Chapter 3
Callahan
THE SLICE OF PAIN through my back sent a rush of adrenaline and pure heat through me rather than any sort of fear.
I loved a good fight.
And with Jasmina Ruiz, well, that was an epic bloodbath I would be more than willing to drown in.
My one and only irritation with this one was that she’d ended a kiss I’d been craving since the last time we were together.
She didn’t disappoint either. She’d put her body into it, and I swear I’d felt the desire. That whimper had been real too.
Jasmina didn’t just play her part—she put her whole fucking soul into it. She had a way of pulling me in and taking a bite of my pride, because I’d believed that kiss for a moment.
All before she’d tried to kill me, of course.
When I realized her intention and knew I couldn’t pull us back from the edge, I shoved off the ground because her little ass didn’t calculate that she would have cracked her head on the razor-sharp boulders jutting out beneath us.
I needed her alive and well.
And as we fell, she jerked her knife down, slicing at my back as best she could, so I rammed my arm back to dislodge her grip while I grabbed a fistful of her newly blue hair. “You’re going to regret that, Viper.”
“Doubtful,” she spat right before we hit the water.
Headfirst.
Fuck, that water was cold, and the sting of salt in my wound burned as I fought to dislodge the freaking knife from my body before I got rid of the weight of my coat. I lost track of her as we both struggled to right ourselves underwater.
I knew right away I’d need stitches, and Jameson would be pissed when he saw the wound.
There was something wrong with me in that I was smiling instead of cursing her name—that I was looking for her underwater. When I found her, my hand jerked out to grab her.
Rather to keep her in my sights or to keep her near the surface, I wasn’t sure.
I gripped her winter coat, but she struggled instantaneously. Her hands were on mine, scraping at my fingers, trying to loosen them. So, I grabbed a fistful of her hair, extending her out to arm’s length underwater.
Jasmina, even if she was tiny and looked harmless, was damn good with a knife. Not only that, she had some fight in her, because she was expending a lot of energy. I had to give it to her … She’d gotten one past me for sure.
Of course, now, I was going to watch her struggle. Didn’t she realize I was much more prepared for a battle underwater than she was? I’d take her life, drown her, if she didn’t give in.
She didn’t seem to care. She fought me with every last ounce of her energy.
She even reached for another knife that she had hidden at her thigh.
I outmaneuvered it right before she sliced my wrist. And then she was thrashing it around until I caught her wrist and twisted enough to make her finally release the handle.
We both watched as it sank into the murky depths.
She was losing momentum but not giving in.
I thought I’d rid her of her weapons, but suddenly a sharp stab hit my calf.
It barely punctured my skin, but I gave her credit for having heels with some sort of makeshift retractable knife in the soles.
That was a Katalina Armanelli staple heel. We’d all heard of the bratva queen who would utilize them to kill men who wronged her.
Funny that Jasmina was acting like I’d wronged her when she was now trying to kill me after burning down my building. Technically, my family had rid her of the uncle who was going to pawn her off to some man for money anyway.
She should have been thanking me, not trying to drown me.
Another kick aimed at my manhood. The woman liked my dick, so what the actual fuck?
It was weak at best. I had at least another minute of breath left in me, whereas she should have been trying to swim to the top.
One last claw at my wrist before her eyes fluttered, then I was the one who gave in and yanked her up to the surface.
Did she want to die?
We broke through the water’s surface in a rush, droplets spraying every which way as she gasped for breath.
I screamed at her, “Are you trying to kill yourself? Quit fighting.” She was much too small to survive these temperatures when we were so far from shore.
Her body wasn’t prepared for the freezing it was about to endure.
Her eyes had even widened like she was shocked by the temperature.
I glanced toward the beach, taking in the choppy waves, and my stomach dropped as I saw the distance. Goddamn, the tide was sweeping us out to sea.
All while she still fought me, spitting back, “You have to die.”
“Jesus Christ. Are you that fucking stupid?” I bellowed, shaking her in my grip, starting to feel a panic grow inside me.
