Prologue #2
Callahan lifted a brow as if to challenge my uncle’s ushering me. You going to heel like the dog he’s acting like you are?
I didn’t take my eyes off him. “Yes, Tío Paolo, I’ll be right there in a minute.”
I’m not a dog. I make my own decisions.
My uncle scoffed a little but didn’t say more as he walked away, leaving us. Yet, I knew the sound he made well. He didn’t want me fucking around at all with Callahan Knight, but he needed to trust me if he was going to have me around more.
My Uncle Paolo had two brothers, Sanchez and Monte. Supposedly, they were all assholes, but I could only confirm that Paolo was. Sanchez was my father, a man who danced with my mother and me in the kitchen and tucked me in every night he could until he’d died in front of me when I was six.
My parents were left to bleed out in our living room, and I’d been the one that found them. Not that I remembered much of that night. I don’t think my memory wanted to.
Ever since, Monte and his wife had raised me.
My aunt mostly handled the nurturing, or lack thereof.
Monte listened to my aunt. And Paolo … well, Paolo ran the family business and knew I was made for it the day my parents died.
He didn’t ask for my cousins when he came to visit, he asked for me.
Instead, my cousins were my aunt’s babies, and she treated them like it.
Paolo saw something in me. Maybe it was the monster in the girl, or maybe it was fear that I masked as strength.
Either way, he knew I was destined to be an asset the day my parents’ blood stained my socks.
I could defend myself, fight, run numbers, and stare down any man who thought they could control me.
And God help me, I was proud of it. But pride was a lethal motivator as I glared at the back of my uncle’s head while we stepped back inside.
“You don’t look like a Ruiz,” Cal murmured as he rocked back on his heels and shoved his hands in his pockets.
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“Well, I’ve met Paolo. And Monte. They’re a lot less appealing.”
I shouldn’t have smiled, but I found myself chuckling. “I didn’t picture you to be a Knight either.”
“You didn’t know who I was?” He looked affronted.
“Should I?”
“Well, my brother and I are all over media outlets—”
“I don’t care to read them.”
He nodded and waited for a beat before saying, “You’re very interesting, Jas.”
“Jasmina … actually, Ms. Ruiz.”
His eyes were bright in the moonlight as he murmured, “Should I ask you to call me Mr. Knight then too?”
“I don’t intend to call you anything after this conversation, as we won’t be talking.”
“Not even after I saved you from your date?”
“On the contrary.” I tsked. “Now his ego is going to have to be pet.”
“Fuck.” His forehead wrinkled into a bit of a frown. “Want me to have him removed for the night?”
I couldn’t tell if he was serious, couldn’t exactly read what was empty charm and what wasn’t. Callahan Knight was a wild card I didn’t want to bet on or even play a hand with.
I started to step away from him. “Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time? I don’t need a knight in shining armor.”
He stepped into my path so I couldn’t leave him yet. “Not scared of him?”
I chewed my cheek, and then he took another step toward me.
I took one back immediately, and he assessed my movement.
“Scared of me, though?”
Hell yes I was scared of whatever connection I felt between us. “I’m not scared of any man.”
“Why is that?”
“Because, Mr. Knight, you may have a little sword swinging around down there, but I assure you the one I carry is sharper and deadlier.”
A laugh burst from him then. It carried through the night and seemed to lighten the tension between us enough that I let a smirk slip.
“Jasmina Ruiz. I like you. You have bite when your family’s not watching, huh, little viper?”
“I’m not a snake.” I put my hands on my hips and frowned at his blue eyes sparkling like freaking stars. “I’m just honest. Now, if you’ll excuse me …”
He moved even closer, so we were chest to chest, and my breath caught. “Save me a dance inside?”
“So Paolo and Tomás can lose their minds?”
“I’ll handle it if they do.” His tone was confident, like he was sure he’d be able to take on anyone. “I want a dance.”
I left him standing in the midnight air with a few words of wisdom: “Unfortunately, you don’t always get what you want, Knight.”
But his voice traveled in that cool wind as I went back inside, and I heard him murmur, “Sure … but I always take what I need.”
The ballroom was a masterpiece of decadent excess—soaring frescoes, crystal chandeliers that wept light onto the polished marble, and the heavy, floral scent of thousands of white lilies.
I moved through the waltz with Tomás, but the opulence felt suffocating.
I enjoyed intimate places with family close, liquor flowing, and laughter exchanged.
