DAMON: A Bad Boy MC Romance Novel (12 page)

W
hen he closed his eyes
, he could remember it. Every damn detail.

He was eight – maybe nine. His exact age escaped him. Mostly because in that moment, that very first moment, the second he’d heard the scream, he’d stopped being Damon Volanis. He became someone else. Someone that would live inside his body for the rest of his life. And
that
person was ageless. That person had been where humans weren’t supposed to go, and had come back only to find they weren’t human anymore. They were something
else.

He was coming home from the movies. He went to the movies a lot as a kid, usually alone. Cristov had too much energy to sit down for two hours at a time, and Kennick was always with his father, learning the ways of the
rom baro
. So Damon went by himself.

He remembered the movie, even if he didn’t remember his age. He had to sneak in, since it was rated R. It was
Thinner.
Based on the Stephen King story. He hadn’t been too impressed. He’d snuck into
Fargo
earlier that year, and nothing in the next two years would ever measure up to
that.
The most interesting thing about
Thinner,
to Damon, was that it was about his people. Gypsies. And they weren’t portrayed in the nicest of lights. It was more sympathetic than a lot of other portrayals, but it still wasn’t exactly kind.

It got tiring, seeing his culture used by Americans as a plot device, a gruesome
deus ex machina.
He remembered thinking, as he walked down the street, crisping fallen leaves under his sneakers, that someday he’d grow up and make a movie, too. He’d show gypsies as they really were. Beautiful and funny and full of love.

His thoughts about love and beauty were cut short as he passed the parking lot behind Turren Street. He couldn’t have told you what businesses stood in front of that parking lot. All he knew was that he was walking home from the movie theater, the same route he always took home. And someone was screaming.

Out of instinct alone, he ducked. A chain-link face separated the edge of the parking lot from a ravine, muddy and polluted. He slid slightly as he moved, grabbed the links to keep himself from tumbling downwards into the rot. Whether shadows hid him or the man was too distracted, Damon didn’t know. But his eyes widened as he watched the lady slump, her scream cut short.

He realized, after his brain had caught up to itself, that it wasn’t a man at all. He was older than Damon by a handful of years, but he was still just a boy. And the boy sniffed as he watched the lady’s body creep down the side of the car, all her limbs like spaghetti. The boy looked around, then caught the women by the underarms, dragging her up again. He pulled open the car door and threw the body inside.

He killed her,
Damon thought, wide-eyed.
He’s a murderer. I have to go – run – tell – he’ll
see me.

He looked to his right. The edge of the ravine sloped sharply down, and Damon knew that it was a good mile before the ravine opened onto the next street; it was dead-end blocks all the way down. He looked to his left. He could run across the street but;

he’ll see me, and he’ll kill me.

I can outrun him,
he thought.
He won’t see me in time and…

He looked forward. She wasn’t dead. He could see, just barely, the way her head pressed against the passenger side door. It was pressed to the side, and he watched her eye roll in its socket, her mouth opening and closing in soundless protest. The boy – the attacker – was just a shadowy hulk, moving and moving against the lady’s body.

She’s alive,
he thought.
I’ve got to get help…

He rose; leaves crackled beneath his shifting weight. The hulking shadow rose in one sharp movement, and for a horrible moment Damon saw his face through the windshield.

Did he see me? Did he see me?

The lady’s face disappeared from the window as her body was yanked underneath the shadow. A cry filled the air, high and wailing. Her hand slapped against the passenger side window as the shadow began to move above her; jerking, confusing, horrible movements. Damon didn’t know what the boy was doing to the lady. All he knew was that it was bad – bad in ways that Damon would carry with him all his life. He fought the urge to throw up. He had to do
something.

A male grunt filled the air as Damon began to creep along the chain-link fence towards the street. His eyes never left the car. The hand was pounding on the passenger side, weak but persistent. She wasn’t dead. He had time. He had time to…

When his feet hit pavement, he began to run. And a voice stopped him.

“Kid,” the voice said, booming from behind. Damon turned, almost against his will.

Keep running, stupid, keep running, keep running!
He willed his legs to move but they didn’t. The boy stared at him from the opposite side of the car; the lady’s hand had stilled against the window, her fingers curled slightly, as though she was grabbing at air.

“I know you,” the boy said, and suddenly he was in front of Damon, a blink of an eye and he was
right there,
his zipper undone and – blood. On his knuckles. “You’re one of those gypsy fucks. You go telling anyone about this, you
ever
tell
anyone
about this, you and your fuckin’ people are all
dead,
you hear? You tell anyone and I swear to god it’ll be your fuckin’ brother or your fuckin’ father in jail for this shit. You hear me?”

