Damien: Billionaire Bad Boy Romance (21 page)

I didn’t have the first idea of where to start looking for weapons. Thankfully, Seb was one step ahead of me.

“Where are we going?” We were in a black car with Pepper, and as far as I could tell, we were driving out of the city. “Indiana?”

Seb shook his head. “Somewhere better,” he said darkly. “Trust me.”

I shrunk back into the leather seats and watched the scenery pass as the driver cruised down Lakeshore Drive into the southern part of the city. It was a stark change—the magnificent, well-kept architecture of the Loop faded away quickly and was replaced by dilapidated warehouse buildings and veritable shacks on the side of the road. I watched as we passed by increasingly apocalyptic landscape: a field burning off oil, a torn-apart old factory, a lot of ancient-looking abandoned school buses.

“This is too much,” I said, turning to Seb. “How the hell are you even familiar with a place that looks like this?”

Seb had wraparound sunglasses on and he looked impenetrable. “Does it matter?” He smirked at me over the tops of his shades. “I mean, I don’t really think it does, Damien. I don’t think you actually give a shit where we’re going, as long as we get the weapons.”

I shrugged. “I don’t want to finance any gang activity,” I said ominously as the car cruised past an old factory covered in spray paint tags and unreadable gang signs. “This is a dangerous part of the city.”

Seb threw his head back and laughed. “You are such a pussy, Lennox,” he said with a scowl. “Where’s this heart coming from? You never cared who buttered your bread before.” He lowered his shades and glanced at me over the tops of the glasses. “I mean, that’s practically how LennoxCo was built. It’s not as though you used to have ethics. Why the change?”

Seb rapped on the partition and instructed the driver to take the next exit, pulling off the highway and onto a little ramshackle road. As the car bounced from fresh pavement to a road covered in potholes, I closed my eyes and wished that nothing would happen.
I can’t die right now, Audrey needs me. Please don’t let this be a bad deal, please
.

When I opened my eyes, Seb was smirking. “Pussy,” he said again, shaking his head and winking at me.

I rolled my eyes. “You have to admit, Seb, it would defeat the purpose of our coming here if we’re attacked before we even have the chance to get out.”

“Shut up,” Seb said carelessly. “You have the cash?”

I opened my attaché case and peered inside. Before we’d left town, we’d stopped at a bank and I’d pulled out a few thousand dollars in cash. I pulled out a wad of bills and waved it at Seb’s face.

“Right here,” I said smugly.

Seb craned his neck and looked down into my lap. “That should be enough,” he said. The car was bumping over the road so hard that once or twice, my ass left the seat and my head slammed against the roof.

Seb rapped on the partition window. “God damn it,” He yelled at the driver. “Can’t you drive any slower? We don’t want to bust a fucking tire out here!”

The car slowed and I settled into my seat, jostling and bouncing along as we drove further and further away from any recognizable civilization.

Finally, the car slowed as we passed a ramshackle house. “Right here,” Seb said loudly. He rapped on the partition with his knuckles and the driver screeched to a stop. “Come on,” Seb said to me. He jerked his head to the side and climbed out of the backseat of the car. Outside it was freezing cold, and even windier than it felt in downtown Chicago. I craned my neck and looked up at the darkening sky.

“Where the hell are we?” I looked around, trying to get my bearings. We were so far off the highway that I couldn’t even hear the roar of traffic. “What the hell are we doing out here?”

Seb frowned. “What the fuck do you
think
we’re doing out here, asshole?” He pulled his coat tight around his muscular body and set off for the house. I was surprised—when we walked up, I could tell that it was clearly not in terrible shape. Rather, it was designed to look abandoned, but there was actually a lot of insulation.

“Is this a decoy?” I frowned as Seb knocked on the door.

He shrugged and rolled his eyes. “Who the hell cares? As long as we get what we came here for, I don’t give a shit,” Seb replied casually.

The door swung open and a heavyset, middle-aged woman stepped out. Her face was lined with deep creases and her hair, or what was left of it, perched on her skull like cotton fuzz. She stared at Seb, taking in his tailored appearance. She even sniffed the air and I shuddered as I thought about what
she
would smell like.

“We’re here for the items,” Seb said. “Let us in.”

I pulled his arm back. “Hey,” I said in a low voice. “Maybe try not being so rude for once?”

Seb rolled his eyes again, but the woman stepped aside and let us pass.

Inside, I was surprised again. The interior was well-built to keep the cold out, and there was a fire going in one corner. There were two long tables set up, with black duffel bags on the floor. A man smoking a cigarette leaned close to the fire, then threw the butt of his smoke on the floor and crushed it with the heel of his boot. When he walked over to us, I was startled at the resemblance between him and the older woman who had answered the door. They both had flat blue eyes and dull features, almost like they’d been blurred with the passing of time.

