House of Paine - (A Romantic Suspense - Book 2) (8 page)

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D
amien woke up with a start the next morning. Paige was wrapped around him and he immediately processed that she was safe and they were still in Roxi’s home. Something was needling at him in the back of his brain however. When it finally came to the surface the pain and the anger of it all returned once more. Kevin is his father. Jackson forced everyone involved to pretend like Damien was his son. Damien wondered who else knew the truth. He also wondered what he would say to Kevin when they came face to face.

He untangled Paige’s long limbs from his; letting his lips skim the side of her face as he did. She was so exhausted that she didn’t flinch as he laid her on her side and slipped out of bed. He stood next to the bed and looked down at her. She’s gorgeous and he felt more connected to her than he had anyone else in his life, ever. He felt desire welling up inside of him again, but he didn’t want to wake her. Instead, he gathered his clothes quietly and went into the bathroom to shower.

As the water cascaded down across his back he tried to come to grips with all that had happened. He knew for certain that the only good thing that had come of his life was Paige and he wasn’t about to lose her. She’d been able to see through his rough exterior and all of his defenses. She was the only person in his life besides his Uncle Kevin who really knew him. She made him want to be the man that she saw when she looked at him.

As far as Kevin went, Damien didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Was he supposed to be angry? Was he supposed to be relieved? The fact that the man he’d thought was his father all along was bordering on being absent of all conscience made him less angry at Kevin than he may have been otherwise. Being told that Jackson wasn’t his father was definitely a relief. But that still didn’t relieve Kevin of his responsibility here. He had a responsibility to tell Damien that he was his father...didn’t he?

Damien shut off the shower and as he dried his body he thought about all of the times in the past ten years he’d wanted to defy Jackson and leave. He didn’t because the one time he’d actually tried, Jackson had looked him in the eye and stuck a knife into his side. Damien let his fingers brush against the scar. Kevin was there that day. Jackson had nearly killed him for interfering. Damien was sure that if Kevin had tried to tell anyone Damien was his son...if he had made Jackson lose face with the men he controlled...Kevin would be dead. So how could he really hold that against him?

Once he was dressed he went back into the bedroom and looked at Paige again. She’d turned on her side and her hair was fanned out across the pillow underneath her. He felt the tug again. He was going to have to leave the bedroom, or he was going to have to wake her up. He’d never been so incredibly attracted to a woman in his life. He opened the bedroom door quietly and closed it gently behind him. When he got to the living room he found Crystal standing and looking out the window.

“Good morning,” she said when she saw him. She looked much better than she had the day before.

“Morning. Is Roxi here?”

“She and Jake left a bit ago. He was going to New York and she said she had a breakfast meeting in Providence. She told me to let you and Paige know she’d be at the club after that if either of you need anything.”

“Okay,” he started to walk towards the kitchen when she said,

“Damien...”

He stopped and looked at her. Paige looked a lot like her mother minus the rough edges. It was apparent when you looked at Crystal that her life hadn’t been easy. Damien wanted to do all he could to make sure that Paige was able to have a normal one after all of this. “Yes?”

“I didn’t know about you and your brother...but I did find photos of your mother when I lived with Jackson. She was a beautiful woman. When I asked Jackson who she was he told me the truth...he said that she was his first love. I never got over the loss of my husband so when Jackson told me that he’d fallen so deeply in love with her as a young man that there would always be a part of him that loved her, I understood. I asked him what happened to her and my mind keeps going back to what he said now.”

She paused for a long time and finally Damien asked, “What did he say?”

“He said that she was too good for him. He said that he was afraid that who he was then would taint her somehow and that was the only reason he let her go. I wish I would have realized it then...but I think he was trying to tell me what he was. That was around the time that my son was trying to tell me and I was refusing to believe him.”

“I’m sorry...why are you telling me this?” Damien asked her.

“I just thought that with all that is going on, it might help you to know that even Jackson with his soul as black as the night, saw the goodness in your mother. It reminds me of the way my daughter sees it in you. I wish he would have seen it in me...then maybe he would have let me go then too...”

