22. Cashlynn
CHAPTER 22
CASHLYNN
I sat down in my seat with my eyes locked on the main stage as my husband was placed in a chair in the middle of it. I worked on my second drink, never taking my eyes off the stage.
“You got that look in your eye,” Ezra said, sitting next to me.
“What look is that?”
“Like you want to attack. Don’t try no shit here, Cashlynn. Nazai won’t be happy.”
Lifting the corner of my mouth, I took another drink of the liquor. “The fact that you believe I care about your brother being unhappy is comical.”
“I think you do.” He leaned back, folding his hands and placing them behind his head. The guy on stage, who I learned was the manager of the club from his speech, was currently singing my husband’s praises. “It’s obvious you’ve been through some shit, Cashlynn. Your feelings run deeper for my brother than you show. You keep a good mask on, but I’m a lawyer, seeing behind masks is my specialty.”
I ignored him as he stood up and walked over to River. Lucas and Emmet had disappeared somewhere but I wasn’t sure where.
Standing up, I stumbled slightly. Since I was still fairly new to drinking, it hit me quickly. Needing to release my bladder, I headed out of the section.
“Boss doesn’t want you wandering around,” Jackson stated.
“Bathroom!” I shouted over my shoulder, heading toward Nazai’s office. I continued to drink the contents of my glass. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it helped ease my nerves from being in such an open space.
Once upstairs, Jackson waited outside at the bottom of the stairs with the other guard while I went up into the bathroom.
I sighed in relief as I emptied my bladder. Now I knew what they meant when they said liquor went right through you. After finishing and washing my hands, I went to leave the bathroom but paused when I heard the door to the office open. There was muffled talking and I pressed my ear to the door to hear clearer.
“The information you gave me was invalid, Emmet…again,” Lucas complained.
“I told you it was a long shot, Lucas. I appreciate your faith in me, but at this point you’ve got to accept you’re chasing a ghost,” Emmet said.
“She’s out there; I know she is. Your job, like literal job, is to find people, yet you can’t locate one girl!” Lucas raised his voice.
“It’s been fifteen years, Lucas. I’m good but I’m not a damn miracle worker.”
There was some mumbling I couldn’t make out. “I need you to look harder, Emmet. I’m not giving up until I have answers.” I had so many questions about who and what they were talking about. Nazai’s brothers were still pretty much a mystery to me, each like a puzzle that needed to be pieced together correctly.
I reached for the doorknob and pushed the door open. Both stopped talking and darted their eyes to me. Not bothering to say anything to them, I walked to the glass windows. The two didn’t stick around long, giving me the office to myself, which was fine with me. My focus went to the stage where a large birthday cake was now being wheeled out. My teeth sank into my bottom lip, when a topless girl jumped out of the cake, shaking her breasts in my husband’s face. My jaw clenched. My pocket knife was tucked in the strapless bra I wore under my dress. I itched to grab it and take it across the girl’s neck.
The crowd loved it all, cheering and clapping. I didn’t know this Ian guy but he had just made my list.
Frustration filled me as once again I was consumed with jealousy I didn’t ask for. I spun around and looked around the office. My eyes dropped to his desk. I walked over and pulled on the drawers. They were all locked besides one. A medium-sized bottle of liquor was inside.
Pulling it out, I saw it was barely used. I uncapped it and walked back to the glass mirror. My eyes narrowed as I watched the girl climb out of the cake and strut to Nazai. She grabbed his knees and leaned over. Her breasts shook in his face. The green eyed monster grew inside of me. I took a drink of the bottle, my face balling up as the warm liquid hit my tongue and burned going down.
There was a knock on the door but my eyes stayed locked on the stage. I didn’t know what pissed me off more, the girl in front of my husband or the fact that I was jealous about the girl.
“Everything okay, Mrs. Tavarez?” Jackson said just as Nazai leaned up and whispered something in the girl’s ear. My grip on the bottle grew tighter. A shocked expression formed on the girl’s face but she quickly replaced it with a smile and nodded, pulling up.
When the girl walked off stage, I took one last drink of the bottle then turned around, placing it on the desk, not bothering to close it.
“I’m good.” My words were slurred. My body suddenly felt too hot and my head was fuzzy as I pushed past him and headed down the steps. Stopping halfway, I leaned on the wall and closed my eyes, taking a couple of breaths. Sweat pooled on the back of my neck.
“Mrs. Tavarez.”
“I’m fine!” My eyes snapped open and I continued down the steps. Luke led the way through the crowd while Jackson trailed the rear. Just as we got to the section, I was pulled on. Before I could think, I went into my breast and grabbed my knife, flicking it out.
“Whoa there, Wildfire. It’s just me.” Nazai chuckled.
I blinked a couple of times, coming back into reality. My eyes narrowed and I didn’t bother lowering my knife. The tip pressed against his neck. His grin grew.
“You think I won’t do it?” I asked as my blood pumped wildly inside me.
His hand went to my wrist. I thought he was about to push it away but instead he pulled it closer with a drunken grin on his face. “Actually, I think the opposite.” The knife punctured his skin.