“Let go of me and fight, you asshole.” She gasped, literally gasped for air with the weakest strokes against the waves that I’d ever seen.
Her body was giving out on her. Hypothermia would take her before it ever took me. She had no meat on her bones at all and was already shivering.
Still she fought.
Jasmina was the most reckless, idiotic, beautiful creature I’d ever met. I meant what I’d said about not wanting to marry her. We’d both drown in an epic war or fight of some sort before we got down the aisle. This was a perfect example.
The woman would not give up even when it was logical.
And I was willing to take one for the team.
My brother knew it. I was dedicated to making sure we maintained as much respect as we could.
We’d been afforded a great amount of prestige and power but also responsibility.
There was no way I’d hand it over to the Irish, and I knew for a fact if one of those women didn’t marry me, they’d be marrying the Irish to save their asses.
“If I let go of you, you will die, Jasmina,” I told her, because quite frankly, I was sure she would.
Most days I would say that survival was mind over matter, but the waves were rough enough, and even if her mind wasn’t failing her, her body was.
“No.” Her teeth chattered. “I’m going to kill you, and then I’m going to save them.”
“Oh, really?” I let out a loud ha. “My brother would never let you get out of the country with me missing,” I informed her as I almost lazily treaded water with her hair still in my grip.
“Guess we’ll find out,” she practically garbled, her mouth half in the water.
She was good at swimming. I’d give her that.
I could see that she was strong. But I could tread for hours in water colder than this, and she was tiring fast. Her lips were already turning blue, and the long wool coat she had on was weighing her down.
That, along with the fact she’d expended too much energy swiping weapons at me, made me consider how easy it would be to let her sink to the bottom of the ocean.
Granted, I knew I was bleeding heavily. She’d done a damn good job of catching me off guard with that kiss. I’d had her mouth once before and had never forgotten about it.
I’d told myself I’d imagined how good she tasted, but I was wildly incorrect.
She still tasted divine. Maybe better now, even.
The fact that she’d baited me made the kiss even more deliciously provocative.
She’d outwitted me because, damn, I thought she’d wanted me the way I wanted her for a second.
I realized, at that moment, I’d feel a bit of a loss after she drowned here today.
Quite honestly, I found I loved a challenge, loved the hate I got from her in a way I never got from anyone else.
“We won’t find out, Jas. You’re going to die here in the water, cold and alone.”
“No. You’ll bleed out before that.” Her attempt to kick me was futile again. Did she ever quit?
I knew the answer but still hoped she’d finally concede as death’s grip closed in on her.
“You’re tiring, little viper. Admit it, and I’ll pull you to shore when your legs give out.”
“I’ll never admit a damn thing to you Knights. You can go to hell.”
“Why? Because we killed your uncle? You know you hated him.”
Her eyes flashed with guilt for a moment. “You can hate your family but still want them to live, Callahan.”
“He was going to sell your hand in marriage to Tomás.”
“As opposed to you taking Maribel’s now?” she whispered in a tone that was full of betrayal.
She wasn’t turning this on me. “Your family is hemorrhaging. It’s the best type of deal to take when that happens. Plus, you expect Diamonds to be okay with you just burning down a billion-dollar building. That’s on you.”
“Go to hell,” she said through the water as she struggled to keep her body afloat.
“Keep my spot warm for me, then? You’ll be there before I will.” I let her go and took a stroke back, and she didn’t even follow toward the shore.
“I hate you, Callahan.” She gurgled, and then she went under.
That dark-blue hue of her hair got smaller and smaller. It spiraled down into the abyss like ink in water. One second, she was a spitting, defiant creature, and the next, she was just … gone.
The silence of the Atlantic was deafening.
The waves crashed against the shore, indifferent to the fact that a Ruiz had just vanished into the dark.
My back was screaming, the saltwater a thousand needles in the wound she’d carved into my muscle, but that pain was nothing compared to the sudden, hollow vacuum in my chest when the ocean swallowed her up.
Fuck, my panic started to overtake me. I probably should have let her drown, but as I weighed the options, I couldn’t kill her or let her go just yet.
It didn’t matter that she was more of a menace than anything.
