind of wild animal.

She deserved so much better than that. She deserved to be spread out on the couch and worshipped the way we'd worshipped her. The sound of her coming rang through my ears like the most beautiful music I ever heard.

The taste of her skin still lingered on my lips. That and the way Gianni's mouth felt on mine.

I was still trying to get my head around having kissed him. Thinking about it and doing it were vastly different things. I never expected to act on feelings I'd suppressed for so long. My attraction to him and to Reuben were best kept under wraps.

Or so I thought.

Now, I was conflicted, but that was something I needed to think about later. Right now I needed to focus on Mina and tomorrow's pickup.

"Why would he come here?" she asked.

I was wondering the same thing. "I'm guessing he has business here."

"Or he knows Reuben is in town," she said. The wheels in her mind seemed to be turning over, considering all the possibilities.

"Leon sent that message before Reuben decided we'd come here," I pointed out. "He wouldn't know that at the time." Even if he was listening in to all of our conversations, he couldn't have known what our plans were before we even made them.

"I suppose so," she said reluctantly. Her blue-green eyes were slightly glazed, her thoughts clearly dark and troubled.

I wished I could take every one of them out of her mind and give her back the sunshine she used to radiate. The carefree warmth.

"He won't go anywhere near you," I assured her. "If he so much as looks at you, I'll poke his eyes out. We don't need him to have eyes or fingers. Just a pulse. He needs to live long enough to experience the pain he put you through."

"I think to have a pulse, you need a heart," she said. "I don't think he has one of those."

I couldn't disagree with that. People with hearts didn't keep women prisoner. Unless they were the enemy. Reuben wasn't inclined to give leniency to anyone based on sex.

"Whatever he has in his chest to keep him alive," I said with a shrug. "It won't be doing it for much longer. Twenty-four hours and he'll be dead as a slab of bacon."

"Vegan bacon," Hunter said as he sat down on the other side of Mina. "Never with a beating heart, but still kinda dead."

"Don't ruin bacon for me," Parker complained.

"I think it's already ruined for me," Mina said. "Every time I see it, I'll think of him."

I squeezed her more firmly. "The way Terry cooks it, none of us will be able to resist eating it anyway. Even if it was vegan bacon. Is that actually a thing?"

"Absolutely it is," Hunter said. "Along with vegan cheese, vegan hamburgers and vegan leather. It's a growing industry. Literally." He grinned.

"Anyway, we should get going." I glanced over to see a red haired woman look at us before unlocking the gymnastics studio and disappearing inside. "We don't want to draw too much attention to ourselves, remember?"

"Before we go back home, I want to show Mina something," Gianni said.

I waited for cock jokes that didn't come, before helping her to her feet and following her and Gianni.