Page 35 of Destroyer

"You did very well Nico. Go join Porter in the kitchen. He's saving you some muffins."

"Oh, his nerves. He will eat them all with worry." The rest of Nico's words are not English as he stomps out of the room.

"You know what this means?" Knox demands, closing the door behind the boy.

"The Russians are human trafficking? Is it trafficking if the people are willing?" Willing is a bit of a stretch. These people are promised a better life in another country, but they rarely get what they are offered.

"The point is why they can start now." Knox frowns. "I am pretty close to a certain boy, close enough to make people think they could use him to get what they want. They could use him to make me open the city to their illegal immigrants."

"Porter," I shrug.

"The same boy could be used to make the Romanians open their borders to the Russians taking people out of the country."

"Nico. Fucking hell."

He might be the boy I would run blindly off to rescue, showing the same lack of common-sense Knox showed when something happened to Porter.

"I couldn't handle something happening to him again."

"Tell me about your special night," Knox encourages.

"Yes. OK. I claimed him. He was the perfect Little, and all I could think was how well he was playing everyone."

"Psychopath," Knox nods.

"He has all the traits." I don't want to agree, but the evidence is undeniable.

"A person who is manipulative, dishonest, narcissistic, unremorseful, non-empathetic, and exploitative. Also, criminality, promiscuity, and lack of responsibility." Knox reads the dictionary definition of the man I love.

"What are we going to do, boss?" I stepped away from this job, so I was free to find someone to love. He was my one. But I needed to step back from my life to see it. I had everything I ever wanted, and I didn't see it. Nico was there all the time, and he's just right for me.

"About the psychopath bit? We just love him for who he is. About the Russians? We will go to war."

"I may not be your right-hand man anymore, but you know you can rely on me every step of the way."

"You're still my right-hand man. I just have someone else to dump the drug shit onto."

"You and me." I nod.

"Except now, you don't need to worry about my dad."

"I'm worried we took Nico right to the man who proceeded to talk to his buddies about his plans to manipulate the Romanians. I literally said he spoke Romanian, called him Nicki." God damn it. Talk about lamb to the slaughter, I literally put Nico under the wolf's nose.

“If they didn't recognise him then, I doubt they are any wiser now. If they are, it could either speed up or sway them from their plans.” Knox sits back in his chair, closing his eyes as he takes a moment to think. “Forget your job here at the house. You are his personal bodyguard. Do not let him out of your sight.”

“We’ll have to tell him. Otherwise, you ask the impossible. He's too sneaky.”

“We can't put this pressure onto him. I want him with one of us at all times. You, me, Porter or Gregory. No one else. And Porter has to have a bodyguard.”

“You trust Gregory?”

“Enough to know he doesn't want his little brother in the hands of a Russian paedophile.”

“True.” I have to agree with him there. “I'll tell Gregory.”

Time to phone the man I have such mixed feelings about, while Knox informs the rest of his security staff.

Chapter twenty-three

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