Chapter 20
Callahan
FUCK.
Jasmina was karma wrapped up in a delicious and vicious package tonight. I knew the moment she flung that door open, she was going to bring me to my knees.
I’d tried my best to be the bigger person earlier that night, calling Jameson to tell him she’d gone to her bedroom with Archer. My brother had laughed at me. “You’re doomed, dumbass. Go break up their love fest, then.”
“Fuck that. I’ll have one of my own,” I’d told him, and he’d advised against it.
“You’re not going to like the outcome, brother. Karma’s a bitch, and you know women deliver it best.”
“She’s not delivering anything because I don’t care,” I’d lied. “I’ll have Demi and any woman I want for the next two years. We’re moving forward with contracts with East Coast companies fluidly, correct?”
I heard the resignation in his voice as he agreed, and then he told me, “I have a team looking into unusual activity at her residence and other Ruiz locations. I’ll keep you updated. But keep your shit together until then, Callahan. Don’t tempt karma.”
I’d hung up on him, but now I was regretting not listening.
Karma had come to rip me apart.
I hadn’t even been hard until I saw Jasmina standing in my doorway in pajamas that were barely there. They were all white and lacy, and I immediately wanted to know if that’s what she’d been wearing when Archer was in the room with her.
I was going to kill him.
But not before she killed me and Demi first.
Damn, she looked mad, but my dick heard her call me her husband, and it grew two times in size.
I wasn’t her husband yet, but the title had a nice ring to it.
When Demi whimpered, killing the whole vibe, I tried to get my libido in check.
“Jasmina,” I said her name cautiously, but when her eyes snapped to mine, they looked just as I expected. Lethal. Vicious. Full of war. “My viper,” I said slowly, quietly, and almost soothingly, “let Demi go.”
This was not what the other woman had signed up for.
“Why should I?” Jasmina asked through clenched teeth. “I told her I would gut her if she came here, and here she is.”
“Because I invited her and told her she would be fine.” I stepped out of Demi’s reach and grabbed Jasmina’s arm to pull the knife from Demi’s throat. Of course, Demi immediately cried and coughed and bent over in sheer theatrics.
Neither Jasmina nor I even looked at her.
Instead, my viper yanked her arm from my grip and stood there with her chin raised and her hands on her hips, the knife still in her hand.
I could tell she wanted to cuss me out, and really, I deserved it.
I’d invited Demi to try to get Jasmina out of my system, but now I knew there was no way that was happening.
She was a goddess standing there, her blue highlighted hair cascading down her back in waves, eyes twinkling with hate in the dim light. “If you have the audacity to invite other women into the home I sleep in, their deaths should be on you, and you should be outside like the dog you are, Knight.”
Her words were cutting, but I couldn’t deny it. When I took a step toward her and put my hand on her cheek, she flinched back as if it were painful. It caused a visceral reaction in me.
I’d really hurt her this time, and my touch didn’t spark the heat we always had between us.
And then Demi whined, “Callahan, she almost killed me.”
All I could say was, “Yes, but Jasmina’s right. It’s my fault she almost did. Not hers, Demi. My wife and I need a moment. Leave us.”
She gasped and then threatened, “If I leave, I’m not coming back.” She had tears streaming down her cheeks while she was still on all fours.
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” Jasmina answered for me, never looking over at the other woman.
Demi pouted at me with glassy eyes like she thought I might argue.
The thing about arguing with my future wife was I already had scars to prove I shouldn’t. So, I kept my mouth shut, and Demi growled before she got up off the floor. “This is embarrassing, Cally! I thought we were building something. I thought she was just going to be a contract wife.”
I hadn’t corrected Demi before and had skirted the question because I knew it wasn’t true.
Jasmina was more than a contract.
She wasn’t nothing.
She was everything.
She ruled my mind, my thoughts, and my soul already, and the only reason I’d had Demi over was to try to overcome it all, but now I knew it was impossible.
“I am only going to be a contract wife.” Jasmina shrugged, not looking to correct anyone. “And even still, you should respect yourself enough to know you’d be the other woman in this situation. Or at least respect that I’m another woman with a heart just like you, and I have to be with him.”
Demi immediately wanted to argue that. “You’re the other woman. Do you know he agreed that your family—”
“Get out, Demi,” I cut her off. “Now.” And she was smart enough to whisper something like she would call me in desperation, but she hurried out of the room and down the stairs, leaving me and Jasmina staring at one another.
