Chapter 8
Jasmina
THE FIRST THING I tasted was iron. It was thick and that metallic tang of blood. It was my own, coating my tongue as an instant reminder of the state I was in when I woke.
Then came the screaming.
Tía Perla’s sharp, jagged shouts were loud enough to pierce through the gray fog of what was most likely a concussion.
“Monte! ?Dios mío! There’s so much … the floor, her dress, it’s all ruined!” Her voice hovered over me, frantic and high-pitched. “She’s white as a sheet! She’s going to die before the week is out! Call an ambulance!”
“No,” I croaked. The word came out loud enough as I forced my eyes open, the light from the chandelier above feeling like it was stabbing into my brain. “No hospitals.”
Hospitals were for people with clean lives.
Hospitals were for people who didn’t have a Diamond Syndicate contract with a Knight hanging over their heads.
If I checked into an ER with three puncture wounds in my gut and a face that looked like it had gone through hell, the paperwork would reach Callahan before the first stitch was tied.
I couldn’t be weak. Not now.
“Jasmina, look at me.” Monte’s voice was lower, steadier, but I could hear the tremor in it as he moved a basin of water near my head. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, mija. You need a doctor.”
“I need … the vet,” I breathed, clutching the side of the sofa. “Call the one Paolo used. Tell him to bring his kit. No questions.”
The next few hours were a blurred montage of pain, meds given by the vet, and me fighting consciousness.
The man was stern, professional, and his hands smelled of nicotine and cheap antiseptic as he worked, from what I remember.
I don’t know if he was a veteran or veterinarian. Not sure it mattered much.
But I couldn’t recall much other than that at one point, he said, “Give her more propofol. I gotta get in there to explore the abdomen to rule out visceral trauma.”
I heard my uncle ask, “What does that mean?”
“To see if her GI tract is damaged. If it is, we got a problem.”
Everything went black then.
When I woke again, there were bandages around my body and whispers in the room.
“She has three deep puncture wounds to the abdominal wall, contusions, likely a fractured rib,” he muttered.
His voice came from above me, and when I opened my eyes, the man was pressing a button on the IV machine next to the bed they’d had me on.
A tube ran from it to my arm. “I flushed her abdomen. They missed her organs. You lucked out there. The only trauma is to her uterus. I sutured it up the best I could. She should still get X-rays. A CT scan. The internal bleeding could—”
“I’m fine,” I croaked from my bed. Then I forced myself to sit up and look down at the bandages. The movement sent a white-hot flare of agony through my core. I could live with a few scratches. I could hide the bruising on my jaw with enough foundation.
The vet didn’t look me in the eye as he snapped his latex gloves off and murmured, “You’re fine right now.
You’ve got your morphine drip, but once that’s out …
” He shrugged and handed my uncle a couple of bottles of pills.
“Make sure she takes antibiotics and these pain meds.” He looked back at me.
“That blade was serrated, young lady. It did damage …” He shook his head.
“Don’t sugarcoat it,” I said quietly, needing all the facts.
“There’s a high probability, depending on how it heals … if it heals … The scarring could make it impossible for you to—”
“I get it.” My aunt and uncle were wringing their hands now. I held the doc’s gaze. “No reports, right?”
“No reports. But the body will be its own report. You should get an ultrasound and … There is significant hemorrhaging that I can barely control with the equipment I have here.”
I cleared my throat and winced at even that movement before I told him, “You can go.”
He left us with many more concerns now than we would have thought.
Tía Perla was pacing the rug, her rosary beads clicking like a ticking clock.
“Maybe this is for the best. No child … He’ll think you’re broken after a few months of no baby and he could abandon the idea of this ridiculous blood trust. So stupid.
Maybe he’ll discard you for mistresses and focus on Fuerte Firearms.”
Monte didn’t say a word. He stood in silence, a grim look on his face. The poor man had lost his brothers and now was staring at his niece on death’s door. He looked white as a sheet, his eyes haunted.
I grabbed his hand. “Monte, I’m going to be okay.”
He blinked once and then twice before he met my gaze. “Of course you are.” He nodded over and over. “I’m so sorry we left you, mija. We shouldn’t have left—”
“I told you to go have a good night.” I absolved him immediately. It wasn’t their fault. Yet, he shook his head and then pinched the bridge of his nose.
Monte was gentle. Monte was the mediator between me and Paolo.
He was the man who’d tucked me in at night and told me I was one of his own.
He had raised me as best he could. “Jasmina, you always do what you must, mija. You’re strong.
Too strong, huh?” He put his burly hand on my cheek, and I smiled at him.
“Just strong enough.” I winked at him, and I saw his shoulders relax a bit. “We need to find out who did this. What they took—”
“Mostly money,” Monte told me, sighing. “I have some guys looking into it. Security didn’t pick up on anything. The locks were picked and our system was down. They were professional.”
“I want to know who would so blatantly do this—”
“I know, mija, but we can’t make waves now,” he said, almost as if he was resigned, as if he was rolling over and letting them go even after they’d almost killed me.
“Monte, they took our money and left me bleeding out on the floor.”
“They were cowards,” he agreed, and I thought he would revise his statement, make a plan to avenge my injuries, anything. Instead, I got, “We need to focus on the Knights, though. What will we tell them? He cannot find out about this.”
I shouldn’t have felt the blow as badly as the knife wounds. Yet, I did. The air seemed to deflate from my lungs just as the idea he loved me as much as his own deflated too. “I’ll make it work, okay? Don’t worry.”
Maybe I should have mourned not being able to have a child.
But all I could focus on was my family. My cousins.
I’d resented this marriage, fought it, but we needed it.
I glanced at my broken body, the blood seeping through the bandages on my stomach. This wedding needed to happen to buy us time. We needed to regroup. Present a powerful, unified front.
The Diamond Syndicate would never tolerate an attack on their own. Hell, it was my uncle’s foolhardy attack on Jameson Knight that was the catalyst for all of this.
From the moment I became a Knight, I would be safe, and by extension, so would my family.
“He cannot find out,” I whispered.
“He will not find out,” she wailed. “Callahan … We will push back the time. We need at least another week. We must have one, or he’ll see you like this.
” The pitch of her voice started to rise.
“He will think we are broken! He will take advantage of your state, Jasmina! He will treat you like a wounded dog!”
“He won’t see me like this,” I said, my voice cold and final. “Monte, you tell the Knights there’s been a delay. Tell them the final arrangements for Paolo are more complicated than we thought. Tell them whatever lie you have to, but get me another week.”
“But the Diamonds don’t wait,” Monte whispered, looking toward the door as if he expected Callahan to bust it down at any moment.
I growled, clutching my stomach as I stood up, my legs shaking but holding. I caught my reflection in the hallway mirror. My face was a mess of purple and blue, my eyes bloodshot and haunted. ”I don’t care who he is. Make him.”