Chapter 33: Moxxie
The red light on the phone seemed to pulse in time with the retreating warmth of their bodies. Damien was on his feet before Beth had finished speaking, the animal instinct surging past the ache in his shoulder and the languid satisfaction in his limbs. Business.Death.It was a language he never forgot.
He followed her into the hall, scooping up his discarded sweatpants and tugging them on. “Sequence?” he asked, his voice already flat, analytical.“East to west along the south tree line. Too deliberate for an animal.” She pulled her shorts on, her movements efficient, unflinching. The woman who had just come apart in his arms was gone, folded away into some private vault. In her place was the CEO, the strategist.It was a transformation so complete it stole his breath. “My men have a visual.One subject.On foot. Unarmed, as far as they can tell.”
“A messenger,” Damien said, the pieces clicking. He found his t-shirt and pulled it over his head, ignoring the sharp protest from his wound.“Vega’s polite. He likes the theater of it.”
Beth shot him a look as she fastened her hair into a severe knot at her nape. “You know him.”
“We’ve moved product through mutual channels.Never sat across a table. He’s old school. Values face.” He followed her as she strode not toward the front door, but to a polished sideboard. She opened a drawer, not the one for linen, but a deeper one below.Inside, nestled in custom foam, were two sleek, black pistols. She lifted one, checked the magazine with a practiced snick, and handed it to him. Then she took the other for herself.“He won’t come himself.Not yet.”
She was right. Ten minutes later, they stood on the wide back veranda, the morning sun burning off the last of the fog. Two of Beth’s security detail, looking more like ranchers than soldiers in their denim and canvas jackets, escorted a young man up the gravel path. He was maybe twenty, lean, with a carefully blank face. He held his hands slightly away from his body, palms open.He stopped ten feet from the veranda steps. His eyes took in Beth, in her shorts and camisole, a pistol held loosely at her side. They flicked to Damien, shirtless under his t-shirt, the bandage visible, his own weapon casting a long shadow on the decking.The kid didn’t flinch.
“Miss Montgomery,” the young man said, his English lightly accented.“My jefe, Señor Vega, extends his compliments. Your home is very beautiful.Your defenses are… impressive. He was particularly interested in the motion-sensor grid in the lower meadow.”
Beth didn’t smile. “Tell your jefe I appreciate his admiration of my security system.Was there something else?”
“He wishes to extend an invitation. A conversation. To clear the air, as you say.” The messenger’s eyes drifted to Damien again, assessing.“He understands you have a guest.He invites Mr. Rossi to attend as well.He believes it would be… productive.”
Damien let out a short, humorless laugh. “He’s done his homework.”
“The invitation is for today.Midday. At the boundary marker on the old fire road, where your land meets the federal preserve. He proposes a table.Three chairs.No reinforcements. A gesture of good faith.”
“And if we decline his gesture?” Beth asked, her voice cool.The young man offered a small, deferential shrug. “Then he will be disappointed.And his curiosity about your operations will remain. Unanswered curiosity is a… persistent thing.”
The threat hung in the clean morning air, mild and deadly.
“Tell him we’ll be there,” Beth said, before Damien could speak. “Noon.”
The messenger gave a slight nod, turned, and walked back down the path, disappearing into the tree line.
“You didn’t have to agree for me,” Damien said, watching the trees.
“He didn’t invite you,” Beth corrected, finally holstering her pistol at the small of her back.“He invited us.He sees the alliance. He’s probing its strength.” She turned and walked back inside.“Get dressed.Wear the shoulder rig. He’ll expect it.”
The old fire road was a faded scar of cracked asphalt bisecting a sea of pine and scrub oak.The boundary marker was a simple granite post, half-sunken into the earth. And there, in the dappled shade, was the theater: a small, rustic wooden table, three ladder-back chairs.A crystal decanter of amber liquid and three glasses sat waiting.
Enrique Vega stood beside the table, a silhouette of casual power in a perfectly tailored linen suit, no tie. He was younger than Damien expected, maybe forty-five, with silver threading his dark hair and a neat goatee.His smile was brilliant, warm, and utterly devoid of warmth.
“Bethany Montgomery,” he said, spreading his hands as they approached. “You are even more formidable in the daylight.And you must be Damien Rossi.An honor. I’ve heard many stories, though few, I think, are true.”
“Enrique,” Damien said, matching the other man’s smile with one of his own, just as empty.They didn’t shake hands. It was a deliberate omission.Vega gestured to the chairs.“Please. The whiskey is from a friend in Kentucky.I think you’ll appreciate it.”
They sat. Beth crossed her legs, the picture of relaxed authority. Damien leaned back, letting the silence stretch, feeling the weight of the pistol under his arm.Vega poured three fingers into each glass, passed them around. “To new understandings,” he proposed.They drank.The whiskey was smooth and smoky.
