Chapter 7

The Lincoln glided to a stop in front of Le Bernardin, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.

Alida and Damion stepped out. The maitre d' immediately escorted them to a prime window table.

After ordering, Alida excused herself. "I need to freshen up. Don't move from this table."

"I won't," Damion promised, pulling a heavily modified tablet from his small backpack.

The moment Alida disappeared toward the restrooms, Damion slid out of the booth. The restaurant was too quiet, too boring. He walked out the front doors, leaning against a marble pillar near the entrance.

His fingers flew across the tablet screen. He was currently routing through a proxy server in Russia to scrub the traffic camera footage of their Lincoln leaving JFK. He didn't know who that old man was, but he didn't like being looked at like a piece of property.

The heavy glass doors of the restaurant swung open.

A group of Wall Street executives poured out, their voices hushed and respectful. At the center of the group walked Jax Vaughn.

Seven years had chiseled his features into something harder, more lethal. He wore a bespoke charcoal suit that hugged his broad shoulders. He was listening to his assistant, his jaw set in a hard line.

Damion was playing a highly complex strategy game on his screen, completely absorbed in outmaneuvering his digital opponents. He took a step backward without looking.

Thud.

Damion collided with a pair of long, solid legs. The impact sent the boy stumbling backward. The tablet slipped from his hands, clattering onto the pavement.

The executives gasped, stepping back as if a bomb had gone off.

Jax stopped. His jaw ticked. He hated clumsy people. He looked down, a sharp reprimand ready on his tongue.

Damion rubbed his forehead, annoyed, and looked up.

Their eyes met.

A violent, invisible shockwave ripped through Jax's chest. The air in his lungs vanished. His heart skipped a beat, then slammed against his sternum with terrifying force.

He stared into the boy's pitch-black eyes. A sharp, needle-like pain pierced his temples-a phantom ache from a memory he couldn't access. The car crash had taken a month of his life, but his body remembered something. His blood recognized the boy.

Damion stared back. His photographic memory instantly matched the man's face to the cover of the Forbes magazine he had read in the airport lounge just two hours ago.

Jax Vaughn. CEO of Vaughn Enterprises.

Damion's heart rate spiked, but his face remained a mask of childish innocence. He quickly masked the shock in his eyes with wariness.

He crouched down, picked up his tablet, and wiped the dust off the screen.

Jax felt a bizarre, overwhelming urge to touch the boy. He slowly bent down, his large, calloused hand reaching out toward Damion's cheek.

Damion's eyes narrowed. He took a swift step backward, dodging the hand completely.

Jax's hand froze in mid-air. A strange, hollow ache bloomed in his chest at the rejection.

"Mr. Vaughn," his assistant whispered urgently, checking his watch. "The acquisition meeting starts in ten minutes."

Jax slowly lowered his hand. He stood up to his full height, forcing his expression back into a mask of cold indifference.

He gave Damion one last, lingering look, then turned and strode toward the waiting Maybach.

The car door closed. The engine purred.

As the Maybach pulled away, Jax stared through the tinted window, unable to tear his eyes away from the small figure on the sidewalk.

Damion watched the taillights. His childish expression vanished, replaced by a chilling, calculating smirk.

He tapped his tablet, opening a secure, encrypted notes application, and meticulously typed out the Maybach's license plate number from memory, filing it away for future reference.

"Damion!" Alida's voice rang out. She hurried out of the restaurant, looking panicked. "I told you not to move!"

Damion slipped the tablet into his backpack. He looked up at her, his eyes wide and innocent. "Sorry, Mom. I just wanted to see the big cars."