Damon squeaked. The boy rushed him, grabbed him by the neck of his shirt, lifted him until Damon’s toes were the only thing touching the ground. The boy smelled like sweat and rage and blood and fear and something else. He had blue eyes. He had black hair. A crooked nose, with a bump in it. Damon never forgot that face.

“No one but
no one
is going to take some shitty little gypsy boy’s word over mine, you hear?”

The boy shook Damon.

“Do you fucking understand? You point the finger at me, you little shit, and you’ll be visiting your fucking family through prison bars. And I’ll come after everyone else you love. You hear me, you little shit? DO YOU HEAR ME?”

“Yes,” Damon wailed, his hands doing futile battle with the boy’s fist around the collar of his shirt, wanting to be gone, wanting to be away from that stench, that awful smell, those horrible eyes, the boy’s spit landing on Damon’s cheeks, the whole horrid moment when the lady was hurting, when someone needed help, and all he did…all he could do…

was cry.

Damon ran, not even realizing that the boy had released him. He was a long way from where the gypsies called home. He couldn’t run the whole way.

But he could cry the whole way.

And he did.

And that was the last time Damon Volanis cried a single tear.

Men would beat him far worse than that kid yanking him upward by the collar of his shirt. Women would scream their anger at him, louder than the lady in that car. He would run harder and faster than he had that afternoon, the crisp October air stinging his lungs. His grandmother would die. His father would die. His uncle would die. He would betrayed by someone in his own
kumpania.
He would watch his brothers find love while his heart festered and boiled, alone in its shell of ribs. He would fight men, beat them until they gasped. He would kill a man. But he would never cry again.

T
ricia gazed
at Damon’s profile. His eyes were steady on the road before them, his hands not too tight on the steering wheel. He’d told the story like he was reciting a college essay, all the emotion subdued by carefully chosen words. But he didn’t need to tell the story with dramatics for Tricia to understand how deeply the incident had affected him; how something had changed in him that day, and that something was somehow connected to this trip.

“
Y
ou were so young
,” she said. “What could you have done?”

“I could have gone forward,” he said. “I could have gone to the police.”

Yes, you could have,
Tricia thought.
But at what cost? And what eight-year-old boy knows the right thing to do in a situation like that?

“Did you ever see him again?” she asked, not wanting to move too quickly into the darker stuff.

“I did,” Damon said, nodding slightly. “A few times. On the street. He lived near our trailer park. He never really seemed to see me, though. And we didn’t stick around long after that, anyway. When something bad happens in a city where you have gypsies, it doesn’t take much for gossip to get real sour real quick.”

Tricia nodded, remembering how Kingdom had reacted when the gypsies first arrived. Everyone had assumed they were up to no good. Thirty years ago, a young girl’s death had been blamed on the gypsies, even though they were cleared of all charges. Present day hadn’t shown much of a change in that sort of attitude.

“And then I saw him once more,” Damon said, clearing his throat. “About ten, eleven years ago. I was just getting into fighting, maybe a few years in. That’s why I got into fighting. I got into it because of him. I always felt…I just needed something to make me feel strong, to make me feel like I was in control. And fighting did that.”

Tricia thought about that, thought it made sense. The most productive thing she’d done in her time away was kickboxing classes. She understood Damon’s passion for fighting better than most. When someone takes away your power, you’ll spend a long time and a lot of energy trying to get it back.

“I saw him at a fight in Massachusetts. Outside of Boston. He was spectating at the time, but I found out later that he was involved in the rings, too. He had ten years on me, so we were never thrown in together.”

“That’s a hell of a coincidence,” Tricia mused softly. “I mean, the both of you ending up in underground fighting? And seeing him at that fight?”

“Maybe,” Damon shrugged. “Or maybe I knew a big guy like that, whose principle interests were hurting innocent people, might end up a fighter. Subconsciously, you know. Or maybe it was fate.”

Tricia fought to contain her own cynical opinion on fate. This wasn’t the time or the place for that.

“So did you get to fight him?” she asked instead. He shook his head.

“We moved again after the Massachusetts fight. I tried to keep tabs on him, but he slipped in and out of the scene. And most guys won’t put two men with ten years between ‘em against each other. Odds are too skewed to one side. I left some money in some pockets up and down the coast. I’ve been waiting a long time for that to pay off.”

Tricia wasn’t stupid. She didn’t need to take long to figure out that she was about to get an answer to the question he’d been avoiding ever since they left Kingdom behind.

