Chapter Five #2
He nodded at Dusan. “Give us ten minutes.” He grabbed hand and pulled her back into the bedroom.
Jasmine called out over her shoulder as the door closed behind them, “Make it fifteen!”
* * * *
Hot coffee in hand, the scent wafting up to her nose, Jasmine stared at the two men who she’d mentioned were undercovers. One was dead, his throat having been slit. From her experience, there wasn’t any doubt he’d suffered hard before they’d finally just killed him.
The one beside him in the grave was alive, barely, and he looked up at all of them. She stared down without a shred of sympathy. This fucker was a pedophile. His proclivity was toward children under five. Didn’t matter the sex of the child, he just wanted them young.
“He swore up until he couldn’t speak anymore that he wasn’t a cop.”
She looked away from him to the angry face of Michel, across the grave. The man’s face a blotchy red. Interesting. Her own face schooled in what many people had referred to as a woman’s resting bitch face.
Supposing it was true, she really didn’t give a damn about the fucker about to die, nor the baby of a crime syndicate lord who looked ready to cry when a favorite toy was taken away. Holding that angry gaze, she put the cup to her lips and sipped.
“Have you nothing to say?” His furious words spat in her direction made her all the more grateful the grave sat between them, protecting her from his saliva.
“I didn’t lay a hand on them, not sure why you’re so mad at me.”
“You were the one who said they were cops.”
Tipping her head to the side, she stretched out her neck, aware that not just Dusan but pretty much everyone gathered there watched her.
“Do you really think your father would take my word, one of his men’s women—who according to you should have walked in through the back door at your daddy’s house to clean, not through the front—over yours and the word of people who had worked for him for far longer than he’s known me if he couldn’t see the proof himself?
Your father’s not a stupid man. which is why he didn’t let the cops in the door. You did.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you.”
“You’re always welcome to try. All I did was tell the truth, and his digging into them pulled their true selves from hiding. I guess it doesn’t matter who they were to you simply because you wanted your dick in them.”
Lance settled a hand along her back—a silent warning not to go too far. She didn’t want to, but she had a thing about being challenged and threatened. Government dick or crime asshole, it didn’t matter, she wasn’t a fan.
“Enough.” Dusan’s voice settled his son. “Kill him. I need to have another talk with Lance and his woman.”
She barely refrained from rolling her eyes. He rarely called her by name. Not that she minded, it was just amusing in a way. Women were nothing more than pieces of pussy for him, not good enough to call by names. How the hell did he deal with his daughters?
Resting her head against Lance’s shoulder, she sipped her coffee as if she were standing along the beach during sunrise, not squirreled away in a forest somewhere over a makeshift hole in the ground—one where two more men were about to become food for the worms. There were looks that passed between Dusan and Michel but the boy never pulled his weapon.
She studied each nuance of their expressions, including the disappointed and disgusted one on Dusan’s face when he eventually had one of his men pull out a silenced gun and end the life of the creep in the hole.
“You cover him up. Too much of a pussy to do what I told you to, you will bury them then come home. We have to talk. I’m leaving these two with you and taking your two.
They will not help you with the shoveling and if that means, Michel, you are out here all fucking day, then so be it.
It’s time for you to learn that there are consequences to your actions. ”
Dusan snapped his fingers and Michel’s two bodyguards immediately left the son and moved to the father. Dusan’s two remained like stone statues.
Lance didn’t move his arm from around Jasmine, continuing to stroke her arm.
Dusan got about ten feet away before he barked, “Lance, come.”
Brushing his lips over her forehead, he stopped the motion on her arm and took up her other hand, the one without the coffee, twining their fingers. The men who’d come with Dusan, his personal guards, remained back there with his son. Michel’s men were trailing Dusan.
Silence lingered in the woods as they strode back to the dark SUVs waiting along a path she wouldn’t even consider calling a road.
Lance held the back door of the second one for her and they climbed in while Dusan got in the front.
