Lie To Me In Diamonds

CHAPTER 3: A SHOT FOR NADIA

Nadia was unsettled,she couldn’t hold it in. She wanted to scream out her frustration and fear. She wanted to hit someone,anyone! Especially Damian Cross! She felt angry! She felt choked,all this time she had tried so hard to protect herself and her brother and all this was skyrocketing so fast, if she doesn’t get half a million in less than two hours.She would never see her brother again.

She hit the dashboard of Damian’s car. Apparently when that champagne glass fell out of her hand…Damian had let her away from the prying eyes of everyone,led her to his Lamborghini and sped off.

“Fuck!” She screamed as she hit the dashboard again and again and again.

Immediately they got back into the penthouse, she raced up the stairs,and brought out her gun and suit. Preparing to kill Varela.

Damian in his calmness comes through the big polished door and stops in his tracks..

“Nadia…Nadia” he makes to put a hand on her shoulder but she grabs a gun and points it at him.

“Touch me again and I’ll blow your fucking brains out!” She said dreading herself for a shot at him.

“You seem desperate,you will make a mistake” he hummed in his thick voice.

She slowly brings the gun down, not knowing how to suppress her emotions.

“He’s all I have left Damian, I can’t loose him too” her eyes distant as harsh realities hit her. With long strides, he walks up to her and looks deep into her hazel eyes

“You won’t loose him,I promise”

There it was again,that reassurance,this whole thing that seemed all too familiar to her.

~~~~~~

2:17am.

Varela’s warehouse. The docks.

Nadia crouched on a shipping container, night vision on, and whispered into her mic: “You sure this is the plan? Because it feels like the plan is ‘we die’.”

Damian’s voice came back, low in her ear. “The plan is ‘they think we’re desperate.’ Desperate people make mistakes. Remember?”

“And if _we_ make a mistake?”

“Then I catch you.”

Nadia rolled her eyes. “Stupid billionaire.”

“Stupid thief.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

Below them, 8 of Varela’s men were patrolling with guns. In the center: a metal crate. And inside that crate: Nadia’s brother, Mateo.

They had 2 hours before “Before he dies”

It was hour 1.

“On my signal,” Damian said.

Nadia took a breath. Slid down the container. Silent.

Rule 1 of breaking into a crime lord’s warehouse: don’t get seen.

Rule 2: if you get seen, hit first.

She took out 2 guys with a taser and a knife to the knee. Clean. Fast.

Damian dropped from the rafters like he owned the place and disarmed the other 3 before they could blink.

The man who’d been at the gala saw them and reached for a radio.

Nadia shot it out of his hand.

“Don’t,” she said, gun steady. “Where’s my brother?”

The guy pointed to the crate, shaking.

Damian crossed to it in 2 steps. Blew the lock.

Mateo was inside. Bruised. Bound. But alive. Eyes wide when he saw Nadia.

“Nads?”

“I’m here,” she said, cutting his zip ties. “I’m so sorry. I’m so—”

“Don’t,” Mateo said, pulling her into a hug. “Just get me out.”

Gunfire.

Everyone dropped.

More men. From the back. Varela had been waiting for this.

Damian grabbed Nadia and Mateo and pulled them behind a container. Bullets pinged off metal.

“You okay?” he asked her, checking her over like he had a right to.

“I’m fine,” Nadia panted. “He’s fine. We need to—”

The lights cut out.

Darkness.

Shouting.

More gunfire.

And then a hand on her wrist. Pulling her.

“Run,” Damian said.

They ran.

---

The safehouse was 20 minutes away. An apartment Damian owned that wasn’t in his name.

Nadia paced. Mateo sat on the couch, icing his face. Damian was at the window, on the phone, voice clipped and furious.

When he hung up, the room felt smaller.

“They moved,” he said. “Varela knows we have Mateo. He’s pissed. He wants the diamond and the money by sunrise or he starts to hunt us for good I am talking bounties and bounty hunters kind of shit”

Silence.

Nadia stopped pacing. “Then we give him the diamond.”

“It’s fake,” Damian said.

“Give him the fake one.”

“He’ll know. And then he will kill us anyway.”

Mateo spoke up. “So what do we do?”

Damian looked at Nadia. Really looked. “We finish this tonight. We take him down. For good.”

Nadia stared back. “How?”

“With what he wants most.” Damian stepped closer. “You.”

The air left the room.

“What,” Nadia said flatly.

“You’re the leverage. They think you’re my weakness.” His jaw ticked. “So we use it. Public exchange. Me, you, the diamond. We draw him out and end it.”

“And if he shoots me?”

“He won’t.” Two words. Certain. Deadly. “Because I won’t let him.”

Nadia wanted to argue. Wanted to say this was insane.

But Mateo was looking at her like she was his whole world.

And Damian was looking at her like she was his.

“Fine,” she said. “Tonight.”

---

The safehouse only had one bed.

Mateo took the couch.

Which left Nadia and Damian.

Nadia stood in the doorway of the bedroom, arms crossed. “This is fine.”

“It’s fine,” Damian agreed. Too quickly.

They both got into bed. As far apart as humanly possible.

King size. Felt like a twin.

Silence. The city outside. The hum of danger.

“You don’t have to do this,” Damian said into the dark.

“Yes I do.”

“For me?”

“For Mateo.”

A pause.

“Right,” Damian said. Voice rough.

Nadia turned on her side, facing away.

She felt the bed dip as he did the same.

An hour passed. Neither slept.

Then: movement.

Warmth at her back.

Damian’s arm, careful, draped over her waist. Not pulling her in. Just... there.

“Can’t sleep,” he murmured. “Bad habit.”

Nadia should’ve moved. Should’ve said something about Rule 1: No touching.

She didn’t.

She leaned back. Just a little. Into him.

Damian went still. Then his arm tightened. Barely.

Then she turned to face him,staring deep into his soul, he was familiar, something about him was. He stared back at her, looking like a man barely hanging on.

“You know,it feels like I know you”. He tensed, looking unsure of what she meant but didn’t say a word.

Instead he etched himself closer

“Seems we being close on the same bed is making you know me,more” the words and how their bodies touched feeling uncomfortable,hot and uncomfortable.

She clears her throat and makes to return to her side of the bed when Damian teasingly pulls her to himself and their lips lock. It was fast and unplanned. Nadia’s eyes widened in absolute shock while Damian remained calm as their lips stayed locked together. They both pull away at the same time,three seconds feeling like forever and the taste of their lips resounding in their memories.

Damian,calm but burning inside “That was a mistake, it won’t happen again” Rolling to the other side of the king sized bed leaving her shocked,speechless and somehow wanting more of that kiss.