“Hi,” I said, trying to keep my voice strong and confident. “We need to buy some guns.”

The man let out a laugh. “I know what you’re here for, son,” he said, spitting on the floor. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his worn jeans and strutted over to one of the tables. “How much did you bring?”

Seb grabbed the attaché case from my arms and threw it on the table. Wads of cash went flying out. I half expected the old couple to scramble for the bills, but instead they stared at the money, coolly appraising.

“And what kind of items are we talking about?” The old woman peered into Seb’s face, obviously having taken him for the leader. I didn’t mind. There was something about this old couple that gave me the creeps. For starters, how the hell did they even get out there? We were so far off the grid that I thought I might hear banjos playing in the distance.

“Something semi-automatic,” Seb said. He looked at me. “Lennox, what kind of shit do you need?”

I thought about it. I barely knew anything about guns—I had one in my condo, but I’d rarely used it. When I first bought it, I’d taken it faithfully to the range every other weekend to practice shooting. Ironically, I’d bought it right after my first almost deadly brush with Hodges. After he was arrested and taken down, I’d worried that he’d get out on bail and storm my apartment. Thankfully, he never did. I wondered if I was still a good shot.

“Something small,” I said decisively. “It needs to fit in here.” I tapped the right pocket of my overcoat. “We’re going back into the city, and we can’t attract a lot of attention.”

The woman nodded. She took some of the bills out of the case and counted. “We’ll take five,” she said, putting the rest back into the leather fold and handing it over to Seb. “You boys wait here for a minute.”

Seb and I exchanged uneasy glances as she puttered around the cabin. Finally, she pointed to her male companion and had him heft one of the big bags up onto the tables. When I looked at her face, I realized the tip of her tongue was sticking out of her dry lips. I shuddered. It was a powerful visual, if only because it reminded me so much of Audrey.

“This should do it,” the woman said. She dumped the contents of the bag out across the table with a deafening
clack
bang thump
. I gaped at the pile of guns as big as my body. The woman spread them out and began rifling through the collection with a practiced eye. Finally, she held up two small black handguns that looked like something out of a spy movie.

“What are they?” I picked one up and frowned. It was light—I couldn’t believe that it would actually do some kind of damage.

“Does it matter?” The woman cackled as her blue eyes met my own. “They come with two clips of twenty rounds. Does that serve your purpose?”

I punched Seb in the shoulder and he handed over another stack of bills.

“Give us four clips each,” I said to the woman.

She raised her eyebrows and whistled. “You boys aren’t planning to rob a bank, are you?”

I shook my head. “Nothing like that,” I replied. “I just need to take back what’s mine.”

Ten minutes later, Seb and I were back in the car, heading back towards Chicago. Pepper seemed to sense distress—she was curled up on the floor of the car, resting her snout in her paws. Every few minutes, she’d look up at me and whine until I began to pet her.

“You’ve gone soft,” Seb said again.

I didn’t reply. We were close enough to the city that I could see the skyline, raising like grey hunks of metal out of the earth. The driver sped up and I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the window.
Audrey, hold on
, I thought silently.
I’m coming. I swear I’m coming soon
.

By the time the driver had us in front of RH Shoes, it was almost dark outside. I knew that I didn’t have much time. Seb and I loaded our guns and tucked them inside our coats as we slipped out of the car. On second thought, I reached back in and stared at the driver.

“You take care of this dog back here,” I said sharply. “I know a certain woman who’s going to be over the moon to see her dog again. You understand?”

The driver frowned. I knew that having a pet in a company car was a breach of protocol. But who gave a fuck? After all, I was the goddamn CEO. I should have been able to fill the whole backseat with dogs if I wanted.

“Don’t let anything happen to her,” I warned again. “Or I’ll make sure you won’t be able to get another job in this city until you’re eighty years old.”

The driver nodded and gulped. Satisfied, I rapped on the window and snuck into an alley where Seb was waiting.

The storefront of RH Shoes was dark, and I wondered if anyone was inside.

“So, boss,” Seb said with an ironic grin on his face. I had to roll my eyes. For all his talk about not wanting to get arrested or involved with anything shady once more, he was doing a great fucking job at being a hired villain. “What’s the plan?”

I swallowed nervously. “We break in from the back, then scout for Hodges and Audrey,” I said. The store was connected to a warehouse with all of the windows painted black. “She could be anywhere inside, and she’s small, so remember to check everywhere you can find.”

