by Mandy Baxter
As if he could turn the son of a bitch down. “Sure. What about the suitcase?”
“The luggage stays. And leave a spare key card in the planter outside of the side exit so he doesn’t have to hassle with the front desk.”
Damien yanked his fingers through his hair, feeling the beginnings of one hell of a tension headache coming on. “I’ll take care of it.” He could at least be thankful that Tabitha had tonight off. “See ya at eight.”
“Later.”
Damien disconnected the call and tossed the phone down on the bed just before his legs folded, sending his ass down to the mattress. He rested his elbows on his thighs, forehead in his palms and let out a forceful sigh. This investigation was going to be the death of him.
He grabbed the hotel phone from the nightstand and punched Ryan Gates’s number into the keypad. The deputy answered on the third ring. “Gates.”
“It’s Damien.”
There was a short pause before Ryan said, “Is everything okay?”
It was unusual for him to use his undercover name when checking in, let alone make contact on a weekend, especially since he should be deep in his cover as Joey Cavello’s distributor for the next day and a half. Contact could be risky if someone caught him with a deputy marshal, but Damien needed to get some things straight with Gates and get him up to speed before he set out on whatever errand Cavello had laid out for him tonight.
“Can we meet around noon?”
“Sure.” Ryan’s tone showed his concern but he thankfully didn’t press for information. “Where?”
“I want to avoid the downtown area.” Just in case any of Cavello’s buddies were out and about. “So anywhere else.”
“I’ll be at the Yard House in the Village at Meridian. Do you know where it is?”
Jesus, what was it with this Village? Did Idaho’s population concentrate its attention on one trendy meeting place at a time? “No, but I can find it.”
“See you there.”
A shower would probably be a good idea. Make himself presentable and all that shit. But the prospect of washing Tabitha’s scent from his body tied Damien’s stomach into knots. If he’d pushed her too far last night, the sweet floral perfume clinging to his skin might be all that was left of her.
The monster of mindless need raged at the back of his mind. He was worse than any addict, convincing himself that one fix was enough. It would never be enough. He’d go after her if he had to. Over and over again.
Dr. Meyers would have a field day with this one.
Chapter Sixteen
“I’m ruined. Ruined!”
“Oh, please. You’re loving every minute of it. I’d pay good money for a man to ruin me right now.”
Eh, Tabitha wasn’t going to argue that point. Dave wished a man would ruin him at least once a week. He was such a tragically romantic soul. With a straw, she poked at the ice melting in her drink. It had definitely felt like a Bloody Mary type of day when she’d called Dave to meet her for brunch. But not even vodka could pull her mood out of the ditch it had curled up and died in.
“You know, when something’s too good be true, it’s usually because it is.” Damien was everything she was attracted to in a man: big, rough around the edges, bulging with muscle, his skin decorated with glorious ink. He possessed a depth that she hadn’t expected, a gentleness that blew her mind, and even though they’d yet to seal the deal, his skills in the bedroom far surpassed any other man she’d ever been with. He was too perfect for her. Too tailored for her every need. “It’s like someone found my perfect-man wish list and crafted him in a lab. He’s got a fatal flaw. I just don’t know what it is yet.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He was a drug dealer. That was a pretty dark mark.
“Do you know what your problem is, Tabs?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to tell me.”
“You don’t know how to be happy.”
“What?” Please. She was totally happy. Smiley, cheery, rainbows and unicorns happy. “That’s not true.”
“Look.” Dave took a long pull from the straw sticking out of his drink. “Life dealt you a shitty hand. You would have been better off an orphan.” She cut him a look and he pursed his lips as though to say, Well, it’s true. “And your brother, God love his fine, fine ass, is trouble and he’s given you nothing but grief. You’re so used to your life being shit that you don’t expect anything better.”
Tabitha took a deep breath and held it in her lungs. “Lila would tell me to suck it up and go find a guy who wears a tie to work.”
“Sorry, but Lila’s sort of a twat.”