“And are you done waiting?” she asked, the question more of a statement.

“I am,” he said. “He’s broke, and he’s desperate. He’ll fight anyone. I don’t know if he knows that a man named Damon’s been looking for him, but he agreed to the fight once he found out the size of the paycheck.”

“You don’t think he knows you’ve got this vendetta?” Tricia asked, brow furrowed.

“I never told anyone why I wanted to fight him. And I paid well enough that most guys should have known to keep their mouths shut. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. If he doesn’t know now, he’ll know soon enough. The thing that matters is that it’s going to happen. I’m going to give that guy every inch of hell he gave that woman, with some extra thrown in for myself.”

“And then you think you’ll be all fixed up,” Tricia said, gazing out the window, feeling unsettled. Her tone betrayed her attempt to look stoic.

“I don’t know,” Damon said. “I’ve always hoped so. But I take it you don’t think it’ll work that way.”

Tricia sighed, looked back at him. Strong and handsome and smart and so damn
sturdy;
but just human, after all. Just like her. Just like this guy.

When she didn’t respond, he kept talking.

“I did some pretty dumb shit along the way. I fought a lot of guys I didn’t want to fight, just to keep myself in the ring, to keep my connections strong. I fought for money, which I never really wanted or needed. And then, I started pushing thirty, and I felt like I was going to lose my edge, lose my chance. So I started taking steroids. That was the dumbest thing of all.”

Tricia breathed deeply, steadily, taking that in. Damon seemed like he was too smart for drugs, but it just went to show what a man will do to heal the hurt inside him. She wanted, in that moment, to curl her fingers around his; to ask him if
she
could heal that hurt, instead of him looking for answers where there were none. But she didn’t.

“I stopped, pretty quick,” he said. “But the damage was done. My brothers didn’t trust me. And I – I did a lot of shit while I was doping that I’m not proud of. I was jacked up when…”

He didn’t need to say it. He looked at Tricia and saw the understanding in her eyes. The silence slipped up between them again, choking and hard.

“What’s his name?” she asked, instead of speaking her mind. He slipped her a look, taking in her careful diversion.

“Curly,” he said, and a smirk on his lips made Tricia’s heart fall even further. “Isn’t that a stupid fucking name?”

“It is,” she said, offering him a wan smile in response. “It’s a really stupid name.”

And you’re doing a very stupid thing,
she thought, looking out the window again.
And I’m the very stupid woman who’s going along with it.

“
H
i
, Detective Warren? I’m a reporter for the Providence Sentinel, and we’re starting a series on unsolved crimes, I was hoping to ask you a few questions.”

Ricky had gotten the detective’s name from the public records available on the case, then tracked down his phone number – he was old enough to still have a landline listed in the phone book. Her skills as a reporter definitely worked in her advantage – including the ability to fib the truth just enough to get what she wanted.

“Oh,” said the voice on the other end of the phone. “Well, it’s been awhile since anyone called me
Detective
Warren. Mr. Warren usually does just fine now that I’m retired. Ah, I suppose…well, what exactly are you looking to ask me about?”

“There was a case about twenty years ago – a woman was assaulted and raped in a parking lot?”

“Oh,” the man said, sounding considerably less congenial. “Yes, I remember that case. Doesn’t seem worth reporting on now, though…you said you’re with the Sentinel?”

“Yes, sir,” Ricky said, tapping the point of her pen against the blank sheet of paper in front of her, all ready for scribbling. “The series is mostly about what happens when a case goes cold. The public loves things like that. And you know, there have actually been situations where people have called in with new information on very old cases…”

“Yeah, and it’s usually a bunch of hogwash,” the detective snapped. Ricky grit her teeth, hoping she hadn’t blown it already. Then he sighed, and she knew from the sound of it that he would play ball. “But I’ve got nothing else to do today. Go ahead and ask away.”

“Well, to start off, if you can remember, what sort of evidence, exactly, were you able to get from the crime scene? You know, most people think of blood stains, DNA, fingerprints…”

“Lifting fingerprints isn’t half as easy as they make it look on the TV,” he said, sounding tired. “We found the piece of wood that he used to hit her. She had splinters in her head, there was some blood on the weapon. But it was an old, dirty, splintery wet plank of wood. Blood dries, you can scrape it off. Fingerprints, they don’t work that way.”

“And there was nothing on the car, or on her?”

“I wish there was,” the detective said. “But fabric’s tough, too, and the kid was smart enough to wipe down whatever else he might have touched, like the door handle. We got some DNA, though. A few pubic hairs that didn’t match the victim. Some semen – little fuck didn’t get off, but he left a little juice in there all the same.”