Seb nodded. He shook his head and grinned. “I never thought I’d be saying this, but this is kind of exciting, isn’t it?”

I rolled my eyes. “Seb, this is dangerous,” I warned. “Hodges is a fucking lunatic. Just shoot him if you see him, okay?”

Seb nodded. I mouthed, “One, two three,” and then slammed my body against the back alley door with all of my might. The metal creaked and groaned but didn’t give. Then Seb and I counted down once more and both body slammed the door at the same time. It worked. The door creaked open, sagging on one of its hinges.

“Bingo,” Seb said. He held his gun in his hands and darted inside. A second later, I darted in right behind him.

The store was dark and seemingly empty. I frowned as I stepped through the piles of shoeboxes. Lone shoes were scattered on the floor, making it look like a tornado had whirled through the store.

“What the hell?” Seb whispered. We were creeping alongside one of the walls with our guns held high. “Looks like we’re not the first people to break in here today. Did the cops already check this place out?”

I frowned and shook my head. Remembering that Seb couldn’t see me in the dark, I spoke. “No,” I said as softly as my voice would allow. “No, they haven’t been here. Look at this dust,” I said, pointing down at the floor. Our feet were disturbing a fine, thin layer of grey—it almost looked like ash, like a volcano had exploded and then settled over everything inside. Our movements, though slight, were stirring up some of the dust and I felt an insane itch begin to build up in my sinuses.

“Shit,” I mumbled as I buried my face in the crook of my arm and sneezed. Seb let out a muffled laugh and I glared at him.

As we made our way to the front of the store, I tried to look for anything unusual, but the problem was
everything
looked unusual. If I didn’t know that Richard had Audrey locked away somewhere, I would have guessed that he was trying to leave the country or make a hasty getaway.

My heart sank when we got to the front of the store. The registers and computers were gone and I could tell that someone had been here very recently judging by the large footprints in the dust that looked almost as fresh as my own. I swallowed.

“She’s not here,” I said to Seb over my shoulder. “We need to check the warehouse.”

He nodded and we turned heel, running in the other direction. The back of the store was dark and made it hard to see where the door was. I ran my hand along the wall, searching for a partition or a material that didn’t feel like drywall. Finally, I noticed a smooth, almost imperceptible groove.

“Here,” I whispered excitedly. “Here, we just have to break this open.”

Seb joined me and together, we started pushing and knocking on the wall. But after a few minutes, we’d made no progress and I was starting to feel panicked. The sun was almost all the way down—I could barely see the street through the distant front windows of the store.

“Shoot it,” Seb said. He clapped me on the shoulder. Sighing, I raised my gun and fired it at the partition in the wall. Sure enough, the force of the bullet pushed the partition back just far enough for me to stick my fingers in and shove with all my might. As the wall gave way, I held my breath. Irrationally, I was terrified of what I’d find behind the wall. Audrey’s dead body? A team of thugs waiting for me? Hodges himself?

Moving the wall kicked up a lot of dust, and Seb and I were coughing and sneezing as we waited for our eyes to adjust. It was still pitch black when I opened my eyes, so I took my cell phone out and turned on the flashlight. Sweeping it across the floor of the warehouse, my jaw dropped.

“Holy shit,” I said to Seb. “It’s dark as fuck in here. You see this shit?”

Seb cleared his throat and coughed once more. Then he stood next to me, peering into the darkness. The beam of my cell phone’s flashlight held suspended particles of dust and as I moved the beam to the floor, I gaped.

“Look at this,” I said, pointing excitedly. “Look, it’s the same statements I had printed out and gave to that cop.”

Seb shook his head. “This doesn’t mean anything,” he said darkly, stepping inside the warehouse. The partition seemed firmly wedged open behind us, but part of me was afraid that somehow we’d wind up trapped. “All it means is that he knows he fucked up, and somehow he managed to leave the evidence behind.”

“Shit,” I muttered. “That’s no good.”

“Damn right it’s no good,” Seb replied. “Come on. Let’s keep looking.” Cautiously, we stepped forward, holding our guns high. When the dust began to settle, I realized with a sinking feeling that the warehouse had been accessed much more recently than the store.

“He’s been here,” I said in a low voice. “He was here recently.” The warehouse was huge—I couldn’t even see to the other end of the inside. “Look,” I said, pointing down at the ground. There was a sheaf of papers improbably fluttering even though there was no breeze in the building. “He must have been here, trying to clear out his tracks.” I picked up one of the papers and held my cell phone flashlight up, trying to read it. For the second time, I felt a sense of foreboding and dread. “Look, Seb, he was trying to get rid of the evidence.” The names and addresses on the paper had been covered with white-out and hastily typed over, I could still read snippets of the original but it was clear that the file had been tampered with. “He was trying to lie about where all of the money came from.”

