Chapter 6
Jasmina
“DID HE WATERBOARD YOU?” My aunt stared at me, my hair still wet and my body still a bit cold.
Callahan had nearly attempted to kill me, then saved me, then almost fucked me, only to tell me he didn’t want that before he dropped me like a sack of potatoes in front of my aunt and uncle only to tell them I would be his bride in a week.
A week? My stomach rolled, and my mind reworked that amount of time.
“Jasmina, are you okay?” Perla touched my cheek. “What did he do to you?”
I closed my eyes at her extravagant imagination. “Well, not so much him, okay? I sort of stabbed him and pushed him off Midnight’s Edge. We almost drowned. I was trying to … I thought we could run if he disappeared,” I admitted and realized that sounded ten times worse.
“Ay.” She kissed that red rosary of hers and closed her eyes. “You fought him and burned his building? We can’t run, mija. Where? They’d find us.”
I sighed dejectedly. She took a deep breath and barked out orders to my cousins. Poor Maribel and Annarose were told to come over and pray over me. They both met my eyes with reluctant acceptance and prayed with their momma.
Then they took me to the upstairs shower, turning it on high, rushing to their closet to get me another dress.
I stripped off the sweats and stepped under the water, letting it wash away the cold, the day, and the salt from the ocean along with the desire I still unfortunately felt for the man who was going to ruin my life.
“Jas,” Maribel whispered while she sat down on the porcelain toilet lid on the other side of the curtain, “are you sure you don’t want me to talk to Mother for you? I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” Annarose came into the bathroom too. They didn’t have any reservations about nudity or privacy. We’d known each other too long for that.
“Marry him,” Maribel whispered as if Annarose was stupid.
“Oh, please. Don’t fall on the sword too quickly.” Annarose scoffed. “How about I marry him and ride off into the sunset? You know he’s worth billions?”
“No.” I turned off the shower, ripped the curtain back, and grabbed a towel. My tone left no room for argument, so Maribel and Annarose held up their hands when they heard how much ice my voice had in it. They feared me when I got like this. And perhaps they should.
I was the one who stood in the line of fire with Paolo while they went to school. I was the one who endured training with Paolo while they curated Instagram feeds and painted their nails.
They were normal. And I loved that about them, I did. They were spoiled because that’s how children were supposed to be raised, and they treated me like I was just as they were … until I wasn’t. Until I reminded them I could be as ruthless as Paolo.
I grabbed panties and a bra and put them on while Maribel tried to be consoling. “I just think it wouldn’t be that bad, and I don’t want you to have to do it when I know you don’t want to.”
I took my thigh holster and slid the blade up before putting on a flowy black dress that matched theirs. Neither of them said a thing, but they both stared at the blade. It was the stark difference between my world and theirs.
“Would it be that bad?” Annarose had no filter and tried to lighten the mood. “I’d fuck that man twenty different ways to hell if Momma would let me.”
“He had a hand in Tío Paolo’s death,” Maribel hissed at her.
“And?” Annarose narrowed her eyes at her. “I won’t cry for Paolo, Maribel, and you won’t either.”
“Jesus.” I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Anyway”—she turned to me as if done with the conversation about Paolo—“did Callahan actually almost drown you, or what happened? I want details … like every detail, please.” Annarose was only twenty-one, and I swear she was more experienced in sleeping with men than all of us.
Her kinks were not something she hid well. “Did he choke you out too? Was it bad?”
I leaned my head against the cold tile, closing my eyes. They didn’t understand. They’d been pampered in that their biggest tragedy had been experiencing a broken heart or a bad grade. They didn’t understand that Callahan would break them … or me.
Neither of them had dealt with any sort of crime. Or real pain.
But I was the girl who wasn’t supposed to survive. I was the girl who’d found her parents murdered when she was six, yet when Paolo and Monte got to me that day, it was without a tear in my eyes.
I wouldn’t cry now either.
I would be strong for everyone because I was the outsider that owed them.
They’d taken me in, and so I’d let them mold me into a useful tool.
I tried harder, learned more, did what they needed.
They provided food. I learned to keep the family’s books.
They gave me a bed to sleep in that wasn’t the ground, and I learned not to cry in the dark when Paolo got violent because he was mad about losses.
“It’s bad enough, Annarose, and that’s all you need to know,” I hissed.
I mean, technically I’d tried to kill him, but he had almost drowned me, that damn animal. Of course, he’d also saved my life, but only because he wanted something. A roll in the hay and money he thought I had.
Ugh. The way he talked about marrying me like it was a transaction had me getting pissed all over again. At him and at myself.
How had I allowed him to get me off in the car outside my aunt and uncle’s house?
I’d have to scrub my skin raw again tonight.
“One day, you’ll learn you can confide in me,” Annarose grumbled, but Maribel elbowed her like she shouldn’t pry.
They rushed to get me ready, blow-drying and spraying product in my hair to hold the curl quickly.
“You know Paolo’s having a closed casket?” Maribel asked, trying to change the subject.
“So stupid. How are we supposed to post a tribute without an actual body?” Annarose muttered as she looked at me in the mirror and then winked. “You look less like a drowned rat, more like a Ruiz now. It’ll be good for pictures.”
