“What do you know about it?” Damen asked, that familiar bite in his tone.
Demarco should have paid more attention to the signs.
“Your brother will say anything to get out of there. Are you that dumb?”
Just like the bully, Damen charged. He punched Tony and sent him to the floor.
“Hey! What’d you do that for?”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“Like what? You’re going to get us both caught.” Tony pointed to Demarco. “He knows too much.”
“He can get me arrested for murder. I don’t see what you’re so worried about. You can deny you even know me.”
Tony stood up, wiping his nose. “Whatever. Come on. Let’s go, damn it.”
Damen looked back at Demarco. “I’m sorry.”
“Damen, don’t do this. Think about it. Think about what this will do to your future.”
“My future is already a goner if you tell the cops what you saw.”
“They won’t need me to convict you.”
Damen started for the stairs.
“What are you going to do? Kill Korbin and Savanna? Kill me? Kill everybody? You won’t get away with it!”
At the base of the stairs, Damen hung the key on a nail and followed Tony to the main level.
“Damen!”
His brother kept going up the stairs.
“Damen!” he yelled louder. When the door closed, he screamed, “Damen!”
But Damen didn’t come back.
He had to do something. He had to warn Korbin. Searching around the small room, he noticed a mini refrigerator with a TV on top. He rattled the iron door, checked the hinges to see if he could undo them. Next, he kicked the wall. It was all solid. His brother had built a tree house when they were young teenagers. He was good with wood. Demarco remembered when they’d invited some friends over and one of the boys started arguing with Damen about which actor played in a popular fantasy movie.
Everybody knows that, the boy had sneered.
And in the next instant, Damen had pushed him out of the tree house. The boy had broken his leg and their parents had a tough time talking the boy’s parents out of a lawsuit. It was lucky that insurance had covered all the medical bills.
More signs.
He rarely showed remorse. He didn’t like animals and animals didn’t like him.
As an adult, he’d seemed to have outgrown his childhood faults...for a while. His relationship with Collette had once appeared normal. But now, Demarco had come to find out, she’d been afraid of him. Damen hadn’t changed. He was still irrational and solved his problems with violence. And he had just become one of Damen’s problems.
Chapter 16
“We’re here to see Pavlo Borsuk.” Savanna stood beside Korbin at the security desk of NextGen Emergency Communications Systems, or NGECS. State-of-the-art automated doors requiring an access card were on both sides of the island desk. Metal detectors scanned anyone entering the outer doors, and two guards stood post. A lot of good all that would do if someone were already inside.