Instead, I listened to Tomás try to dominate my every move. “I talked with Paolo, and he agreed that you shouldn’t have been in the meeting. That you barge in even when you’re told not to.”
Like I said, I knew my pride was dangerous.
I felt the slight by my uncle, and I swear it turned my blood dark as ink in frustration and rage.
Tío Paolo seemed to really want to make an impression with Tomás.
Did he expect me to sit back and not attend the meetings when I was the one who helped him navigate his financial losses and watched his back when others attempted to blackmail him or disrespect him?
Growing up in the family business the way I had meant I had to be ready for anything. My uncles were wanted men, and I was dedicated to making sure I didn’t lose any more family than I already had.
They knew that. “I like to think I go where I’m needed, Tomás.”
His hand squeezed mine tighter as we waltzed on the dance floor, then he pulled me close to whisper, “You know your uncle’s already got a secret bitch helping him make decisions. You’re not that important to him.”
Wow, what a dick.
But he was probably right. My uncle was in love with a woman he wasn’t supposed to be in love with, and she was calling the shots behind closed doors.
“You’re lucky you’re hot as hell. I can teach you the rest. I’m excited to. I told your uncles: I got plans for us tonight.”
Gross.
Thankfully, it was the end of the song as he ground his crotch into my stomach in a disgusting gesture that made my skin crawl.
My aunt Perla always said to have grace over grievance, and she would have been proud of how I walked away from him with a tight smile.
My uncles were at the mahogany bar, and they threw back shots of Clase Azul like water before I got to them. Paolo smiled at me. “Be good to Tomás tonight, sobrina. I smoothed the waters for you.”
Uncle Monte, Paolo’s younger brother, saw the disgust flash in my eyes. He had to, because he looked away. Damn, I hated Paolo more and more every day.
Poor Monte had to be the mediator in the family. “He means well, Jas. Honest.”
I tapped the bar and motioned for the bartender to get me one of what they had. “Did you tell him I shouldn’t have been in that meeting with you earlier? I’ve run all the numbers for you guys for years.”
Uncle Paolo shrugged. “I know, but women really shouldn’t.
You know that. Like I’ve told you, you’re different, but it’s hard to make everyone understand.
” It was a phrase I hated, that rubbed me wrong, that proved he had a disdain for everyone like me, but it was okay to have that as long as he proclaimed I was the exception.
No, it wasn’t okay. It was a cop-out.
“You know I love you,” he said. “Not everyone gets that.”
“And I’m supposed to be with someone who doesn’t get it?”
“He’ll be good for the family and the business, sobrina.” Paolo tapped my hand.
Guess my uncle really did want that Abarca connection. Tomás’s family had ties to many, but it didn’t make him any less of an asshole.
“He’s not good for me though, Paolo.”
“What’s good for the family is good for you,” Paolo snapped. He took a deep breath before he tipped his head toward the dance floor. “Don’t be stubborn. We need allies with them closing off ports to us lately, right? Come on, dance with your old uncle, huh?”
I stared at him for a few seconds more. Tension snapped between us, words unspoken and anger checked but bubbling at the surface.
He didn’t like my defiance, and I didn’t like his idiotic misogyny.
Still, I nodded after a moment and went to waltz.
I tried to dance away the fury that continued to build in me.
Even Monte took me around the dance floor after and whispered, “Mi nina, sometimes not even I want to swallow the amount of bullshit Paolo’s feeding you, but you’re a Ruiz. We survive and endure, right?”
That didn’t make it any better.
I moved up and down the dance floor with grace for a whole hour more. The gala happened to have a twenty-piece chamber orchestra playing beautiful classical arrangements, giving off a sort of Bridgerton vibe mixed with a haunting, deadly one.
It didn’t ease the darkness in my chest. Neither did the front-row seat to Callahan Knight’s dancing with other women.
He was an attractive but dangerous gravitational force.
He stood taller than most, had a brighter smile, and a laugh that traveled through the room.
Every woman in the vicinity saw him or heard him.
His voice sent shivers down my spine as he waltzed past, and I heard him talking to the girl on his arm.
He was dancing with a thin, willowy blonde, his head dipped low as he whispered something in her ear.
She immediately threw her head back and laughed.
Instead of keeping his eyes on her, though, he glanced up at me, like he’d known exactly where I was the whole time we’d been on the dance floor. And then he winked.
My traitorous stomach dipped.
What the hell was wrong with me? I wanted no part of the sexuality he exuded. So, I glared back at him and turned to the older man who’d asked me to dance and was now listing off every decade he’d come to this gala.