Chapter 20

Two men in a suit stood in the way of the thugs. They appeared harmless and polite, but their eyes exuded blood-curdling fury.

"Wh-what do you want?!" The leader of the thugs yelped fearfully.

Only the strangers responded with a flurry of punches that plowed through their air at their faces.

Damon's chauffeur and Kyle, his personal assistant, were both trained in martial arts. In just several moments, they made short work of two thugs before putting a third under their feet.

"Leave one alive. Grill them for answers and sanitize the area," Damon's cruel and frosty voice reverberated from the shadows.

"Understood," Kyle answered. With the chauffeur, they expertly tied the men before he made a call, "Mr. Mayne. Bring some men. Mr. Brown wishes to cleanse this place."

Yvonne was so exhausted that she could barely stand.

Hardly accustomed to such exertion, the ordeal just now had wretched the last remnants of strength out of her frail body.

She knew full well that she needed to get up. Yet, no matter how hard she willed herself to, her body refused to respond.

As pain churned and tossed in her stomach, she could inevitably feel rushes of strange and horrible heat streaming through her veins.

Lying beside her was one of the thugs, wallowing in a puddle of his own blood. He groaned and moaned in pain as he was lifted him up, and they found him so noisy that they planted another fist in his face, silencing him.

Then she saw the glinting toe of a leather shoe stopping right in front of her.

She cocked her head up as best as she could, her eyes tracing upwards to look at the tall and lumbering silhouette glaring down at her. But with the light behind him blinding her view, she could not see who it was.

Next second, Yvonne felt herself being lifted up! Someone had carried her up!

Kyle Pegg could not quite believe what he was seeing. His employer had always been known to be obsessed with cleanliness, yet here he was, lifting a woman up from the ground into his arms. But he knew better than to pry. Dutifully, he quickly opened the rear car door, allowing Damon to enter with the unconscious Yvonne.

Inside the car, Damon noticed the bloodstained dagger Yvonne still grasped firmly and felt mildly interested.

He had unmistably saw her stabbing one of the thugs, exhibiting a tenacity and ferocity that no one her age should possess.

His eyes shone that very moment and his blood churned inside him, thawing for the first time since that woman died three years ago.

He retrieved a towel from the storage panel. He pried the blade slowly from Yvonne's hands carefully to prevent her from hurting herself and used the towel to clean her blood-soiled hands.

"Get a hotel." He told the chauffeur flatly.

The chauffeur twisted the car key and the vehicle's engine roared to life. Kyle Pegg stayed in the alley where he would wait for Mr. Mayne's arrival to deal with the loose ends.

Kyle hardly needed to wait long. Several men emerged out of the darkness inside the blackened alleyway, giving him curt nods before they got to work, tossing the restrained thugs up the bed of a lorry truck.

More men disembarked the truck, each carrying cleaning agents and pails and they cleansed the whole area of any blood.

The men worked quickly with skill and finesse—clearly all of them were experienced and well-trained. In barely ten minutes, they had removed all traces that the fight ever took place, and even the air no longer reeked of blood.

Sitting in Damon's car, Yvonne understood that she had been rescued. Once again by the same man. She turned to him and muttered quietly, "Thank you."

He shifted closer. She could not see clearly the look in his eyes that was obscured in the dark cabin, feeling only his warm breath grazing her ear as his voice tingled her senses, "Let's see... How many times have I saved you already? Shouldn't you be thinking of ways to show your gratitude?"

Yvonne felt only the heat of his breath curling inside her ears, her mind still muddled and dazed. The intense warmth in her blood was threatening to engulf her whole.

Feeling terrible, she leaned into Damon's chest.

They were so close—Damon and her—that his lips were barely a hair's breadth from her cheeks and as she slid, his lips brushed past her face and stopped right at the corner of her lips.

Damon's hand sprang up, hitting a button on the side panel and a screen lowered, shielding the front seats from seeing anything going on in the back.

He narrowed his eyes at the semi-conscious Yvonne. Before he could ask her what she was doing, she collapsed, her head sliding further down. As she fell, he felt a rush of exhilaration rising from wherever she grazed him.

Finally, she laid on his lap.