“Well, Knight. I’m already a contract wife. Want to tell me what my family is too?” Jasmina asked softly, the moon from the window casting a pale light over her skin. She looked almost angelic—except for the knife in her hand.
I shook my head, feeling a bit desperate to remedy the situation.
I wasn’t a man who’d ever been whipped, but I felt like it now.
I was a dog with his tail between his legs, looking for any sort of redemption.
So, I scrambled. “The Ruiz name has always been infamous, Jas. When someone speaks of it, they don’t necessarily mean—”
“I’m a Ruiz through and through.” She shook her head and then looked down at her knife, spinning it in her hand over and over as she continued, “You trying to exclude me from what I am doesn’t make a person’s statement any better or right, it just makes them ignorant. Wouldn’t you agree?”
And wasn’t that the truth? Had someone tarnished the Knight name, I would have said the same.
I sighed and combed a hand through my hair. “I agree.”
She hummed and then met my gaze. “You agree with what, exactly?” She lifted a brow like she wanted a whole-ass apology, and I wasn’t stupid.
I would give it to her if it meant I could be forgiven, if it meant she wouldn’t flinch away from me the next time I touched her, if it meant she wouldn’t look at me the way she was now.
“That your husband can be a dumbass? That this whole night was a mess I wish I could take back,” I admitted.
“Let’s use the right words, Knight. Contract husband. Nothing more. A business transaction.” She reiterated exactly what Demi had said earlier, and I winced. Even when Demi had said it initially, it’d taken almost everything in me to not correct her.
“I should accept that and tell you to go back to your room, but I’m not going to.” Now, I couldn’t stand for it. I took a step toward her, the frustration bubbling up inside me along with the shame of not stopping Demi right away. “That’s not what this is, and we both know it.”
“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “That’s exactly what it is. And that’s all you’ll ever be to me too.”
Damn was she quick to go for the jugular. “Viper, you don’t mean that. Take it back,” I growled, walking another step toward her.
She stopped spinning her knife to point it toward me. “Don’t you dare come near me after touching her.”
“I shouldn’t have, okay?” I held up my hands but took another step in her direction, and she lifted the knife.
“I wanted an outlet, Viper. You were in that fucking room with Archer, and I couldn’t stand it.
I could hear you laughing and talking, and I was trying to make this relationship be what it’s supposed to.
I was trying to draw lines, but I drew the wrong ones. ”
She shrugged like she didn’t care about my reasoning. “Well, great job. I see the lines very clearly now.”
I shook my head, feeling her slicing at my soul even though her knife didn’t move as I pressed into it with my chest. “No. Goddamn it. I want a do-over.”
“You don’t get one!” she practically screamed and poked me with her knife, so I took a step back.
Then she waved it wildly around the room.
“The lines are set in stone. I’ll have whatever man I want from now on, and you can too.
Want to be a damn dog? Great. I’m happy to be a bitch too.
I’ll sleep with every single man I can.”
“No. You fucking won’t,” I bellowed back, feeling anger and jealousy bubble up wildly and uncontrollably. “Because I’ll kill every one of them. I have half a mind to kill Archer tonight.”
“Oh, be a grownup and stop having a tantrum,” she spat. “You made your fucking bed bringing her here.”
If she was going to go there, I’d meet her in the middle. “You invited Archer in there knowing exactly what you were doing. You knew I would be pissed,” I threw back.
“I don’t really care if you’re mad or not. You want to pout like a little baby, do it without a woman on her knees for you.”
“A little baby?” Did she know who she was talking to? “I swear to Christ, you’re so far out of line I don’t know how to bring you back talking to me like that.” I pointed to the knife she had in her hand. “And I’m not even touching on the fact that you’re not supposed to have weapons on you.”
“Why? Because I signed a contract? Get the hell over it,” she screamed. “Treat me with the same amount of respect you want yourself, or I’ll dish out the shit you deserve.”
“Fine.” I threw my hands up.
She threw hers up and yelled “fine” too.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a few deep breaths before I tried again. “Look, I’m sorry. I really am. We need new lines before you kill me, Viper.” My jaw ticked. “Or before I kill a man for spending time with you … No more men in your room at night for dinners.”
“I can’t believe you’re afraid of your own men in my room,” she scoffed, but when I growled, she rolled her eyes. “Fine. If you don’t want me spending time with them, you better not be spending time with other women.”