~~~~~~~~

“Time to go,” Damian said, all business again.

Nadia’s eyes fluttered open, seeing Damian all dressed in a grey suit,slicked back hair and a briefcase. And God!! He looked heavenly.

“I’ll meet you outside in five minutes” her eyes scanned the large room.

“Where’s Mateo?”

“Safe, he is on his way to London as we speak, it’s better that way,till all this settles”.

She wanted to protest but again, he was right.

She hated that he was always right. So she simply nodded.

~~~~~~~~~~~

At the warehouse, Varela was waiting on a leather chair, legs crossed on the table,sipping Macallan from a glass, his rugged face looking impatient,a long scar stretched across his left check to his neck, he looked like old money. 20 men. 20 big guns. Nadia swallowed hard. His eyes remained on Damian, his expression unreadable.

“Where’s my money?” Varela said darting his eyes to Nadia

“Long time, no see, Marco” Damian boomed,his eyes dangerous with hatred.

“Do you two know each other?” Nadia,whose curiousity was about to blow the roof off asked.

“I asked you a question,girl” Marco said in his thick Scottish accent”

“ She doesn’t have it, but we brought something else you might like”

Marco rises, for a man of his age, he still towered over people he believed was his prey. “What might that be”

“This” Nadia brings out two guns tucked in her leather suit and shoots two men, ruckus erupts. Varela makes a run for it… while shooting at both Nadia and Damian, who pumped hot bullets into Varela’s men.

“ Freeze or i pierce your heart with this pistol” Varela’s threat makes her stop in her tracks.

“Turn around,slowly, drop your weapons were I can see them, Now! You slut!” She turns around and drops her guns.

“Now,you die!”

He raised his gun. At Nadia.

She closes her eyes,waiting for the worst.

Time slowed.

Gunshots fired!!

She gritted her teeth,bracing herself for the pain before her death.

Nothing, nothing again.

She slowly opens her eyes to see two men on the ground. Varela and Damia….

Dead in her tracks and thoughts, she stares at Damian in a pool of his blood,bleeding profusely.

“Damian!!!!!” She screamed.