Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Reinaldo
I ’d spent the last seven hours worried sick about Jasmine. The things she’d said when she saw me in the garage were completely out of character and at the same time, sexy as hell. I knew enough about La Rocha, or Rohypnol, to know its effects. By the time they got Jasmine to the apartment, she was coming down from the initial high. Some people purposely took the drug for that high. When it was mixed with alcohol, it exacerbated the alcohol’s intoxication.
As Piero helped her from the car, I didn’t see the mess she’d made by getting sick. It was her fucking blue eyes. They spun, unable to truly focus until they landed on me.
“Rei.” She wobbled as she called out to me.
Despite the capo standing at my side, I hurried to help her .
She let go of Piero and fell into me. “Are you really here?” Her words were slurred. She slapped my chest with her hand. “I feel you.” She turned to Camila. “I have a great imagination.”
I wrapped my arm around her waist to keep her from falling. She stumbled with her steps. “I want to know what you said in your text messages.” Her lips curled in an exaggerated smile. “What are you going to do to me? I’ve wondered ever since you told me.”
Fuck.
The capo was listening to every word.
Jasmine pointed her finger at him. “He doesn’t want me to marry you. He wants me to marry Zsa-dan, Zsa-Zen.” She shook her head. “Zhdan Myshkin.” She shook her head. “He scares me.”
Throughout the ride, I kept her upright.
She laid her head against my shoulder. Her voice was softer. “I think I could love you.” Her crystal-blue stare looked up at me. “Do you think you could love me?”
I brought my lips to her forehead. “I know I could.”
Jasmine exhaled. “I’m a stray.”
My forehead furrowed. “What?”
“A stray…you know…stray…unwanted.”
The capo growled, but my attention was on Jasmine. “You need to rest.”
Again, she tipped her chin up to me. “You said you wanted me.”
“I do.”
Sighing, she laid her head back on my shoulder. As the elevator doors opened, I scooped her into my arms. Her head lay back and her eyes were closed .
“Give her to me,” Dario said. “I’ll take her upstairs.”
I hugged her against me. “I’ll take her upstairs. You can come with us.” I looked down at my shirt speckled with vomit. “No sense dirtying your suit.”
She didn’t stir as Cat pulled back the blankets and I laid her on her bed. Looking around, I saw her bedroom as I hadn’t the night I’d snuck in. It was filled with bright colors, perfectly representing Jasmine’s energy.
Since that time, Jasmine was checked over by the outfit’s doctor. He confirmed that vomiting was her best treatment. The amount of drug she ingested would determine the length of time she was unconscious. Her vitals were good. Each time I was allowed to see her, I tried to convince myself she was merely sleeping.
Showered and dressed in Dante’s clothes—Catalina took mine to wash or burn. I wasn’t quite sure which—Dante, Dario, and I worked side by side to learn what we could about what exactly happened at the restaurant. When Dante gained access to the security footage we had our answer.
Before the altercation near the bathroom that Camila described, Zhdan sat at the bar in a stool at Jasmine’s side. Before she noticed his presence, he pulled a capsule from his breast pocket and quickly sprinkled powder into her nearly-finished drink.
“That’s why he followed her to the bathroom,” Dante said. “He thought she’d consumed the roofied drink already.”
“But she hadn’t,” I observed. “If Camila and then Giovanni and Piero hadn’t followed…”
The capo shook his head .
Following the bathroom exchange, Zhdan went back to the bar. He didn’t approach his seat, only gesturing to the man with him to leave.
As we rewatched the video together, at the sight of Zhdan sprinkling the drug in her drink, my blood boiled. “He’s a dead man. Where can I find him?” I asked. Turning to Dario, I added, “He doesn’t deserve Jasmine.”
Dario nodded. “He doesn’t. Do you still want her?”
I couldn’t believe he would ask the question. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” When he didn’t speak, I added, “Yes. I want her. I’ve told her that and I meant it.”
The capo defeatedly looked at Dante. “This will fuck up things with Myshkin.”
“Things are fucked with him as it is.”
“When she wakes,” the capo said, speaking to me, “I want to talk to her. If this is what you both want, it will happen. There won’t be a big wedding—not because Jasmine doesn’t deserve one. A celebration would be a way to flaunt your marriage, to Myshkin. We can get a priest here tonight, and you two will be legally wed before you take her to California.”
“ Mí padre and madre .”
The capo shook his head. “Jorge won’t travel to Missouri with what happened in Culiacán. It wouldn’t be safe. I won’t allow you to take Jasmine unless you’re married.”
I stood taller. “Then we’ll marry.”
The next few hours were spent texting Jano, nursing a glass of bourbon, and pacing between the capo’s living room and office. The man with Zhdan was identified as Dmitri Makarova. Dario would get his head. I’d fucking deliver it on a silver platter.
Every now and then, I’d receive an update from upstairs. It was either Cat or the housekeeper. Once Camila arrived, she also kept me updated.
I turned as Cat came down the stairs. “Jasmine will be down in a minute.”
My pulse jumped. “How is she?”
“She’s weak and tired, but she’ll be all right.”
Setting my drink on a nearby table, I made my way to the bottom of the staircase. It took all my restraint not to run up the stairs and help her come down. My focus was entirely on the second level, to the point where I didn’t know or care who else was waiting for her descent.
My heart hammered behind my breastbone when she came into view. She and Camila were talking but stopped when her beautiful blue stare met mine. By the time she reached the bottom of the staircase, her cheeks and neck were filled with a crimson hue.
“Rei.”
I offered her my hand. Hesitantly, she took it.
“I’m sorry if I said…I don’t remember?—”
When her sock-covered feet landed on the main-level marble, I fell to one knee. “Jasmine, I’ve never lied to you. I want you as my wife. I’m not a good man. I am an honest man. I want you beside me. I want to make you happy and keep you safe. However…” —I took a breath— “I need to know that it’s what you want. Will you marry me?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she looked around .
It was the first time I thought about having an audience.
“Is this real?” she asked, looking at someone behind me. Her attention went to me. “Yes, Rei. I want to marry you. You and only you.”
I stood, still holding her hand. “I don’t have a ring, but we’ll get one, the biggest diamond you’ve ever seen.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need a big diamond. I just want you.” She pushed up on her tiptoes, but before her lips met mine, the capo cleared his throat. We both turned to him.
“Jasmine, we have some miscommunication to discuss.”
Shyly smiling, she took a step back. “When? When will we marry?”
“Tonight, preciosa .”
“Tonight?”
“I guess it depends on what happens during your discussion with the capo.”
Biting her lip, she nodded and hurried toward Dario’s office.
Dante came forward and patted my shoulder. “Huge cajones. Enormous.”
“Didn’t realize there was an audience.”
He retrieved my unfinished glass of bourbon and brought it to me. “Giant.”