“Crystal, it wasn’t Jackson’s choice to let my mother go. She had to barter part of her own soul to get away from him. We all do. That’s what it’s going to take for me too, I suppose.” He walked away then and went outside. The morning air felt good in his lungs. He could taste the salt from the ocean in the air. He pulled his throwaway phone out of his pocket and dialed the number of the person he most needed to talk to today.

“Hello?”

“Alex, it’s me.”

“Jesus Damien. You’ve made such a mess of things.”

“I know. I need to see you.”

“Fuck man. How am I supposed to do that? He’ll kill me too if he finds out I’ve been sneaking around meeting with you behind his back.”

“Alex...remember the way we used to be. You always had my back growing up. You never let anyone mess with me. I need you. I need my brother.”

“Shit. Meet me at the Pier in Providence at noon.”

“You’ll be alone?”

“I’m still your brother.”

“Thank you.”

“Shit.” Damien actually smiled when he hung up. Alex, like his father, can be the biggest ass in the world...but Damien knows that nobody left on this earth loves him the way that his brother does. He was taking a huge risk asking Alex to help him...but he was beginning to feel stir crazy and out of options. When he went back into the house he found Paige and her mother in the kitchen having coffee. Crystal excused herself as soon as he came inside. Damien poured himself a cup of the coffee and sat down with Paige. She smiled at him. Her smiles gave him strength.

“How are you doing this morning?” She asked him.

“Hanging in,” he said. The truth was that he still felt lie a complete mess inside, but Paige had her own demons to battle, he wasn’t going to keep putting his on her as well.

“Does Jackson know...about Kevin being your father?”

“Yeah, he’s always known. He chose to control the situation to his advantage as usual.” Paige shook her head. Jackson Paine really did think he was God.

“I wish I knew what to say to help you through this.”

Damien smiled. “You don’t have to say a word. I’m just really glad I had you to talk to about it or I might really lose my fucking mind.”

Paige laughed sadly and said, “In this family if you haven’t lost your mind yet...I think you’re doing okay.”

“True story,” Damien said with a grin.

“What are you going to do with that information?”

“I have an idea...but I’m not sure how you’ll feel about it.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve you getting hurt or killed, I’m willing to listen.”

“I called my brother.” Paige made a face and Damien smiled. “I know that you don’t like or trust Alex...with good reason. But, he’s my big brother and no matter what his faults he’s the one person left in my life who has always been there. I may be a fool but I don’t think that Alex would hurt me. He talks a good game in front of Jackson...”

“Um...I’m sorry to interrupt, but the day he came to your apartment looking for the evidence...he seemed pretty serious when he told you that he would hurt you to get it.”

“He has a temper, but so do I. Think about it Paige...he had every opportunity to hurt or kill me that day and a lot of days in between. He stopped my father’s thugs from killing me yesterday. He’s programmed as my older brother to protect me and I still trust him. I hope that you trust me enough to understand that I need to do this.”

Paige sat silently and looked into his eyes for a long time like she was searching for something. Finally she said, “I do trust you Damien, implicitly. Please just remember that although you might not have Jackson’s DNA running through your body...Alex does.”

Damien nodded. “I won’t forget.”

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T
here was something that Damien needed to do before he met with his brother. At eleven a.m. he walked into Roxi’s club. The place wasn’t open yet so it was quiet. He found a blonde girl behind the bar doing inventory. “Hi, is Roxi around?”

“She’s upstairs in her office. Who are you?”

“I’m Damien, her cousin.” The bartender called up to the office and after a second she told Damien,

“Roxi says to go on up.”

Damien made his way up the narrow steps. He found Roxi behind her desk doing something on the computer. Her office was as immaculate as she always was. He wondered how deeply the control gene ran through their blood.

“Hey! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I needed to talk to you about that letter.” She stopped what she was doing and focused her full attention on him. “Have you talked to your Dad since you gave it to me yesterday?”

“Yes, this morning. He asked me how you were. That’s why I wondered if you were okay. It all sounded a little ominous...but in this family, it usually is.”

