Chapter 14
Jasmina
NO PART OF ME wanted to walk into that damn place with Callahan after what I’d allowed him to do to me under a table at a restaurant. Quite frankly, I should have been locked up for the way I was all for it.
I’d completely lost the plot. Or maybe I was making a new one, because walking with him into that precinct felt uncomfortable, sure, but also like maybe I was making my own path, like I would be able to endure whatever it was and maneuver the outcome.
I’d felt that way at first.
But then, the woman who met us near the glass-walled offices of the major crimes unit destroyed all my newfound confidence.
Demi, her name tag read, but it could have read Professional Who Has Her Life Completely Together and I would have believed that to be her name.
She was striking in a way that felt almost incomparable to me, with honey-blonde hair pulled into a sleek, professional ponytail, a silk blouse that showed off her curves without being slutty, and plump red lips that glistened just enough that you couldn’t take your eyes off of them until you saw the badge clipped to a belt that emphasized a very disciplined waistline.
She didn’t just seem to work here. She seemed to own the place.
But the second her eyes landed on Callahan, the professional mask melted away to a googly-eyed woman in love.
And I about vomited.
There was no hiding her love for him under those too-bright fluorescent lights. I glanced away as she fawned over him and took in the smell of stale coffee, the shiny floor wax, the too-loud and too-public place we were in.
And I felt my palms start to sweat.
He couldn’t possibly expect me to sit through the kind of emotional destruction I was about to endure in front of all them. I wanted the shadows of my apartment; I wanted Romeo curled up next to me. I wanted my cousins chattering in the background and making it all seem much lighter than it was.
Yet, I wasn’t going to get any of that as I dug into all the secrets of my dead uncle. Paolo Ruiz was still cursing me rather than throwing me a damn bone from the grave.
“Can I look at this at home?” I asked, my voice tight. I felt the weight of the heavy manila folders being wheeled toward us on a cart.
“Oh, that’s not authorized, Cally baby,” Demi murmured.
Cally? Gross.
She stepped into his personal space, her hand ghosting near his forearm. It was a practiced, intimate lean.
“Do I need to call the commissioner to get it authorized?” Callahan asked, his voice dropping into that flat tone that would make any person uncomfortable.
Demi hurried to smooth the waters, her eyes flickering to me with a sharp curiosity.
“I mean, of course, I can figure it out. You can take home whatever you need. I’ll just mark it as a consultation for the Knights.
” She paused, her perfectly manicured finger hovering over the keyboard, and then she disappeared to get a laptop that she handed over to him.
“All of the evidence will be on the files on this laptop. Is it going to be in your possession the whole time, or will she be taking it to her … own place?”
“She’s living with me, Demi. So, no worries.”
Poor Demi. I almost felt sorry for her. Her spine turned to steel, and her lips pulled into a pout that was meant to be cute but came off as desperate. She began typing with a rhythmic, angry clatter.
“Maybe once you look all this over, you and I can meet for dinner? So you can hand-deliver it back to me? We have … a lot to catch up on.”
I looked at the few scuff marks on the floor, trying to ignore the sour taste in my mouth. I hoped I never appeared this desperate for Callahan, although I felt her pain. Even if I wasn’t his lover, exactly, I was getting more and more jealous by the minute.
And I couldn’t. I was a contractual fiancée. Granted, we had some fun under a damn table, but it wasn’t like I expected us to be exclusive. I didn’t even have a ring on my finger, and even if I did, it wouldn’t change the fact that women like Demi were probably a staple in Callahan’s life.
“You know I’m marrying Jasmina, Demi.”
Callahan’s voice was softer now. Consoling. It was a tone he’d never used with me. It was a voice for a woman he actually cared about, or at the very least, one he’d spent significant time between the sheets with.
The realization hit way harder than it should have. They had. The way she looked at him, the way he was handling her ego … they were definitely sleeping together. Or they had been until he decided to choose me as his Ruiz bride.
I turned away, not out of respect, but because the bile was rising in my throat. I walked a few feet away to the next desk, where a weary-looking officer was staring at a monitor.
“Busy night?” I asked, my voice sounding hollow to my own ears.