I swear she knew something—I told myself that was why I hit the HEAT smartwatch with tracking for an emergency. My team would get here quickly now.
I scanned the surface once more, my heartbeat galloping faster and faster. There had to be a reason her aunt and uncle didn’t want to give her hand up and so quickly offered their own daughters.
So, I dove down for her. I kicked hard, my muscles burning with the effort as I shot through the water to spot her sinking slowly, down, down, down. I grabbed her by the waist and hauled her upward, breaking the surface with a gasp that tore at my lungs.
She was limp. Her head fell back against my shoulder, her skin the color of marble.
“Breathe,” I growled, swimming toward the shore with a brutal, one-armed stroke. “Breathe, you stubborn little pain in my ass, or I swear I’ll bring you back just to kill you myself.”
I’d have to give her CPR. How long could a body go without air? Was she fucking breathing?
The sand finally hit my loafers, and I yanked her up into my arms, trying to get her out of the cold.
I moved quickly toward the shore enough to clear her body of the waves, and then I collapsed with her in my arms. I put her onto her back and pressed my hands to her chest, pumping with a rhythmic, desperate force.
I leaned down and put my mouth to hers to force my own air into her lungs.
I tasted the salt and the faint, lingering ghost of the woman who had tried to murder me only minutes ago.
Of course it only took one breath from me for her to spurt water from her lungs and immediately shove me away from her as she coughed and then tried to scramble away in the sand.
I grabbed her jaw and held it to the side long enough for her to empty the saltwater from her lungs before I turned her back to face me.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you.” She stared at me with a defiance I almost respected at that point.
“There is none. So, instead of saving me, let me die.” She started shaking uncontrollably then, and I realized if I didn’t get her warm, the cold would kill her. She was freezing. The blue of her lips was so deep I was concerned how fast hypothermia had hit.
“I didn’t drag you from the ocean just so you could die from the cold, Jas.
” I yanked the coat from her shoulders, trying to strip at least that layer off her.
The cold water was soaked into the fabric and was surely making her body temp drop faster.
“How stupid are you that you thought you’d kill me with that stunt? ”
“Worth a shot,” she said through chattering teeth, pushing my hands away when I tried to get any of her clothes off. I left them for now. “If you would have just sunk to the bottom of the ocean or let the sharks get you, I would have had a chance at disappearing with my family.”
“Instead of marrying off one cousin? You could have died out there if I hadn’t saved your ridiculous ass.”
“I don’t care. If you marry her, I’ll die anyway.”
“Why?”
“They’re family, Cal. And I’m not throwing my family to the devil himself. I’ll die before I do.” She huffed out a breath, and it was only a small puff of heat now while her body shook, trying to reach a warmer temperature but failing.
And even still, her hand was snaking to her side like she was looking for another weapon.
“I’ve alerted a team that we’re here, Viper. Killing me now would do you no good.”
The fight in her pretty eyes didn’t die, but her hand stopped searching.
That fight, that stubbornness, that vigor to end me had all my warning bells sounding in my head. And it was enough that I knew I’d have never been able to say yes to her cousin when she was available to marry.
So, maybe I’d give her what she wanted, and she could be thankful for that for a time.
Plus, she and I both knew that if her dad had hidden the money in a trust, he’d have told her first. And I wanted to be the person to rip apart every piece of her and make sure we found just what she was fighting so hard to hide before I let her out of my sight.
I curled around her and waited for my team to get to us. She was muttering now, not making sense at all. Seconds seemed like hours as her face turned bluer and bluer.
“You better not die, Viper. Not like this.”
As an SUV pulled up, I was happy to see they’d brought a medical unit. My HEAT smartwatch was state-of-the-art and, because I’d alerted for an emergency, it must have read my body temperature and location. I screamed at them to help her first.
“Do I look like I need medical attention?” I snapped at a guy who tried to get in my way to check me as I carried her to the SUV. “Attend to her!”
“But, sir, she’s not as important as—”
“She’s the most important. She’s about to be my wife, and if you don’t save her, you’ll be the first to go.”