Bullet ✔️

Chapter 27

The first couple of weeks of Damian and I's relationship were intense. I fell hard and fast, but he lifted me up onto a pink, fluffy cloud and kept me there. It was lovely, naughty, cute and steamy all at once—he was just as generous in life as he was in bed—and I was starting to forget all about his darkness and his job.

That is, until I stepped into his childhood home—Michael Strac's red velvet villa. The place itself seemed good enough on the outside, built some decades ago, but the inside was filled with red velvet everything. Couches, chairs, drapes and tablecloths. Inside the dining room was a huge fireplace with sparkling wood inside, and above was a large portrait of a middle-aged man.

"My grandfather," Damian said when he caught me looking. I nodded, a little in awe. The man in the painting had a blue pinstripe suit, slightly graying dark hair, but most of all I recognized the dark eyes. It was unmistakably Damian's family up there.

The rest of the room was lovely, if you could ignore all the red, and Damian had brought a purple lupine bouquet and set it into a vase on the table, breaking up the colors of the room. It was surreal. I knew who I was meeting, but it still seemed like something so far, far away from reality that I squeezed Damian's hand a little extra.

I was about to ask him what was for dinner, to ease my nerves, when the doors opened and a man so similar to the portrait above the fireplace stepped in, that the words stopped in my throat and fell back down into wherever they came from. His arms were spread and his smile was wide, a dark moustache was what caught my attention first, then his broad and tall frame, and then his dark, familiar eyes.

He was dressed in a white shirt and black pants, but he looked laidback. Nothing like what I expected, though I didn't know what I expected, to be honest.

"Good evening, son," the man said as he approached, leaning forward to kiss his slightly taller son on each cheek. His voice was hoarse and rough, shaped from yelling, I thought. Then he turned to me, and I locked eyes with Datoches' most influential and dangerous man. "And who is this pretty woman?"

Didn't he know I was coming?

"This is Isabelle," Damian said, pulling me in front of him as if to show me it was safe. His hands stayed on my shoulders to calm me, and I could hear the smirk in his voice as he added, "My girlfriend."

"It's really nice to meet you, Mr. Strac," I said, trying my best to keep a polite—and not at all nervous—smile.

"C'mon, you can call me Michael," he said, and as I held my hand out he pulled me in for a hug. "Damian said he wanted to introduce me to someone, but I didn't think he could bag a gorgeous lady like you! Where'd you two meet?"

He held me at arms length and looked at me while he talked, before stepping back, allowing Damian to put his hands on me again.

Michael was nothing like I thought he'd be, even with Damian's reassurance that he was a good man. I guessed for myself that TV and movies had ruined my perception of mafia bosses.

"At Elina and James' wedding," Damian said, steering me towards the table and pulling out a chair for me, as Michael took the seat at the head of it. "She's a wedding photographer."

"Ah," Michael mused, "I heard about her. The one who was threatened by Orlov? Sorry, honey, I hope you're all right."

I was a little surprised by the fact that he cared. "Oh, yes, I'm fine," I told him, though I still had nightmares about the man's sleazy grin and the cold steel to my temple. It was a lot less frequent after I started sharing a bed with Damian, and whenever it happened he pulled me in real close and kissed my temple, telling me everything was okay, and I was safe.