Page 38 of Damron
We drifted back to business. The bank transfers, the photos, the growing list of enemies. But as the bottle emptied, the tone shifted. We started to mirror each other—him slouched deeper into the couch, me drawing circles on the condensation ring left by my glass. When I reached for the pizza box, our hands brushed, and instead of pulling away, he let his hand rest there, warm and solid, like he was staking a claim.
“You ever wonder,” I said, not sure where I was going, “if we could’ve made it work without all the—” I waved a hand at the air, “—blood and fire and bullshit?”
He didn’t answer right away. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than I’d ever heard it. “Not a day goes by.”
I felt the campaign mask slip, just a little. Maybe it was the exhaustion, or the whiskey, or the way the apartment had started to feel like a bunker built for two. But for the first time in months, I let myself be something other than bulletproof.
“Then why did you let me go?” I said. It sounded petulant, even to my own ears, but I didn’t care.
He leaned in, close enough for me to smell the whiskey on his breath. “You know damn well why.”
The air between us went tight. He put his hand on my cheek, rough and sure, and for a second I was convinced he was going to kiss me. I wanted him to. I wanted to let the world burn downaround us, just for a night. I felt my pulse jackhammer against my ribs, the adrenaline mixing with whatever was left of the old love and making my head spin. But just as his lips brushed mine, his phone screamed from the coffee table—an emergency alert, the one only the club used when shit was about to hit the fan.
He jerked back, grabbed the phone, and thumbed the screen. His face went pale, then hard. “We’ve got a problem,” he said, voice stripped of all softness.
I looked at him, at the man who’d ruined and rebuilt me more times than I could count. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit him, or maybe just let him hold me for one more second. But instead I squared my shoulders, wiped my eyes, and reached for my own phone. Because that was who we were now. Not lovers. Not even friends. Just two people waiting for the next disaster, and hoping to make it out alive.
The next day would be worse. It always was.
Chapter fourteen
Carly
Iwatched from a busted armchair, curled up in my usual campaign blazer and sweatpants, hair a bird’s nest from the night before. I tried to keep out of the way, but Damron and Nitro worked with the single-mindedness of men who didn’t believe in bystanders. The table between them was covered with printouts, thumb drives, and three cell phones—one for club business, one for “civvies,” and one that looked like it could detonate a Russian missile silo.
As I watched Damron, I had no doubt what direction our relationship was going to go. A United States Senator could not be fucking an outlaw biker. Plain and simple. There was nothing I could do or change that ideology. That meant, I would have to walk out on Damron a second time.
“Start with the cash,” Damron said, voice raw from too many late nights and cigarettes. I wondered how many women he’d been with since the day I walked. It was no secret that a single biker had an endless amount of pussy awaiting. Women wanted that bad boy even though most could never live or handle hislifestyle. I’d traded the unknown for the known and fucking hated that I had.
Nitro grunted and grabbed a stack of bank statements, flipping through with blackened fingertips. Every page was a death sentence for someone. I glanced at the top sheet—a spreadsheet with color-coded cells and a column labeled “Wire Transfers, Offshore.” The sums were sickening.
Nitro stabbed a finger at the red highlight. “Right there. Fifteen large, Cayman Islands, routed through a shell in Nevada.” He flicked to the next page. “Then another thirty, same account, next week. Bastard’s laundering it through a consulting firm that doesn’t even have a working phone number.”
Damron nodded, jaw locked. He wore the morning’s stubble like body armor, and the veins on his hands stood out against the battered ledger he thumbed open. I watched his eyes as he read—quick, ruthless, hungry for the next link. He found it, traced it with a ragged nail, and tapped twice. Though he was ten years older, and his life had been much harder than mine, he had a youth about him that made him endearing, almost boyish.
“‘Barnett Tech. Santa Fe, NM. Shipments: agricultural equipment.’” He looked up at Nitro, and there was nothing in his face but contempt. “Who the fuck needs a combine harvester in the high desert?”
Nitro smirked. “Only thing growing out there is weed and bad ideas. You know what this is.”
I did. Arms shipments, masked as farm gear. Textbook.
Damron flipped the page, and a photo slid out—grainy, telephoto, snapped from a moving car. Giammati, perfect in a pressed suit, shaking hands with a man whose face I recognized only from the board’s “Do Not Engage” wall: Ghost, the Dire Straits’ president, and the man who’d burned down half my life. The two of them looked like long-lost cousins at a mob wedding. I felt my stomach twist.
“Jesus,” I said, not bothering to keep my voice down. “That’s at the old airstrip. They’re not even trying to hide it.”
“They never do,” Damron said, rolling his neck until it popped. “They count on us being too scared or too dead to show receipts.” He passed the photo to Nitro, who gave it a slow, appreciative once-over.
“Means they’re close to a big move,” Nitro said. “Giammati’s probably paying for the next hit with cash from this quarter’s campaign donations.”
My campaign, I thought. My donors. My goddamn city.
“Show her the manifests,” Damron said. He didn’t look at me when he said it, but his tone left no doubt: I was on the hook now. No more plausible deniability.
Nitro flicked his wrist and a printout landed in my lap. It was a shipping log, two pages, with a column for “Pallet Contents” and another for “Destination.” Every other entry was labeled “Parts—Tractor,” “Parts—Irrigation,” or, hilariously, “Seeds.” But the weights didn’t match. One “Parts” pallet was listed at nearly 900 pounds, and I’d bet my remaining career it wasn’t packing spark plugs and fertilizer.
“Confirmed delivery to a warehouse,” Nitro said. “We sent a prospect to peek last night. Place is locked up tighter than Giammati’s asshole, but the guards had Arizona patches.”
The Dire Straits. Again.
