14. Landon
LANDON
Jasmine doesn’t fall asleep until three in the morning—not until I promise to wake her up early enough to finish her essay before her date with Brooke tomorrow.
She makes me swear on something stupid, like my passport, and something more fun like my future children.
I tease her and say our future children which she agrees to because she’s too tired to open up her eyes.
I tried to get some sleep but I can’t sleep at all.
I feel too guilty to be in the same space as her, breathing the same air, letting her trust me like I didn’t just sign her up for a life sentence with men who’d gut her before asking her name.
I fucking dragged her into this mess. If it wasn’t for me…
Well, if it wasn’t for me, she’d still have to deal with Isaiah, or worse—Xavier.
I’m no hero. Never claimed to be. But I’m her best bad option.
Unless you count her actual best option, the golden boy of clean records and the only other person I trust to keep her protected: Conner.
But outside of Conner, I am her best shot at making it out here alive, which means if I want to ensure she stays alive, I fucking need Conner.
It’s five in the morning by the time I make it to his sterile-ass apartment on the other side of town.
Everything about it screams overcompensation—white walls, untouched granite countertops, blinds that open automatically at sunrise.
I know Conner’s schedule like the back of my hand, partly because I’ve lived with him from the age of sixteen to twenty-four, and partly because he’s the only person more predictable than a sunrise.
He wakes at 5:03. Not 5. Not 5:05. 5:03 , because it gives him exactly seven minutes to stretch, wash his face, and put on those ugly grey running shoes he refuses to replace.
I light a cigarette on the stairwell. No point ringing the buzzer yet. In exactly five minutes, he’ll leave the building for his daily four-mile loop through the park—looping counter-clockwise because “it’s more efficient for left turns.”
I take a drag.
I’ve got four and a half minutes to figure out how to convince the cleanest man I know to help me clean up a bloodstained fucking war.
By the time I’m on my last pull of the cigarette, the metal door to Conner’s building slams open so hard it rattles the stairwell railing.
He steps out like he’s already mid-fight, hoodie half-zipped, jaw clenched, and when his eyes land on me—leaning against the wall, reeking of smoke and guilt—he growls. Like a fucking animal.
“Fuck off,” he snarls without breaking stride, already jogging toward the park like I’m a bad memory chasing his heels.
“Come on, Con,” I say, tossing the butt and falling into step beside him, the air cold and sharp in my lungs. “I didn’t mean to?—”
“ Make her cum in the middle of my fucking class ,” he snaps, turning the corner so hard I nearly get clipped by a Prius. “Yeah, you didn’t mean to, but it happened anyway.”
“I mean, fuck, man. You want her,” I say, breath hitching as I match his pace. “You think I didn’t notice? I would need to be fucking blind with the way you look at her.”
“You don’t know what I want.”
“Bullshit. I know you better than that. You like your routine, your job, your alphabetized spice rack. But her?” I glance at him. “She wrecked you, and you liked it.”
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t look at me. His fists clench tighter, knuckles paling as they pump at his sides. I let the silence stretch a second too long, then say what I came here to say.
“Just admit that you want her,” I say, half a chuckle buried in a cough as the cold morning air scrapes my throat.
Conner grunts and veers left into the park, like the path might swallow the conversation if he walks fast enough.
“Come on, Con,” I push, jogging to keep pace. “When’s the last time you?—”
“Landon.” He snaps, in that cold measured way, and it shuts me the fuck up.
I know better than to bring her up. The one Conner doesn’t talk about. The one who carved out pieces of him and never gave them back.
But that look in his eyes when he sees Jasmine? It’s the same damn look.
Like she’s gravity—his center of orbit—pulling every part of him closer whether he wants it or not. Like he’d burn himself alive just to keep her warm.
I see it. Clear as day.
The need.
The want.
It’s written all over him, in the way his jaw tightens when she laughs too loud, the way his eyes track her across a room like she’s the only goddamn thing in focus.
And for someone who’s built his whole life on control, Conner wanting Jasmine is the one thing he can’t fucking hide.
“What do you want?” he growls, breath puffing in little clouds as we hit the trailhead. “You don’t wake up before noon unless someone’s bleeding out or you’ve fucked up. So which is it this time? And why the fuck must you ruin my morning peace?”
I inhale, grounding myself.
“She’s in danger, Con.”
He slows for the first time, just slightly, like his body hasn’t caught up to his brain.
I push forward. “I don’t mean academic probation. I mean actual danger. Raider-level. Gun-to-the-head, body-in-the-trunk danger. And I can’t—” I pause, swallowing hard. “They have Tommy, her like pseudo-father.”
Conner stops jogging. Just dead stops in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Who has her Tommy ?” he finally asks, voice raw, eyes already calculating the fallout before I can say a word.
Then he runs a hand through his hair, yanking hard at the roots like he’s trying to wake himself up from a nightmare.
“What the hell did you do, Landon?”
“This time?” I say, shaking my head. “It wasn’t me. They saw her with Brooke du Pont.”
His head snaps toward me so fast I hear his neck pop. “The girl she was flirting with outside of my class?” he snaps, like the words taste foul coming out of his mouth.
“Just the one,” I say dryly. “But do you know who the du Ponts are?”
Conner scoffs. “Everyone knows who the du Ponts are. Richest family in the South. Founders of New Orleans. They practically own seventy percent of the fucking real estate in Texas, but what does that have to do with--fuck.”
I nod, watching him as the pieces start to click in place.“They want Jasmine to help secure a slice of the du Pont pie.”
Conner’s mouth twitches like he’s trying not to bare his teeth. “And how is she going to do that?”
“Marriage, leverage, blackmail, I don’t know yet—but they’re circling,” I say, voice tight.
He exhales through his nose, sharp and mean. “So just another reason to kill Marcus.”
I nod, dragging a hand through my hair. “We can’t kill Marcus if they still have Tommy.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Conner snaps, hands clenched at his sides. “ We gotta get Tommy out of there first.”
I look at him, really look at him, and realize the gears are already turning. That same genius-level intellect he uses to crack forensics cases and teach spoiled undergrads? It’s now trained on one target: extraction.
“Okay,” I say, grounding myself. “Jasmine’s supposed to spend the day with Brooke tomorrow. First date.”
“Tell Jasmine to take Brooke off the grid, somewhere where she can’t obviously be followed by the Raiders,” Conner mutters. “That may work in our favor.”
“So what’s the play?” I ask.
He’s already moving again, pacing in a tight circle like he’s building a war map in his head.
“First, we find where they’re keeping Tommy,” he says. “Then we get him out when the time is right, and vanish before Marcus even knows we were there.”
“We’re going to vanish?” I choke.
“No Jasmine is going to vanish,” he nods. “We’re going to kill the Raiders. Every last one.”