The Road to Redemption by Nicky Charles

his
arms.
    “Depends on if
you want the information.” Dante shrugged. “If you don’t, Sam
Harper might be interested.”
    Damien shot
his hand across the table and grabbed Dante’s collar. “I told you
to stay away from her.”
    Dante laughed,
the sound coming out more like a wheeze due to the material
twisting around his throat. “I really don’t think you want the
bouncer throwing you out, do you?”
    Slowly, Damien
relaxed his grip and sat back in his chair, his jaw tightly
clenched; Dante’s presence stretching his self-control to the very
limits. One of his first assignments while working for Deirdre had
partnered him with the bastard. Dante wasn’t above stealing from
the dead or saving his own hide at the expense of his
teammates.
    Taking a sip
of his drink, Dante gave him a speculative look. “You seem
protective towards Harper. Care to share why?”
    Damien ignored
the comment. “How much?”
    For a moment,
he wondered if Dante was going to press the issue regarding Sam
but, typical of the man, the lure of hard cash took precedence.
    “For my
information? A couple hundred.”
    “Ha! You’d
have to be selling me the code to Lycan Link’s security system
before I’d pay you that much.”
    “Just
checking. You never spent much of what Deirdre paid you so you must
have a nice fat bank account.”
    Damien
narrowed his eyes. “I’ll only ask once more and then I’ll drag your
sorry ass into the alley and beat the information from you.”
    “Fifty…for
now.”
    His inner wolf
bared its teeth and Damien barely held back the growl that rose in
his throat. “You try and bleed me dry by delivering this one piece
at a time and I’ll break your fingers one at a time. Spill what you
know now.”
    “Then it’ll
cost you a hundred.”
    “Fifty now.
The rest if I decide your information is worth it.”
    Dante held out
his hand and Damien pulled some bills from his pocket.
    Once the money
was tucked away, Dante leaned forward. “You were on Deirdre’s hit
list when you left.”
    “Old news,
Dante. I knew that the moment I jumped ship.” Deirdre didn’t make
idle threats, and, in the first few months, he’d had several
brushes with her crew of assassins. The fact that he was still
alive, a year and a half later, puzzled him. Her organization
wasn’t inefficient; he’d worked for them long enough to know their
capabilities. He was curious if Dante knew why the hunt had eased
off, but wouldn’t give the bastard any satisfaction by showing an
interest.
    “True. But
shortly after you left, something happened. No one knows exactly
what, but she let a lot of us go.”
    “So that’s why
you’re scrounging for jobs?”
    Dante
shrugged. “Deirdre paid me well. I became used to a certain
standard.”
    Damien didn’t
doubt that Dante had been paid better than most. The man had even
fewer scruples than the rest of the team and would take on any job.
But Dante wasn’t his concern at the moment. What did this news have
to do with his own fate? “So...if she’s closed up shop, I’m no
longer on her hit list?”
    “Perhaps. She
didn’t exactly close shop; more like scaled back.” Abruptly, Dante
leaned closer. He flicked a glance about the room and then
whispered a question. “Do you have any idea what happened?”
    “No.”
    “I’m wondering
if it has to do with Stone.”
    “Elijah
Stone?” Damien frowned. The name was whispered in hushed tones
within Deirdre’s organization. Supposedly, Stone and Deirdre had
started the business together but, in his time there, Damien had
never seen the man. In fact, he even questioned the mythical
partner’s existence. “Sorry. Can’t help you.”
    “Hmmm.” Dante
rubbed his chin and his eyes focused on some distant point before
he looked at Damien again. “I’d wondered if on that last day, you
might have noticed something or heard something.”
    “Eaves-dropping was your specialty, not mine.”
    “Information
acquisition.” Dante gave a short dry