“He’s on to us,” Seb said darkly. “We need to get out of here, he may even have it rigged somehow.”

“That’s fucking ridiculous,” I snapped, crumpling the paper into a ball and tossing it on the floor. “We have to search the rest of the warehouse.”

I was starting to feel the sand running out of the hourglass, so I made Seb search one half of the warehouse while I searched the other. I didn’t find anything except for more papers on the floor and broken crates. There was no sign that Audrey had been here at all.

Curling my hand into a fist, I slammed it against the wall. “This was all for nothing,” I said loudly. “We did all of this for nothing. And we wasted so much fucking time!”

Seb walked over and shook his head. “We didn’t do it for nothing,” he said. “We were looking for your girl, right? That’s something. Even though we didn’t find her, we still tried.”

I grabbed him by the collar. “We are
not
giving up,” I hissed into Seb’s face. “Not at all. So if you want to leave, you can leave. But I’m staying until I find some hint of where Audrey was taken.”

Seb glanced down. “Lennox, this might be better left to the cops,” he said in a low voice. “We’re out of our league. We have no idea where this guy’s hiding, and you’re the one who told me what a raging lunatic he is.”

I swallowed hard. “I get that,” I replied. “But I’m not giving up until I know Audrey’s safe! Can’t you respect that?”

Seb frowned. He turned away from me and tucked his gun inside his jacket. “I know you wanna be the hero of the day and save her, but sometimes that’s not how real life works.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I narrowed my eyes. Anger welled up within me and I felt my skin getting hot. I took a deep breath, but it didn’t help. “Of course I have to help Audrey! It’s my fucking fault she’s in this mess in the first place.”

“I know that, Lennox,” Seb said. “And I know you don’t want to hear this, but this could have been any girl! Not just Audrey. It could have been any of the women from the company.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “You’ve slept with all of them, right?”

“What the fuck are you saying, Seb?”

“I’m saying that you’ve already decided your company is more important,” Seb said calmly. “You told Hodges that you wouldn’t give it up to save Audrey’s life, and then you decided that you had to have your cake and eat it, too. Just walk away with your company, man, who cares about Audrey? Obviously you don’t—not
that
much, if you weren’t even willing to give LennoxCo to Hodges just to get her back.”

“You’re a fucking asshole,” I spat. “You only care about money and yourself, in that order.”

Seb held up his hands. The fact that he was managing to stay calm was enraging me all the more. “Don’t say that,” he said. “I’m only telling it like it is. All you’ve ever cared about is your damn company, and you know that’s true. You didn’t prioritize her life, and now you need to let the professionals handle this.”

I swung back and punched Seb hard in the jaw. Flesh and bone cracked beneath my knuckles and a searing pain shot up my arm as Seb recoiled. When he stood up, rubbing his jaw, he eyed me ruefully.

“Don’t hate me for being honest,” Seb said. “I know you don’t want to think of the truth this way, but come on, Lennox. You didn’t even
think
about turning LennoxCo over to Hodges when he made his demands. You immediately said no.”

I closed my eyes as his words sunk in. I would have never admitted it, especially not to Seb, but deep down, I knew he was right. I wasn’t a good person. And even though I cared for Audrey, selfishly, I couldn’t have put her first.

“I’m a piece of shit,” I muttered, slumping against the wall. My gun fell out of my hand and clattered to the floor. “I don’t deserve to live.”

“That’s being unfair,” Seb said. He squatted down next to me and looked into my eyes. “Look, brother, you may have gone soft in the head but you’re still an alpha male. And you do what you think is best. But don’t start acting like a fucking martyr when we’re in this situation, because you’re the one who put us there.”

My shoulders slumped and the fear began to leave my body. “I deserve to die,” I said glumly. “You’re right. I thought I could do everything myself, but I can’t. I’m a piece of shit.”

Seb shook his head. “You made the best decision for you and your company,” he said. “A lot of CEOs wouldn’t, but you’re a true businessman.”

I got to my feet and brushed my hands off on my pants. “Yeah, at the expense of another human life,” I shot back. “I can’t believe I didn’t stick up for Audrey. I should have done that.” Suddenly, I thought of her parents, poor and alone. “God damn it, Seb, there are people
counting
on Audrey. Her parents, she helps her parents. And that damn dog!”

“So stop whining about it and go find her,” Seb said. He gave me a little nudge towards the door. “We’ll look somewhere else. But you should call the cops, too.”

I shook my head. “Not doing that until we try a few more places,” I said darkly. “Hodges may have won this battle, but the war isn’t over yet.”