When the second guy tried to get in on her side, Lance growled low and she patted him on the leg, letting him know not to make an issue of this.
She had a feeling they would be scrambling later.
Right now having a sleaze sit beside her wasn’t a huge thing on the grand scale.
“Do you like music?” Dusan asked the question as he looked over his shoulder.
“Yes.” Lance bit off his word.
She nodded when Dusan looked at her but didn’t speak, instead continuing to sip her coffee, paying attention to the bodyguard beside her and what he was doing.
His gun was at the small of his back and he wore a backup on his right ankle. Other than that, he wasn’t armed. A plus in her favor. Dusan’s typical men had shoulder holsters for quick draw even in a car. This guy would bumble first.
They drove an hour and finally got back into the city. Dusan took them to a botanical garden. As they got out, she shared a look with Lance. His confusion matched hers.
Dusan charmed the woman at the front who waved them through. He led the way into a section of the garden that was being renovated. Tall plants in both burlap wrapping and pots waited for whatever was being done here.
“I love it in this place.”
Dusan’s voice was low and smooth. He crouched down and pushed his hand into the fertile soil and allowed a fistful to filter though his fingers.
All three of the men with them looked on edge. She didn’t work for the man so she wasn’t sure what was normal for him, but from their looks, this wasn’t it.
“You know why I love it here so much?” Dusan looked over each of them individually.
“Because when you kill someone, if you put an endangered plant over it they won’t be dug up.” The words just slipped from her mouth, and the second they had, she wished she could recall them.
Dusan smiled, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. In that moment, she saw a handsome, charming businessman, not a ruthless cartel leader who ran a human trafficking ring as one of his means of income.
“You and I, Jasmine, could do a lot together.” His gaze snapped to Lance. “Hold onto this one or she will be snatched up.”
“Don’t ever plan on letting her go.” Lance wrapped his arm around her again, tucking her into his side.
Dusan rose, brushing off his hands. “She is correct. Out here no one would know if you kill and bury a body. They are so worried about the beautification projects no one thinks to ask why the soil is so fertile.”
The lighter-haired one of the duo who typically guarded Michel got shifty feet and couldn’t hold still. There was something else in play here.
“You two,” the man began with a quick glance down to his hands before he looked back at them. “You are supposed to protect my son.”
They nodded.
Jasmine believed she knew where this was going to end and she didn’t want to be part of it.
“So explain to me how two of the guys closest to him turned out to be undercover cops.” He straightened his suit coat. “The knowledge that such a thing has happened, tells me he has been in danger this entire time.” His mouth thinned. “I don’t like the fact this was going on under your noses.”
Fidgety blond stabbed finger in her and Lance’s direction. “He’s a cop.”
Jasmine tipped her head to look up at Lance, whose expression couldn’t be read.
“That’s your response?” Dusan shook his head.
“I come to you with concerns about the men you allow around my son and you point at one of my men and call him a cop. Instead of shifting the blame, perhaps you should try to figure out a way to save your ass, because right now, this hole has your name all over it.”
The blond blanched. The darker-haired man beside him hadn’t moved a bit, his expression stone.
Dusan shook his head. “Kill him.”
Before she could figure out if that was to her or Lance, the dark-haired man pulled out his gun and put one right in the blond’s head, the silencer muffling the sound. Within seconds, the blond had been pushed into the hole and dirt was being slung over him.
When the four of them walked out there was a newly completed area with some plants that had just been planted.
Jasmine wanted to get out of this hell she’d jumped in.
She’d had no feelings for the one who’d just been buried in front of her—for none of them from today—but she did care about Lance, far more than she should.
Because of that she couldn’t just, well, wouldn’t just, ghost on him and leave him to fend for himself.
Especially since she knew Robert was here.
Just being in the same city with the man who’d hung her out to dry meant sleep wasn’t going to come easy anymore.
One thing at a time. Let’s find a way to get away from the man who is everything you despise in a human.