Damien, now dressed in trackwear, got into the car with Sloane.
"I'm sorry for interrupting your conversation with your father," Sloane said, trying to please him, "but the matter was of utmost urgency and couldn't wait."
Damien didn't reply.
Sloane sighed internally. Everything she had done since Damien arrived had been wrong.
Was it because she found him attractive that she was so mad at herself? She wondered bitterly.
They pulled up at the port.
As they stepped out, they saw about nine men kneeling on the ground—battered and bruised.
"These are the cunts who attacked Mikhail's shipment," one of the thugs said in a heavy Liverpool accent. "Seems they were working alone. We beat the shit out of them, but still couldn't find out who sent them."
Damien ignored him and walked toward the offenders.
"How did you get information about the shipment?" he asked one of the men directly.
No one spoke.
Sloane frowned. Damien had asked the right question. The thugs had been focused on who sent them—not how they even got the information. It showed Damien's sharpness compared to these street-level enforcers.
"Beat him again until he talks," Damien ordered calmly.
Johnny—the Liverpool thug—picked up his bat, ready to swing, but before he could, one of the kneeling men pointed at another thug nearby.
Johnny turned and cracked the bat across the informant's back. He raised the bat again, but Damien stopped him with a hand gesture.
"He's talked already, hasn't he?" Damien said coldly.
"Release them. Let them go. They've taken enough punishment for their crime."
Everyone stared in disbelief—including the offenders.
Sloane hurried to Damien and whispered sharply, "Things don't work like this around here. Normally, we kill them. If we let them go, our clients will start doubting our strength."
"I said, release them," Damien repeated. "Nothing should happen to them. I won't say it again."
Reluctantly, Sloane turned to the enforcers.
"Let them go," she shouted.
The captured men bolted, running as fast as their battered bodies would let them, half-expecting bullets in their backs. But no shots came.
Johnny approached Sloane, sneering.
"Is this the boss's son? He's too soft. I don't think he's fit for this game."
"We'll see," Sloane replied quietly.
Damien, unfazed, pointed at one of the thugs.
"Bring me the man who tipped off the attackers."
They dragged him forward—still shaking from the earlier beatings.
"Do you have anything to confess?" Damien asked with a slight smile.
"Give me something reasonable, and you might walk away today. But if you lie..." He tilted his head slightly. "Trust me—you don't want to find out what happens."
The man looked at the ground, defeated.
"I just wanted extra money."
Damien's face hardened.
"Are you not paid enough? My father pays his men well."
"He pays well," the man admitted. "But I wanted more... for the hoes," he said cockily, thinking Damien's earlier mercy would save him.
The grin on Damien's face vanished.
"Break his legs," Damien ordered Johnny flatly.
The man's confidence evaporated.
"Wait, wait! I have something for you—information!" he stammered.
"Too late," Damien said coldly. "Break his legs. Now. Or it'll be yours next—you're wasting my time."
Johnny hesitated for a second—shocked by the sudden shift in Damien's demeanor—but obeyed.
He picked up an iron pipe. Two other enforcers grabbed the man's legs and held them down.
With one heavy swing, Johnny shattered the bone.
The man howled in pain.
"Fuck you, cunt! You son of a whore!" he screamed at Damien.
Damien's face remained expressionless.
"Break the other leg," he said calmly.
"Please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" the man sobbed.
But Johnny smiled and smashed the other leg with another brutal swing.
"And his left arm," Damien added.
Without hesitation, Johnny obeyed.
The man collapsed into a sobbing, mangled heap.
Damien turned without a word and headed back to his car.
"Looks like you judged too early," Sloane said to Johnny.
"Maybe I did," Johnny admitted, laughing darkly.
Sloane climbed into the passenger seat.
"Shall we go now, sir?" she asked.
"Yes," Damien said curtly.
Seeing his foul mood, she tried to lift his spirits.
"Are you okay, sir?" she asked politely.
Damien didn't look at her.
"I'm not the one you should be asking. Ask the cripple back there," he said sharply.
"And stop with the 'sir'—my name's Damien."
Sloane felt her heart sink. She had made things worse, again.
She swore silently to herself to kill whatever feelings she was developing for him.
They were clouding her mind—and in this life, that could get her killed.