Tabitha laughed. “Seth’s getting better. He’s really turned his life around the past few months.”
“And what happens the next time he gets in over his head?” Dave leveled his gaze on her, no longer playful. “What sort of deals are you going to make then?”
Her heart jumped up into her throat. “What do you mean?”
“Honey, I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night. I know Joey’s got you helping him with some lowdown shit.”
“Dave.” Tabitha leaned across the table, her heart racing. “You can’t say anything. If he found out that you—”
“Please, you know I’m not going to say anything. But you need to do something.”
“I can’t.” The words lodged in her throat. “Joey said he’ll go to the cops. If Seth gets another strike against him, he could go to federal prison this time.”
“If Sandy finds out what’s going on, it’s you that’s going to prison, not Seth. And would he step up to bail you out?”
She’d like to think that he would. Seth was misguided but he wasn’t callous. “This guy that Seth hooked Joey up with, he only blows through town for a while. He uses people and then he drops them. It’s his pattern. Joey won’t have anything to sell for him after that. He won’t have any use for either of us after that. If I can just wait it out, Joey won’t have anything to sell and it’ll be over.”
“And the tattooed love god?”
Heat rose to Tabitha’s cheeks. Even now the memory of the wicked things Damien had done to her the previous night heated her blood and caused her body to thrum with desire. “I don’t know. He’s not a bad guy, Dave. I know that sounds stupid, considering. It’s like he’s two different people or something. This guy that he expects everyone to believe he is and the guy that he really is under the act.”
“But . . . ?”
Tabitha took a long drink of her Bloody Mary. “But what if I’m wrong? What if all there is is the bad guy, and I’m totally seeing what I want to see? Oh God,” she moaned, throwing her head into the crook of her arm on the table. “Maybe I do need to find a guy who wears a tie to work.”
“You just need to do what’s right for you. And only you. Not Seth, not Joey, definitely not Lila, and not the tattooed love god, either.”
“His name is Damien,” she said.
“So. Sexy.” Dave gave a sad shake of his head. “Don’t feel bad about falling for him, Tabs. He’s the total package.”
She didn’t feel guilty about it, and that was the problem. That non-guilt was enough to make her sneak out on him this morning. How could she possibly live with herself knowing what he did—selling drugs that did nothing but destroy lives and families—overlooking it all just because she needed him like she needed food and water. Like she needed air.
“He totally is.” She shivered at the memory of his whispered words in her ear, so honest and heartfelt as his fingers did wonderful things to her body. It had been the most intimate encounter of her entire life. With his gentle touch and even gentler words, Damien had managed to shake her to her core.
“He could be married,” she said with a wry smile. “So I guess it could be worse.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Dave replied, bringing his glass up to hers.
Part of what made Damien good at his job was his ability to keep a level head under pressure. And this a
ssignment was a low-stress gig in comparison to some of his past undercover assignments. But as he sat in the passenger seat of Joey’s jacked-up truck, barreling down the freeway toward God knew where, Damien had never been so damned on edge. The complete opposite of level.
Fuck.
“You sure Tony has his shit together enough to manage tonight’s sales?” It wasn’t that Damien gave a single shit if Tony was a competent employee or not. The asshole’s run-in with Tabitha two weeks ago was what had him itching to bail out of the car and beat feet back to the hotel.
“Two weeks on the fucking job and you’re acting like middle management or some shit.” Joey’s amused laughter grated on Damien’s already raw nerves. “Tony’s got it. I’m not half as worried about him as I am about putting these fuckers in their place tonight.”
This wasn’t the first time Damien had found himself in the middle of a turf war. What Joey didn’t realize was that once Lightfoot pulled distribution out of Idaho, it wouldn’t matter who sold on his turf. Joey would no longer have a product to push. Not to mention the fact his ass would be in jail.
After the ass-whupping Damien had delivered to Joey’s rivals a couple of weeks ago, tension had been high between Joey and Milo Grankin, the distributor from the neighboring city. Damien didn’t agree with Joey’s tactics tonight, but neither did he have a say, and so he had no choice but to go along as the token muscle.
