The Mafia Boss Ordered His Secretary to Pretend She Loved Him, Then She Whispered That Someone Was Watching Them

The executive floor of Cole Holdings was a warzone.

Glass from the shattered floor-to-ceiling office windows carpeted the plush dark carpet. Papers were scattered everywhere, framed art had been ripped from the walls, and the heavy walnut furniture was overturned.

At the far end of the long corridor, inside Damian’s private corner office, the bright white flare of a commercial thermite torch burned brightly, casting harsh, violent shadows across the room.

Standing near the safe, supervising two men operating the torch, was Vance—Graham Sloane’s chief enforcer. He was a massive, brutal man with a scarred neck, wearing a heavy leather coat and holding a tactical shotgun across his chest.

“Faster, you idiots!” Vance barked at the torch operators, his voice echoing through the ruined suite. “Sloane wants those ledgers in his hands before the police wake up!”

“They aren't your ledgers to take, Vance,” a cold baritone voice echoed from the doorway.

Vance spun around instantly, raising his shotgun.

Damian Cole stood in the threshold of his ruined office, flanked by Declan and his tactical squad. His suppressed pistol was leveled directly at Vance’s forehead.

The eight mercenary guards inside the room froze, their weapons raised, creating a tense, lethal Mexican standoff in the middle of the executive suite.

Vance let out a cruel, guttural laugh, staring at Damian’s pale face and the faint blood stain on his coat. “Look at you, Cole. You look like a ghost. Sloane said you were bleeding out on a pier somewhere.”

“Sloane is remarkably poorly informed,” Damian said smoothly, his finger tightening slightly on his trigger. “Drop your weapons, Vance. You have five seconds before my men turn this room into a slaughterhouse.”

Vance sneered, his eyes flicking behind Damian toward the doorway where Claire was standing near the wall, operating her tablet to override the office's electronic fire suppression system.

Vance’s eyes widened with sick delight as he recognized her.

“Well, well,” Vance sneered, slowly shifting the barrel of his shotgun toward Claire. “The secretary. Sloane said he’d pay a double bonus if we brought her back alive. He wants to see if she talks as fast when we tear her fingernails out.”

Damian’s eyes turned into absolute, unadulterated hellfire.

He didn't wait for the five-second warning to expire.

BANG!

Damian fired his pistol directly into Vance’s shoulder before the enforcer could pull his shotgun trigger. Vance screamed, dropping the heavy shotgun as he stumbled backward into the burning thermite torch.

Muzzle flashes exploded across the executive suite instantly.

Declan and the tactical squad unleashed a lethal hail of suppressed gunfire, sweeping through the room with terrifying military precision. The mercenary guards collapsed onto the ruined carpet before they could aim their rifles.

Claire dropped to her knees behind a heavy overturned oak desk, covering her head as glass rained down around her.

In the center of the chaotic gunfight, Damian moved like an unstoppable force of nature.

Ignoring the agony tearing through his ribs, he surged forward, grabbing Vance by his leather collar, dragging his heavy body across the room, and slamming him viciously face-first into the burning steel of the half-breached safe.

Vance shrieked in absolute agony as his cheek touched the hot metal.

“Where is Graham Sloane?” Damian roared into Vance’s ear, his big hand tightening around the enforcer's throat like a hydraulic vise. “Speak, or I drop you out that window fifty floors down!”

Vance choked, his hands clawing helplessly at Damian’s iron grip. “He’s... he’s at the harbor! Pier 12! He’s boarding his private yacht to leave the country! He set you up, Cole! He used us to distract you while he cleaned out his offshore accounts!”

Damian’s eyes narrowed into slit-like points of icy fury.

He struck Vance across the jaw with the heavy steel butt of his pistol, knocking the enforcer instantly unconscious, and let his limp body drop to the carpet like a sack of dirt.

The office went completely silent save for the heavy, ragged breathing of Damian’s men and the crackle of the dying thermite torch.

Declan lowered his rifle, checking the pulse of the fallen mercenaries. “Room clear, boss.”

Damian stood in the center of the ruined office, his heavy chest heaving, his dark coat now heavily soaked with fresh crimson blood from his reopened wound. His body swayed dangerously, his boots slipping slightly on the glass-covered floor.

“Damian!” Claire screamed, scrambling out from behind the desk and sprinting across the room.

She caught him just as his knees buckled, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist, pulling his heavy frame against her body as they sank together onto the plush, ruined carpet.

“I’ve got you,” she sobbed, tears finally spilling over her lashes as she pressed her hands against his bleeding chest. “I’ve got you, Damian! It’s over! The office is safe!”

Damian lay in her lap, looking up at her face through a haze of red pain.

He slowly lifted a blood-stained hand, his trembling fingers gently wiping away the tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Is... the safe intact?” he whispered raspy, a faint, exhausted smile touching his dark lips.

Claire let out a tearful, wet laugh, looking behind her at the solid steel safe, which had sustained only minor surface burns from the thermite torch.

“The safe is completely fine, you idiot,” she wept softly, leaning down until her forehead rested against his chest. “The ledgers are safe. Everything is safe.”