“Your messenger said you wanted to clear the air,” Beth began, setting her glass down. “The air seemed fine from my side of the fence.”
Vega laughed, a rich, pleasant sound.“Direct. I appreciate that.My men were overzealous.The other night… an error in judgment. I have corrected it.” He said it with a finality that suggested the correction had been permanent and bloody.“I prefer my business partnerships to be consensual. And after seeing your home, your… capabilities… I believe a partnership could be mutually beneficial.You have a unique distribution network. I have a product. The urban markets are hungry.”
“I’m not in that business,” Beth said coolly.“Not directly.But your logistics are impeccable. Your trucks, your warehousing, your customs contacts.A model of efficiency.” He leaned forward, his eyes intent on her. “A woman of your talent, trapped in the world of legal freight? It seems a waste of potential.”
Damien watched Vega’s gaze linger on Beth.It wasn’t just professional admiration. It was a hunter’s appreciation of a rare, beautiful trophy.
“My potential is exactly where I want it,” Beth replied, her voice a knife-edge of polite dismissal.
Vega smiled, unperturbed.He turned his attention to Damien.“And you, Rossi. Your territories have always been… discreet.Respectful.We have coexisted. But this,” he gestured between Beth and Damien, “this is new.A merging of portfolios. It changes the geography.”
“Does it?” Damien asked, taking a slow sip of whiskey.“It does. It makes this,” Vega tapped the table, “this conversation, necessary. To avoid future… misunderstandings.” He shifted his focus back to Beth, his charm dialing up. “But forgive me, let’s not talk only of business. A woman like you, Bethany—may I call you Bethany?—commanding such an empire alone.It’s remarkable. I find myself wondering why some enterprising man hasn’t secured your partnership permanently.”
Beth’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I find permanent partnerships tend to limit one’s options.”
“A cynical view! But perhaps you have not met the right partner.” Vega’s voice dropped, intimate. “A woman like you needs a man who understands strength.Not as a threat, but as a complement. A Donna in the true sense.A queen. Not a shadow.”
Damien’s finger tightened around the cool glass.He saw the way Vega looked at her—not as a colleague, but as a prize. A possession to be won.
“I’m not interested in being a queen in someone else’s story,” Beth said, her tone frosting over.“Of course, of course.Forgive me. I am an old-fashioned romantic.” Vega leaned back, swirling his whiskey. “It is just… surprising.A woman of your beauty, your power.You must have men lined up. And yet, I hear no whispers of a husband. It seems a profound solitude.”
The words hung in the air.Damien felt a vein throb in his temple. He saw the ghost of a memory in Beth’s eyes—a chapel, a ring, a promise he’d shattered. This man, this cartel thug in a linen suit, was profaning something sacred with his clumsy, predatory flirtation.
“My personal life isn’t relevant to our business,” Beth stated, her voice now cold enough to frost the glass.
“Everything about you is relevant, cariño,” Vega said softly, the endearment a deliberate provocation. “A woman’s heart is the core of her strategy. To not know who holds it… that is a blind spot.”
Damien set his glass down on the table. The sound was a quiet, final click in the forest silence.
“She said it’s not relevant,” Damien said, his own voice dangerously quiet, all pretense of civility gone.
Vega finally turned his full attention to Damien, as if noticing him for the first time. The pleasant mask slipped just a fraction, revealing the cold calculation beneath.“Ah.My apologies. I overstepped.” He didn’t sound sorry.He sounded intrigued.His eyes flickered between them, the dynamic suddenly crystal clear. The protective heat in Damien’s glare. The way Beth’s posture had infinitesimally shifted, not toward Vega, but subtly, instinctively, toward Damien.
A slow, knowing smile spread across Vega’s face. It was the smile of a man who had just found the key piece of a puzzle.“I see,” Vega murmured, more to himself than to them. He finished his whiskey, stood up, and straightened his suit jacket.“This has been illuminating. Bethany, your defenses are exceptional. Rossi, your…commitment is noted.”
He looked at them both, his gaze lingering on the space between their chairs.“We will speak again soon.About business. And perhaps,” he added, his eyes landing squarely, triumphantly, on Damien, “about other things.The heart, as I said, is always relevant. It makes even the strongest men… predictable.”
He gave a slight nod and walked away, disappearing down the fire road where a low-slung car waited, gleaming under the sun.The forest was silent. The empty glasses sat on the table between them, a mockery of a social call.Beth didn’t look at Damien. She stared at the space Vega had occupied, her jaw tight. “He knows.”
Damien said nothing.He was still watching the empty road, his blood a low, steady roar in his ears. Vega’s final, taunting smile was seared into his vision.Predictable. The word was an echo of every weakness, every failure. It was the crack in his armor, and Vega had found it with the ease of a man picking a lock.
And he had enjoyed it.