Page 69 of Damon

“I always wanted to be a cop,” I answer immediately. “Ever since I was a kid, all I wanted to be was one of the boys in blue.”

My mind wanders back to the day I officially became an officer and swore my allegiance to the force along with my fairness, integrity, diligence, and impartiality. How the fuck things change.

Connie had stood with my mother and beamed throughout the whole boring process. She was so proud of me for achieving what I had set out to do, and that night she’d rewarded me well. Although she knew in the end that my career has taken a darker turn, she accepted the men I worked with outside the confines of the police. I was never sure how much she was aware of about my dealings. We rarely discussed my work; home was a place of calm and happiness, not blood, crime, and gore. Perhaps I shielded her from it, or perhaps she never truly wanted to know.

“In all honesty,” I say to Harrison, “if I leave the force that will be another connection to Connie gone, and I am not sure I am ready for that.”

“In what way?” he asks, clearly interested in my reasoning.

“Being Connie’s husband and a police officer has been my identity for two decades—it’s who I am. It was who I wanted to be. I’m no longer her husband, but I can still be the man she was so proud of.”

“Her pride in you will never change, Damon,” he says simply. “She loved you as the man you are, not the job you had. She was proud because you believed in good defeating evil. I don’t believe for one moment she thought you were one hundred percent on the right side of the law. I mean, look at the friends you keep.” He grins at me and I laugh. “If you’ve convinced yourself of that, you’re an idiot.”

“No, she was aware, though she never really wanted to know. She wanted to keep our home life separate, and I respected that, but then maybe if I had been more honest about the danger she might never have died.”

“Bullshit,” he snaps. “Don’t kid yourself. She was a tragic victim and would have been whether she knew or not.”

“Maybe,” I mutter, the familiar guilt consuming my thoughts.

“What about Emma?” he asks. “What does she know about you? Your job? Your life?”

“Not much, though she asks plenty of questions. I was interrogated before coming out tonight thanks to Hunter and his fucking mouth telling her we had a sting.”

Harrison laughs out loud. “She’s a lawyer, what do you expect? She also has experience in this world. There’s no way you will be able to tell her everything is okay and she’ll believe you. That woman will want evidence.”

“She wanted to come with us,” I tell him, and he presses his lips together in an attempt to hide his grin. “She demanded to know what’s going on. She knows everything is connected and that Moreno is involved. Luckily, I managed to convince her that Annie needed her at home more than we did here.”

“And how did you manage to leave without her?”

“I told her the sting was canceled.”

“Did she believe you?”

“I fucking doubt it.”

***

Emma

Damon’s office is locked. Bastard. He gave me some cock and bull story about his sting being canceled tonight, and that he was meeting Harrison at The Level for a few drinks. I don’t believe him. My gut tells me this is his idiotic attempt at protecting me from a situation I’m already up to my neck in. After listening to his justification, I decided to use the opportunity of him not being here to my advantage and try to find out exactly what he and his friends are involved in.

The security team is onsite twenty-four hours a day. They walk the grounds and stand guard at both the front and rear doors of the house. Damon had tried to suggest one man should be stationed inside the house, but I told him no. When he challenged me, I won the argument by sucking his dick. “We couldn’t do this in the middle of the living room if a guard was in the house,” I mumbled around his cock. He’d groaned, grabbed my hair, fucked my mouth, shot his load, then agreed willingly. I had smiled to myself—one point to me.

Now, I am standing outside his office with a set of pliers and two paperclips wondering how the hell I can get inside. I searched everywhere for the key that would unlock the door. I’d hoped it would be in a plant pot or something, but I had no luck in tracking it down. I’ve watched a few YouTube videos on lock picking; I can get it to open with the tools in my hand.

The lawyer in me needs to know what’s going on, the teenager who lost her parents more so. I straighten out the metal and start fiddling with the lock in the doorknob. It bends and twists, but nothing seems to click or open.

After twenty minutes of battling, I stand back and glare at the still-closed door. The chrome is scratched from my attempts. I bristle, knowing he’s not going to be happy when he returns. Deciding that I may as well try again because I am going to be caught anyway due to my piss-poor attempt at lockpicking, I restart my task.

Five minutes later, the latch releases, and I open the door.

The office is meticulously laid out. His desk has nothing but his computer and a photo frame laid face-down on it. To the right-hand side is a wall of shelves filled with files. Each one is labeled with a code, a letter and a number. I walk over and run my fingers across the dark blue box files. The nosey bitch in me wants to start opening them and devouring what’s inside. I have no doubt in these files is a mountain of information on career criminals, but most importantly on Damon McKinney, the man I desire to know everything about.

I move to sit in the high-backed chair behind his desk. I lean back with my feet on the floor and place my hands on the armrests. He’ll be so pissed off when he finds out I’ve been in here, but I’ll need to tell him, because otherwise he’ll blame someone else, someone who may get the harsh side of his wrath. I’m confident I will be able to soothe him using other methods.

Unsure what I am looking for, my eyes roam around the room. There’s nothing obvious that has been recently moved or read. The desk has a drawer along the top; my fingertips crawl below the wood and pull. When it doesn’t move, I sigh, annoyed. Why the fuck would he lock a drawer in a locked office, inside a fucking security-protected home?

Probably to stop nosey little bitches looking at documents they’re not meant to. I giggle to myself—shit, I will be in so much trouble—but I start picking that lock too.

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