JETMIR
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Anya was laughing. She was actually laughing.
It was a carefree laugh. The one that should only be for me. Yet, there she was in this fucking club in the heart of Miami, dancing with her girls and happy without me.
For the past three years, I’d stalked her from the shadows and watched her maintain a cool expression and polite smile during her photography exhibitions and charity galas. I did it for her protection and for my sanity.
Anya threw her head back and laughed again, and I cursed Lady A’s “Bartender” blasting through the speakers for stealing my wife’s sound from me. I was so tempted to pull out my gun from the waistband of my pants and shoot out the speakers.
But I didn’t.
I wanted to conceal my presence in Raphael Santos’s club as long as possible, and begrudgingly, I wanted Anya to be happy. Just not without me.
So here I was standing in the shadows of the VIP section, bourbon untouched in my hand, and watching my wife dance.
God help me, she moved like she didn’t have a care in the world.
Her platinum-blonde hair swung across bare shoulders. Her friends crowded around her in a circle, singing along and throwing their hands in the air. Anya was right in the middle of them, smiling so wide it made something vicious twist inside my chest.
I used to be the reason for it. Now, I was just another man watching from across the room.
She thought I’d given up. She was wrong.
Anya was mine and what I felt for her went beyond obsession. I would destroy every lifeform on this planet to see her smile for me again.
“And this man is about to learn just how serious I am,” I muttered under my breath as I watched her dance with the blond.
He was opposite to me in every single way, and while I’d admit he was good-looking, he was also forgettable. And then there was the fact that it was the latest member of the Triad.
He sealed his fate long before he danced with my wife.
The fucker said something to Anya and she laughed, her expression open and cheerful. She was surveying the man in front of her, and judging by her appreciative look, she didn’t mind what she saw.
He held out a hand. Anya looked at it, hesitating for a moment before she took it.
My fingers tightened around the glass, making it crack before it shattered. A thin fracture spiderwebbed through the crystal, but I barely noticed the pain.
My entire focus was on my wife dancing with the man who, before the day was over, would be meeting Jesus.
It wasn’t overly intimate, but still I watched darkly when her body brushed against his.
It made the pain in my chest so much worse.
Because he was touching her. Looking at her. Standing where I should be standing.
Song after song. Drink after drink. And every smile she gave him fed something dark inside me.
By two in the morning, I hated him, but I also knew his name, social security number, and where he lived.
By five in the morning, Anya finally took a break from him and excused herself, her bodyguards trailing behind her.
As she made her way out of the club, the daughter of Raphael Santos, Miami’s most feared mob boss, moved through the crowd with ease. People naturally gave her space, some without even realizing why. Or maybe they sensed danger lurking in the eyes of her bodyguards.
Anya wasn’t just the apple of her father’s eye, but Gabriel Santos’s too. Three years ago, an explosion changed his life. Anya blamed me, and between the white lies I’d fed her and that cursed event, it was enough to make her leave.
I tried to make amends. I tried to tell her and show her how sorry I was. None of it worked. Today, I would take a different approach. The kind that would probably set ablaze any truce that my mother had achieved.
I followed closely, making sure her bodyguards and the driver who pulled up outside the club never saw me. I was three cars back all the way to her house. I watched the gates close behind her, taking her away from me again.
But not for much longer.
From a distance, I watched lights flicker inside the second-floor window and sat there until her bedroom went dark again.
“I’ll be back for you soon,” I murmured into the night, and then I drove away.
Jealousy was an ugly thing, but it was also an excellent way to relieve tension. Revenge was even better.
The blond fucker stumbled out of his car forty minutes later, alone and slightly drunk. He had to be the worst—or dumbest—criminal in this entire world.
His attention was on his phone, completely oblivious to his surroundings and any dangers.
He was probably texting to report about his success while also bragging about the beautiful woman he’d danced with and that thought alone pissed me off even more.
I parked across the street from his apartment building and got out. The early fall breeze swooped across the parking lot, as if trying to soothe my jealousy. It didn’t.
My loafers thudded against the paved parking lot as I closed the distance, his drunken ass oblivious to the danger. He looked up when my shadow fell over him.
My fist connected with his face, sending his phone flying across the parking lot.
“What the fuck,” he grunted, confusion flashing across his face. “Do I know you?”
I punched his pretty face again.
“Not yet. But you will.” His eyes met mine and fear flickered in his gaze.
I kicked his knee and he let out a wail, but the empty parking lot swallowed his scream. When it was over, both his legs bent in directions nature never intended and he was on the ground, crawling like a snake.
I lit up a cigarette, then crouched beside him while he sobbed.
“That woman you danced with tonight…” I inhaled a puff of the smoke before exhaling into his face. “That’s my wife.”
His eyes widened and terror entered his expression.
“You… You’re Jetmir.”
A menacing smile appeared on my face. “I see my reputation precedes me.”
He nodded vigorously, tears and blood staining his pale cheeks.
“Now, my friend, you will tell me everything you know about the Triad and why they’re tailing my wife.”
He didn’t resist, and what little he knew of the Triad’s plans, he spilled.
Pulling out a gun, I twisted a silencer onto the barrel of my gun, then pointed it at his temple and pulled the trigger.
Blood splattered across the pavement and he hit the ground with his eyes wide open and a bullet hole in his temple.
I stood and straightened my jacket, examining the wreckage I’d made of the man. The point was made and the Triad will get the message.
The best part was that my anger was gone and I was ready for the next chapter of my life.
I left him there and headed back to claim what had been mine all along.