They were very concerned about their curated Instagram accounts.
I sighed and leaned my head against hers as we stared at each other in the mirror. Her hair was about as blonde as mine now, but the streaks of blue in mine made our appearances starkly different. “Thank you for making me look presentable.”
“Yeah, well, you needed the help. And we’re going to need the help through this funeral with how boring it’s about to be. God, help us all.”
“God, help me, all right. God help me for the next two damn years.”
Callahan Knight had appeared at the funeral for only a moment, a dark ghost at the back of the nave. He didn’t need to stay long; his presence was only a reminder to everyone that a predator walked among us, ready to attack at any moment.
Yet, that described all the men present. None of them had remorse in their eyes. Politicians and old-money titans filled the polished wood pews shoulder to shoulder. Stained glass windows along the walls casted colorful shadows on their faces. I saw none who had true remorse in their eyes.
The yakuza, the bratva, the Irish—none of them were here to pay their respects. They were here for the spectacle and to scope out the competition of who would be taking out us Ruizes.
Paolo hadn’t just been a complete asshole to me—he’d angered many in his time on Earth. Because of it, I knew how to navigate a room full of monsters and did so throughout the rest of the day.
I didn’t see many tears being shed. He’d made enemies rather than friends. And I wouldn’t miss his casual violence, his suffocating misogyny, or the way he treated loyalty like a debt that could never be repaid.
I contemplated what I would miss from him as I touched my hand to his casket, and I knew it was only one thing: the illusion of stability.
But I wasn’t blind; Paolo had spent the last few years bleeding us dry. We’d lost businesses, ignited a feud with the Irish, and all but liquidated all our funds. The Ruiz name was hanging on by a thread now, and my family knew the only way out was by me marrying into the Diamonds.
“My followers are losing their minds. One even commented that Paolo isn’t actually in the closed casket.” Annarose shoved her phone toward my face.
I didn’t look. I didn’t have social media; I didn’t have a digital footprint and wasn’t the girl who posed for the aesthetic.
I hadn’t pulled my phone out once. Instead, I spent my time scanning the church, watching who interacted with who, observing how Callahan shook hands with the Irish, the Italians, the politicians, the Pakhan that oversaw the bratva on the West Coast, and everyone in between before he left.
Funerals weren’t for the dead here. They were for the living to carry out agendas.
The service had gone off without a hitch, mostly because the hitch was already settled.
The news of my marriage had clearly leaked.
I felt the weight of it in the whispers that followed me down the aisle, in the way men’s eyes raked over my body.
I was being measured. To the Diamond Syndicate, a deal was only worth the profit it turned.
Everyone in this room was wondering exactly what I had offered Callahan Knight to make him pick me over the “superior” choices.
“We’re going to need better content,” Annarose huffed as we exited into the gray afternoon, completely oblivious to the fact that we needed much more than a damn selfie with a corpse.
“Your uncle is not a prop for your socials,” my aunt whisper-yelled as we reached the sleek black car.
“His funeral is not for content.” Her gaze flicked between the two blonde girls, sharp and biting.
“He is the man who kept this family alive while other men were trying to bury us. He needs a closed casket because he is unrecognizable, Annarose. Do you know why?”
“Of course we know, Mother,” Maribel whispered quickly, her face dropping. Annarose just widened her eyes at me in mock horror, a silent plea for me to intervene.
I stayed quiet. My aunt was truly struggling with the weight of Paolo’s absence.
She maintained a controlled grace, a porcelain mask of dignity that hadn’t slipped once, but she knew the truth like I did: the Irish were at the gates, the bank accounts were dwindling, and our only hope was currently bleeding through a black shirt in a penthouse across town.
My aunt specifically had mastered the art of not falling apart in public—or in private, for that matter. She’d worn a black fascinator tilted just so, veil covering eyes that were rimmed red but dry. Her dress was simple, but she wore a string of pearls that looked like they cost a fortune.
She’d been the one who held Monte close as he mourned his brother, who’d sat down with me to go over the cost of the burial and modeled the fact that we had to keep it together.
It was obvious she’d do that by any means necessary, even if it meant scolding her children and giving me up to the Knights.
“Did anyone approach you, Jas?” my aunt asked, changing the subject.
“Tía,” I started, “no one was worried about me.”
“No. No. No.” She shook her head vigorously at me.
“That’s not true. The word is getting around.
People know now, and you must keep that in mind.
We all must.” She gave her daughters a look before meeting my eyes again.
“You will never make a good wife. You have the same fire I do, mija, but you will have to try.” She sighed like she couldn’t take the thought of all this. “It should have been Maribel.”
“I’ll be ready to go with him in a week.” I shrugged like it was no big deal. “I can be the wife he needs me to be.”
“But a child?” my aunt whispered with tears in her eyes, and Annarose and Maribel knew to stop joking then. One of them took my aunt’s hand and whispered it would be okay.
“I’ll figure it out.” Perla didn’t look convinced until I scooted closer to her and took her other hand in mine too. “A Ruiz never shows weakness, because we don’t have one. Right?”
Ruizes were never weak. But as I waited for an answer my aunt never gave, I realized we were something much more dangerous.
We were desperate.