The drive to Nampa was just shy of a half hour. A tense, quiet half hour where Damien spent the time talking himself out of an act of violence against the guy sitting next to him. As soon as he got to the bottom of whatever it was Joey had on Tabitha’s brother that he held over her head, there’d be hell to pay. And the bastard had better hope that Boise PD got their hands on him before Damien did.
“We’re here.”
Joey pulled up to a run-down building on the outskirts of the city. Several cars were parked outside: muscle cars, the souped-up Nissan from the other night, and a couple of pickups with lift kits like Joey’s. Damien took a deep breath and tried to slow his pulse rate as his heart pumped blood through his system at about two hundred beats a minute. There was no way this was going to end any other way but badly. Goddamn it.
“I thought you said there would only be a couple of guys here.” From the looks of the parking lot, they were outnumbered.
“Fucking Mike,” Joey spat. “You can’t trust anyone to get good intel anymore. Doesn’t matter.” His voice quavered with the words. “They don’t know we’re comin’. We’ve got the jump on them. We’re going to show them that I’m not going to suffer their bullshit anymore.”
He might have thought they had the element of surprise working for them, but Joey would change his tune pretty damned fast when he had ten semi-autos pointed at his head. Damien checked the clip of the unregistered forty Joey handed him, and slid it home. He pulled back the slide and said a silent prayer that the power play about to go down would end peacefully without a single shot fired. Yeah, right. When the egos of drug dealers and gangbangers were involved, this sort of shit never ended well. Maybe what Damien should have been praying for was his own goddamned safety.
“Let’s show these fuckers what’s up.”
Big words from Cavello. His ego and inability to plan further proved that he was the perfect middleman for Lightfoot. Dude was fucking dim. Damien hung back and watched as the dipshit kicked open the door to the rival distributor’s home base. He could dial 9-1-1 and end this now, but an arrest for either of them would slow down a timetable that they couldn’t afford to disrupt. Kinks like these made Damien’s teeth itch. Damn it. He didn’t have time for this shit.
At the sound of angry voices, Damien charged in behind Joey, gun drawn and ready to defend himself if need be. The number of cars parked outside was misleading, thank God. Inside only three guys sat around a battered round table, cards and poker chips spread out on the surface, the smell of weed thick in the air.
“Cavello, you piece of shit!” Damien recognized one of the guys from a couple of weeks ago. The bruise around his eye was beginning to yellow, and when his gaze met Damien’s the banger’s dark eyes narrowed and a sneer stretched his lips. He stabbed a finger at Damien and said, “You’re fucking dead, asshole.”
The sound of the door swinging open behind them caught Damien’s attention and he gave a quarter turn to discover that the rest of Grankin’s crew had entered behind them. Damn it. He’d counted his blessings a little too soon. He raised his gun, aimed it at the son of a bitch’s forehead. Adrenaline dumped into Damien’s system and he locked his nerves down tight. He needed to keep his shit together if he was going to get out of this alive.
“You should have come with more people, Cavello.” A tall, bulky, grimy-looking fucker stepped up to Joey, and Damien assumed this was Milo Grankin. He looked the part and carried the confidence of someone who’d cracked a few skulls to gain his position amongst his peers. “’Cuz the only way either one of you sons of bitches is going to leave this building is in a fucking body bag.”
Joey’s eyes met Damien’s and he gnashed his teeth as he recognized the flash of panic. Joey was about to fuck up—big-time—and Damien was going to be the one caught in the crossfire. Without a word, Joey swung his arm around and pulled the trigger, winging one of the guys at the poker table. Chaos spread like wildfire, shots ringing out in a cacophony around them.
Damien hit the deck just in time to see Joey make a break for it, sprinting toward the door left open by Grankin and his buddies. Fucker. Damien fired off a couple of wild shots and rolled, propelling himself upward as he sprinted after Joey, convinced that if he didn’t get his ass in gear, the little shit was bound to leave him there to die.
