Page 20 of Damien’s Mate

He knew, like he’d seen the future, that it would be epic.

Ah, hell, who was he kidding.

He also knew, better than most: fantasies didn’t come true.

Damien was dying for a shower, but he somehow couldn’t bring himself to leave Lila’s side. He took off the penguin jacket and the tie, removed his shoulder holster and unbuttoned his shirt.

Then he dumped all the money out of the black bag onto the formica table in the corner and started to count it.

It was bundles of hundreds, fifties and twenties. When he got done sorting and counting, he leaned back in the molded plastic chair and gave a low whistle.

Three hundred and twenty thousand dollars, minus what he’d paid the hotel clerk. Damn.

Right there in front of him was a brand-new start. The one thing he’d always wanted, and thought he would never get. He couldn’t even wrap his mind around it.

He put the money back in the bag, big bills on the bottom. He needed time to think about what he was going to do with that.

Then he picked up the ledger.

Everybody in Salzano’s family knew about the ledger. How it held the record of all the family business, going back over a decade. How it was written in a code that only Vic Salzano himself could translate.

How the book had saved Salzano’s life during a drive-by shooting, when a bullet lodged in the book instead of his heart.

He was so superstitious about it, he went to church and said novenas to keep it safe.

Rostov was bold, stealing the ledger. He had to have someone on the inside—very few people knew the location and code to the collection room. Damien would never have found it if Lila hadn’t already been inside.

Damien could see why Rostov would want the ledger—Salzano often bragged that with the information in that book, a person could blackmail half of Chicago.

What he didn’t see was why, after all that, Rostov had tried to blow it up—and Lila along with it. Unless he wanted to destroy Vic Salzano, his top lieutenants, and his entire business all in one shot. And his accomplice.

Damien wondered what Lila planned to do with it now. Hopefully get rid of it ASAP—it was like sitting on another bomb.

He’d picked up Lila’s purse when they put her in the ambulance, and now he shamelessly went through it. There was nothing useful there—not even a driver’s license. Keys, some cash, comb, makeup, Marco’s security keycard, and a dental mirror, presumably for seeing around corners.

That was it. Everything of hers.

Except for the bracelet.

Damien unsnapped it from his wrist, and the links immediately lined up in a stiff ruler-sized strip. He bent it experimentally. The flat gold sections were linked together like a non-stretchy watchband—except that each one was intricately engraved. There were dragons, lions and horse-like creatures with wings and long snaky necks.

In between those were fancy symbols that might be letters in some weird language. They were pretty, but meant nothing to him.

He’d assumed it was a prototype for some kind of high-tech personal shield, but that didn’t make sense. Nobody would waste time decorating a piece of tech this elaborately.

It looked more like something you’d see in a Tomb Raider movie. A legendary magical object that…

Fuck.

Magic isn’t real. He repeated that to himself several times, trying really hard to believe it.

Two or three months ago he would have believed it.

But.

Damien suddenly felt like he was on a roller coaster that had just started down the first big hill.

Because if there were people in the world who could shapeshift into animals, there could be anyfuckingthing out there.