“You two need to take this up to your office,” River said, approaching us. We were right outside the section but I didn’t care. I didn’t care that there were loads of people around or half naked women dancing and serving drinks. Right now I had tunnel vision.
“Did you like that girl all over you?” I stepped closer, my voice menacing.
“If I did, I wouldn’t have dismissed her.” My knife dug deeper.
Blood trickled down his neck, coating the blade. The music around us seemed to suddenly disappear. My breathing sped up as adrenaline rushed through my veins.
Someone bumped into me from behind, causing me to stumble. My eyes bucked when the blade cut deeper into Nazai’s neck than I intended. I always resharpened my knives after I used them so the steel blade easily sliced through his skin.
“What the hell did you do?” Lucas shouted. My hand was slapped down. My still wide eyes were now locked on the blood coming from Nazai’s neck.
“Shit. Put pressure on it. Get me some napkins.”
I was so focused on Nazai bleeding that I didn’t notice someone approaching me from behind and a blade was now pressed against my neck.
“I don’t care if you’re his wife, you tried to kill my brother,” Emmet growled lowly. The blade pushed against my skin.
My temples throbbed and I tightened my grip on my knife. Emmet didn’t realize the mistake he just made.
Nazai narrowed his eyes at his brother, his hand cuffing the wound. “I love you, brother, but touch my wife again and you won’t be performing surgeries for a long time.” Then he faced me and Emmet. “Remove that blade from my wife’s neck before it’s a problem, Emmet.” All playfulness had left his voice.
Lucas didn’t look too bothered by his brother’s threat. “Now isn’t the time for threats.” He hurried to add pressure to the wound.
“She tried to kill you,” Emmet protested, knife still to my neck. “No one goes after my brothers.”
“She wasn’t gonna kill me, E. Everything’s good. Take the knife from her neck. Now!” The last part came out in somewhat of a growl.
Emmet hesitated for a second and slowly removed the knife from my skin. I turned and glared at him, but he looked as unbothered as always.
“What the hell happened?” Ezra asked, coming out of nowhere.
“Our dear sister-in-law just tried to off our brother.” He shot me a venomous look.
Nazai huffed out a laugh then winced. “She wasn’t trying to kill me.” Someone’s tie was now being held to the wound.
Silently I shot my eyes to my knife. Blood still coated it. I still wasn’t sure how to process how I felt right now. The ball of knots in my stomach refused to unravel. My heart hammered behind my breasts.
Too many things were swirling through my head, causing a murky storm of emotions to suddenly erupt.
“My bag’s in my car, take him upstairs,” Lucas demanded. Suddenly we were being rushed in the direction of the office I had just come out of. It seemed everyone was too lost in their own world to notice anything going on. My intentions weren’t to cut Nazai, but after replaying him and the girl on stage over in my mind, I didn’t feel bad about it either.
____
Turns out the knife went deeper than I expected. Lucas ended up adding eight stitches to Nazai’s neck. Nazai had spare clothes in his office for whatever reason and decided to stay while I caught a ride home. I thought he would protest but instead he made Luke go with me and Devin drove us. He didn’t say much in the office either, just stared at me as Lucas stitched him up. He dismissed everyone but the three of us and River. I could tell Emmet still wasn’t happy about what had happened and even Ezra was side eyeing me. I was used to watching my back and being on guard, but I didn’t like it in such an open setting.
When I got back to the penthouse, I dismissed the babysitter then checked on my brother. The effects of the liquor still had me somewhat fuzzy, but my mind was all over the place trying to understand what had happened earlier, so I grabbed a bottle of wine from the wine cellar and downed the majority of the bottle. Jealousy was a foreign feeling to me and I didn’t know how to process or handle it. It scared me to know that in such a short time, I had developed enough feelings for my husband to want to physically harm someone else because of a lap dance at a strip club. It didn’t make sense to me. I’d never cared about anyone else outside of my brother, not even our parents. I’d never felt the need to stake my claim or had the urge to literally slice someone’s hands off for touching someone I deemed off limits.
Growing up, I wasn’t impulsive; there were risks in what I did. Taking my time and not being sloppy was why I was great at what I did. Acting off emotions made you make mistakes and could get you caught. So tonight, when I snatched my knife out and brought it to Nazai’s neck, it wasn’t because I felt threatened or anything, it was solely because I wanted to harm him and the dancer who’d popped out that cake and that angered me.
I ended up finishing most of the bottle of wine and stumbled into the shower before retiring to bed. Since the night of the storm, I found myself in Nazai’s bedroom. Usually I would start on the edge of the bed and at some point my body would gravitate toward him and I ended up tucked at his side. Cuddling and being able to sleep comfortably next to someone was new to me. My whole life was built around fight or flight, but those instincts seemed to be gone when Nazai came into the picture.
I passed out in a drunken slumber at some point. I wasn’t sure when Nazai got in, but I faintly heard the doors open and close in his bedroom before drifting back off.