Page 42 of Damon

“What do we do if we get caught snooping around?” I moved to the sink, checking out my reflection in the fancy mirror. My pupils were dilated in response to the rush of excitement.

“Pretend we got lost looking for the bathroom, I guess.” Damon shrugged. “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”

Moving slowly, he eased the bathroom door open, listening for any sound in the hall before poking his head out. When he determined that everything was clear, he waved a hand for me to follow.

We moved with careful steps, going in the opposite direction from the staircase. Everything was quiet. The only sound being my frantic breaths. We passed a few closed doors that Damon didn’t stop to bother with. He continued until he reached the last door at the end of the long hall.

He tried the handle, finding it locked. He surprised me by pulling lock picking tools from his pocket, immediately getting to work. “Keep an eye out in case anyone comes.”

I turned to watch the lengthy hallway. The house was so massive that I couldn’t even see the top of the staircase from where we were. Behind me, Damon swore a few times as he worked. It seemed to take forever.

Finally, I heard him say, “Fuck yeah.”

Opening the door, he grabbed my wrist, dragging me into the room behind him before closing the door quietly. The room was dark, making it hard to see in the sudden absence of light. Using the screen light from his burner phone, Damon began to explore the room. I stuck to him like glue, following closely.

A king size bed in a heavy wooden four poster frame sat against one wall in the middle of the room. A sofa set near the window overlooked the backyard. A fireplace next to it. The walk-in closet was big enough to live inside. That’s where Damon headed.

“That was easy enough.” He stood in front of a safe tucked under some blankets in the corner of the closet. Not all that big, it was about a foot long and a foot wide. Whatever was in a safe that small had to be quite valuable.

“What now?” I asked. “You just take the whole thing?”

“Yep. Should be easy enough, as long as we can get out of the house. The best man said there would be a back stairway for emergency use nearby. Nobody should see us.” Damon knocked the blankets off the safe before bending to pick it up.

A shiver crept along my spine, tickling the back of my neck. Something didn’t feel right. Maybe I expected it to be more difficult. However, I couldn’t shake this gut feeling that it wouldn’t be as easy as Damon anticipated.

Unfortunately, my feelings were quickly confirmed.

The bedroom door burst open, slamming against the wall. A man’s voice came next, shouting, “Who the fuck is in here? I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

I let out a little shriek as the groom appeared in the closet doorway, a gun in one hand. He roughly shoved me aside, knocking me into the wall as he rushed toward Damon.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Robbing me on my wedding day in my own house? Who even are you?”

Abandoning the safe, Damon stood up in time to block the gun as the groom swung it toward his face. “Your worst fucking nightmare if you put your hands on my girl again. I didn’t come here to kill you, but I’m open to the possibility.”

“Don’t make a move. The police have already been called. You tripped a silent alarm, you goddamn idiot.” His arm shaking, the groom jerked back, aiming his gun at Damon.

The police? I didn’t think my adrenaline could pound any harder. Sucking in heavy breaths, I did my best to keep from passing out. Clutching the wall as I tried to stay on my feet.

The mention of the police spurred Damon into motion. He tackled the groom to the floor, grabbing for his gun arm. The two of them wrestled around on the floor of the large closet, each fighting for control of the gun.

I may have only seen this kind of thing in the movies but it never ended well. Not knowing what to do, I stood in the closet doorway, watching in horror. Should I go find Noah and Dom? Make a run for it?

There was no way I could leave Damon behind. Watching him take a punch as he fought desperately to tear the gun from the groom’s grasp made me sick. I couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to him.

That’s the moment I realized how much had changed between us. At some point, I’d stopped loathing him. Forming some type of actual feelings toward him instead. Feelings that were affectionate. Possibly even more than that.

When the gun went off, I screamed. There was a moment of shattered stillness that followed. My lungs momentarily stopped working. Everything that mattered hung in the balance. In that one delicate second when I had no idea who’d been shot.

As Damon shoved himself off the groom, I almost collapsed in relief. He was fine. Blood spread across the middle of the groom’s white shirt, the gun fallen to the floor at his side.

Damon paused long enough to use one of the blankets to wipe his prints off the gun. Then he grabbed my hand, dragging me along behind him as we ran from the room. He took care to wipe down the bedroom door handle with his sleeve on the way out.

“We don’t have much time,” he said, glancing up and down the hall before steering me down an intersecting corridor that would take us further away from the main staircase. “There should be a back exit this way.”

He pulled his phone out as we ran, managing to remain calm enough to call Noah. All he said was, “Get out. Now.”

We came to a small narrow staircase that took us back downstairs and into a porch with a door that brought us out on the side of the house. I wasn’t sure how I managed to run in the heels I wore. Sheer adrenaline fueled me. Somehow, we made it back to the car.