“Shoot that asshole!”
Damien stumbled as white hot pain ripped through his upper thigh. He fought through the pain, letting the adrenaline in his system take over. Turning back, he fired blindly once, twice, and again, squeezing off shots in quick succession in order to buy him enough time to get to Joey’s truck.
The engine roared to life just as the passenger door flew open. Joey leaned across the seat and shouted, “Hurry the fuck up!”
Yeah, like that, and not the guys shooting at him, was going to get Damien’s ass moving. In the distance, the sound of sirens grew louder and the panicked look in Joey’s eyes was what really got Damien moving. He limped the last few feet, throwing the bulk of his torso up into the seat. Joey put his foot to the pedal, gravel spraying out from beneath the tires as he took off with Damien’s legs still dangling out of the open door. He reached over and hauled Damien up by the neck of his T-shirt. Damien’s leg throbbed, a bone-deep spasm shooting up the entire right side of his body. He managed to climb into the seat and shut the truck door moments before passing a Nampa PD cruiser going full-speed in the opposite direction, lights flashing and siren howling.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Are you hit?” Damien managed between pants of breath.
“Nah.” Joey jerked the wheel to the right and Damien’s head smacked on the window before he could right himself.
“Fuck, man!” The last thing he needed was a concussion on top of a gunshot wound. “Watch what you’re doing!”
“I’ve gotta get us out of here.”
Damien had a feeling that Joey had never been involved in a shooting before. The dude was straight up losing his cool. “Calm down.” If he had to focus on managing Joey, at least he’d be too preoccupied to worry about his damned leg. “Slow down. If you look like you’re running from something, the cops are going to stop us. Don’t go too slow, but don’t speed. Yield for the cruisers but don’t stop. And for fuck’s sake, turn on your headlights!”
“Oh, right. Shit.” Joey flipped on his lights as he let up on the gas, traveling the darkening city streets at a respectable but not suspicious speed. He glanced down at Damien’s leg, his eyes wide. “Fuck, man! Are you okay?”
They’d missed his femoral artery, so at least he
didn’t have to worry about bleeding out in the next two minutes. So he guessed he could rack that up in the plus column. “I’ll live.” That didn’t mean he wouldn’t bleed to death slowly if he didn’t get the wound closed up soon. “Just get me back to my car.”
Going to the hospital was pretty much out of the question. When someone came in with a gunshot wound, the police were automatically notified. But if he could shake Joey long enough to get ahold of Gates, they could get him to the hospital and have his leg taken care of discreetly. Damien let his head loll back on the headrest. The adrenaline rush was starting to wear off, and his thigh pulsed in an agonizing rhythm in time with the beat of his heart.
Joey Cavello had almost gotten his ass killed tonight and the only thought that had run through Damien’s head was the fact that he might not ever see Tabitha again.
Chapter Seventeen
Tabitha checked her reflection in the rearview mirror one last time before getting out of her car. Sort of pointless in the low light of the parking lot’s floodlights, but whatever. Her stomach was tied into so many knots, she doubted they would ever fully untangle, and her heart fluttered in her chest with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings. She hadn’t called to see if it was okay to come over. Maybe she should have. Crap.
It was only fifteen minutes later than when she’d come to the hotel last night. Surely, she’d given Damien enough time to have everything wrapped up for the night. As she pulled the master key card from her back pocket, Tabitha took stock of her outfit. Why did it matter at this point that she dressed to impress? Last night she’d shown up in her pj’s. Ugh. She was so head over heels smitten with him it was pathetic.
She smoothed her palms over the denim of her skinny jeans, tucked into the Doc Martens combat boots—the most expensive pair of shoes she owned and her prized possession—with the black satin laces. The baggy black tank beneath her leather jacket with “hope” scrawled across the front in large white letters might not have been the best choice. Did the word broadcast some subliminal message? Make her look too desperate? God, what had she been thinking? Of course it made her look desperate! She might as well show up at his door, with I’m begging you to fuck me scrawled across her forehead in Sharpie.