Damien had to smile at that. “Yeah, we’d give the Adams family a run for their money, that’s for sure. I’m not sure how to say this, so I’m just going to say it. That letter was from my mother as you know. It told me that Jackson Paine is not my father.”

Roxi’s eyes widened, but that was the only part of her expression that changed. “Did she say who is?”

“Yeah, that’s the part that involves you. It’s Kevin.” Now her face showed her shock.

“What the fuck?”

“He and my mother had an affair and I was created.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. My mother and father split up when I was three but he was always there for me. He was actually more there for me than she was. I can’t imagine him having a son that he didn’t claim.”

“He didn’t have a choice...I guess.”

“That mother-fucker! Jackson! He would have lost face if people found out that his wife was having an affair...with his brother no less.”

“Yep. Apparently he did either beat or have Kevin beaten to within an inch of his life. He threatened him and my mother. It was the only way she obtained her freedom. She told him that if he let her take Alex and I away from the business...she would keep her mouth shut. She wouldn’t even tell me. Kevin went along with it because if he didn’t...”

“People would have died.”

“Like people do around Jackson Paine.”

Roxi sat there stunned for several minutes. Then she said, “I guess this explains why I’ve always liked you so much more than I did your asshole brother.”

Damien laughed again. “I guess you never imagined you’d end up with a brother at this stage in your life.”

“Nope. I guess you never imagined you’d end up with a smart, savvy, sexy sister like me, huh?”

Still laughing he said, “No, I would have never imagined.” It felt good to joke about it. It relieved some of the tension. He liked Roxi too. He was glad if he had to have a sister all of a sudden, it was her.

“So now what?” she asked him.

He looked at the clock on the wall. “I’m meeting with Alex at noon.”

“Shit! For what?”

“You sound like Paige.”

“The girl is smart. Don’t trust him, Damien.”

“I have to tell you the same thing I told Paige. He’s my brother, no matter what. I have to trust him. I need his help.”

“Fuck. Well, it was nice having a brother for a minute.”

“You give a guy a lot of confidence,” he told her.

“I’m a realist and the fact here is that Alex is his father’s son. He might care about you...but he’s committed to your father. I’m not sure that you’re not making a grave mistake here, Damien.”

“I’ve given it a lot of thought, Roxi. We can’t use the evidence we have to bring the Kramer’s down without destroying our family. I know that you don’t want your father...”

“Our father.” Damien hadn’t quite accepted that yet. He just nodded and said,

“He doesn’t deserve to be in prison. In spite of the things he’s had to do in order to survive...”

“I agree.”

“The only way I’ll be able to do this is with help on the inside.”

“And what makes you think Alex will help you?”

“He’s my brother for one thing...and he’s as addicted to power as Jackson is.”

“Meaning? You think he’ll betray Jackson for a place at the top?”

“I’m banking on it,” Damien told her.

“Shit,” Roxi said again.

*****

D
amien saw his brother standing on the edge of the pier looking down at the water. So many times in the past ten years he wished that they could go back in time to when he was that nineteen year old kid who looked up to his twenty-one year old brother and both of them had hopes for the future. Alex had definitely changed. Damien often wondered if the ruthlessness and callousness that his brother exhibited in his daily life now was always there. He wondered if you had to be born with that kind of thing...or if in ten short years you could learn it as well as Alex had.

Alex turned and spotted him when Damien was just a few feet away. He didn’t look happy, but Damien hadn’t expected him to. “Hey. He thinks I’m down at the docks. I have to head back within the hour before he starts to wonder what the hell is taking me so long.”

Damien nodded. He was well aware of the close tabs that Jackson kept on his “sons.” “Walk with me, I’ll try and make this as quick as possible.” Damien walked towards the sandy beach and Alex followed him. Damien loved the ocean. He missed the California beaches that he and Alex had grown up on. He missed the days of surfing with his brother and hanging out around a bonfire at night without a care in the world. He thought about the long days during summer that he and Alex had spent swimming in the ocean, floating in the void, free of gravity or anything else holding them back. He respected the ocean. He understood both the beauty and the dangers of it.