The officer looked up, blinking at me. “Not too bad. Just the usual.” He gave me a small, pitying smile, clearly sensing the tension radiating off the presence behind me.
Callahan didn’t wait for me to finish the small talk. “Jas, time to go.”
I let him walk me to the car and didn’t even fight him on the doors being opened. I wanted to be done with this day, done with thinking of him, done with thinking of all of it.
He told me the evidence was all in the file on the laptop’s home screen. He gave the computer to me when we got to my room, along with the username and password, and then he said, “Why don’t we start wedding planning tomorrow?”
There was that sickening, consoling voice, except it was out of pity for me now rather than anything else.
“Whatever you want,” I said tiredly and closed the door to my room.
I didn’t open the computer. I didn’t go near it.
Instead, I sat on my bed and took out my crocheting kit.
I did that instead for hours and hours until I fell asleep.
The next day, I sat on the edge of the bed in light-blue pajamas made from the softest, thinnest fabric with the laptop glowing like a blue omen on my lap.
I didn’t click on the folder. I knew he was probably in his own office, watching the activity on the server so he could track the exact second I decided to shatter my own heart.
I felt like chickenshit. I was a fighter, a viper, a woman who had survived stabbings and drownings, but I was terrified of a few digital files.
Because once I opened them, the man who raised me would be dead twice over, and I would be truly alone in this house with a man who shared his bed with beautiful detectives and looked at me like a burden.
And the more time I spent not doing anything with that information along with the SD card, I lost more and more respect for myself.
Get it together.
This is why I was here and not my cousins. They wouldn’t have been able to deal with hearing Paolo was trafficking. Or maybe they wouldn’t have cared, but this was my family’s name, and I was going to clear it if it took doing it all by myself.
I sat alone in my room until the dead of night with my laptop’s arrow hovering over that single folder that read Paolo.
I breathed in deep and glanced around my room. I was in the dark of the night, and there was only the soft glow bleeding in from under the door. Paradise Grove was quiet with its perfect lawns, soft lights at the gate, and extravagant homes. So perfect that it wasn’t perfect at all for me.
I clicked the folder, ready to shake up the flawless place with whatever evidence Callahan provided.
The first files were financial, all ledgers I recognized because I’d been a part of all this.
These were routing paths I’d set up myself, along with companies we’d created, to layer in and space out just enough to pass audits.
I knew I was good at illegally making money disappear and reappear clean.
This wasn’t at all a surprise, and I started to relax, like maybe Callahan had nothing more on my family than I already knew.
We were all a bit dirty with our money. And I’d known Paolo kept things from me.
To him, I was just a woman, after all. My aunt was never given any sort of information either.
Men had big egos and hoarding secrets made them feel powerful.
But when I swiped to the next file, I realized how stupid I’d been to allow him to build up his ego, because where the money came from was a company he told me was for firearms.
Yet, instead, I clicked the company name file and there was security footage.
My stomach dropped as I watched the grainy profile of him in a warehouse I recognized immediately as one of our own. The layout was the exact restructure I’d sat through meetings with him on.
It was supposed to be for weapons.
We’d made deals internationally that even the government knew about. It was mostly clean, and I was proud of the revenue stream until I saw a truck backing in. And when the doors opened, the bile rose in my throat.
The women and children, much too young and much too obedient, were herded out of the truck.
And somehow their compliance and quiet acceptance made the situation feel worse. I watched as dozens of them filed through and my uncle counted them like they were cattle.
“You stupid bastard,” I breathed, the words viscerally flying past my teeth.
I wanted this all to be a deepfake. Maybe it was AI, right?
They could be doing this to switch up my loyalty, to fracture the trust that was already paper-thin between Paolo and me.
Yet, his mannerisms, the way he nodded and rocked back on his heels as he discussed the transaction with the other man was authentically his own.
“Just make sure this stays quiet. Fitzpatrick’s family can take a cut, of course. Route it through my consulting business. Our financials are airtight.”
Our financials.
My fucking systems.
He knew those were mine. I’d built those digital labyrinths to help our family, not to ruin others. I’d made this possible.