Ricky cringed.
Juice.
Not the most scientific way of describing something like that. Or the most tactful, in her opinion.

“Didn’t get anything from under her fingernails, figure she was too knocked out by then to do much in the way of fighting back.”

“But none of the evidence ever led you to an arrest,” Ricky said, scribbling into her notebook.

“No,” he said. “This was the eighties, mind you. We didn’t have fancy computers to run tests. Hell, we barely had the funding to run the tests on the rape kit. And, you know, even now, you don’t just look at DNA evidence and get a photograph of the perp on your screen. You just get little clues and shit. Unless the guy is already in the, you know, database or whatever, you’re still flying pretty blind when it comes to finding someone to arrest.”

“Right, right,” Ricky said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the little punk tried it again and got himself caught, but I guess I’ll never know.”

“You keep saying ‘kid’ and ‘little punk’. What made you think it was a kid?” Ricky remembered the reports, how the police had been looking for a teenager.

“Well, that school for fuck-ups was right near there,” the old man said. “They were always causing trouble. And we did have someone come forward as a witness.”

“You did?” Ricky said, surprised now. That certainly hadn’t come up in her research.

“Yeah, but it wasn’t worth shit in the end,” he said, his voice belying an old but persistent frustration. “She was a real estate agent, had an office on that block. Working late. Providence isn’t Vegas, you know, and where it happened was in a real quiet neighborhood. Most businesses down there closed up early.

But she was working late, this lady, hadn’t closed up yet. She said she saw two kids that day. One was a boy, young enough to probably still sing soprano in the choir. Black hair. Running like hell down the street. We never found him. But we also didn’t try that hard. He was too young to be the perp, and maybe he saw something, or maybe he was just a ten-year-old boy running home to avoid a whooping, you know?”

“Uh-huh,” Ricky said, feeling her heart beat pick up slightly.

“The other one, though, we thought we knew who she was talking about. A junior at the school, someone we’d had to talk to before. A real fucking asshole. Always harassing girls on the street and in class, lurking around getting himself into shit. Meanest little punk I ever dealt with. Had a stupid name, too, Curly Gottlieb. Maybe that’s why he was such a fucked-up little shit.”

The detective’s language was getting more colorful by the sentence, and Ricky noted the intensity of his dislike for the suspect.

“Did you arrest him?” she asked, brow furrowed as she continued making notes, her pen scratching against the paper.

“On what charges? Walking down the street? No. We went and talked to him. Tried to scare him. He didn’t flinch. Said he didn’t have to answer any questions. And he didn’t. You can’t go arresting minors because they’re seen somewhere near a crime. Even if they
do
kind of match the
very
vague description given by a victim who’s suffering a concussion.

No, we would have been up to our ears in legal shit if we tried to bring him in. He came from a good family, believe it or not. And he didn’t have any priors, just a bad reputation. We kept an eye on him –
I
kept an eye on him – for years after that, hoping he’d get himself into some real trouble so we could get some DNA. But he kept his stupid pig-nose clean until his family moved out of town when he graduated.”

“And nothing else ever came of the case? No new suspects or…”

“Nope,” Detective Warren said. She could tell by the shortening clip of his tone that he wouldn’t be up for much more talking. It seemed to be taking a lot out of him. He confirmed this suspicion with a sigh.

“Listen, I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. Truth is, I hated working that case. It was one of those that you wind up carrying around the rest of your life. Always wishing things had been different. Always wishing you could have done more. You should have seen the look in that poor girl’s eyes…Jesus, that was a hard one. I’m retired now, though. I try to keep my past in my past. Got enough baggage to carry to the grave without adding anyone else’s.”

“I understand, Detective,” Ricky said. ‘Thank you so much for your time, and for, you know, dredging all this up for me. It’s been a great help.”

“Sure, sure,” he said. “Good luck on your article. Hey, give me a call when it comes out, huh? I always did like seeing my name in the ol’ black and white.”

“Will do, sir,” Ricky said before hanging up, feeling only the slightest twang of guilt over her deception. What she felt guiltier about was forcing the old man to remember something painful, for no reason.

She wasn’t sure what she truly expected to learn from the call, but she’d hoped
something
would come up. All she had now was the possibility – the barest possibility – that Damon had been near the scene of the crime when it happened. Which, at best, meant he might have seen it happen. That would be traumatic for anyone, let alone an eight-year-old boy. No wonder he saved the articles.
If
that was him running down the street.
If
he’d seen it.

That was a lot of
if’s
.