Chapter 34
Jasmina
DID I HAVE TO look like I was freaking glowing?
I was staring at a woman in love with the man she was about to marry, but it was all supposed to be a farce.
Except it wasn’t.
How had I fallen for Callahan Knight in such a short amount of time?
Two months, you stupid whore? Jesus.
“More importantly, how did you fall for him, you little traitor?” I whisper-yelled at my cat. He was sitting by the door wagging his tag in irritation because I wouldn’t let him out.
“Look, only one of us can appear that desperate, and your display is really pathetic at this point.”
His ears went back, but he didn’t even look my way. That’s how obsessed my cat was with him.
And that wasn’t the only pussy that was longing for Cal.
Why was I like this? I could get good dick anywhere, right?
But it wasn’t just about how he slept in my bed, or how his hands felt against my skin. It was about how he let me unravel, let me question him over and over without ever giving me pause, how he never lied, and how he consistently stood by my side even when it wasn’t in his best interest.
It made me feel guilty about the SD card and about my hiding it, like I owed him the truth even though I didn’t know exactly what the truth was yet.
A sharp knock at the door had me spinning around in my dress to see my Aunt Perla there.
She looked elegant in charcoal lace, but her eyes were red-rimmed, the skin beneath them tight with anxiety.
She didn’t offer a hug; she grabbed my wrists, her grip surprisingly strong, anchoring me to a reality I was trying to escape.
“Jasmina, escúchame,” she hissed, her voice trembling with raw emotion.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you. He’s trying to be nice.
I saw it when he was with you last, but …
No dejes que ese hombre se te meta bajo la piel.
Es un Knight. Es un depredador.” She’d said, “Do not let that man under your skin. He is a Knight. He is a predator.”
“It’s okay, Tía Perla. We have an understanding, and things are fine.” I tried to pull back and soothe her at the same time.
She searched my eyes. “You look in love.”
“What?” I whispered. Did I?
“You look stupidly, utterly in love. You, Jasmina.”
“I’m not,” I denied.
“What if you love him for two years, and then what? He dumps you on our doorstep again with less of Fuerte Firearms and more work along with a broken heart?”
“I’m not … The plan was always for us to be done after two years. We’re establishing a new way for our family forward. It was the only way.”
“But now you’re blinded. Now, what? You sleep with him and have a kid?” Her tone was disgusted. “He’ll take it, you know? And you’ll never see them again.”
“I’m not getting pregnant,” I whispered furiously at her.
“So, you’re not sleeping with him?” she confronted me blatantly with the question, and her eyes were pinned on me like lights in an interrogation room. I was never good at lying, but lying to her when she was like this was nearly impossible.
“I … that’s not the point.”
“Of course it is,” she wailed, spinning around to pace and throw her hands up. “What will I tell Monte if you’re pregnant?” she hissed.
“I’m not.” I wasn’t. I couldn’t be.
“Have you had your period? When was the last time you slept with him?” She threw the questions at me like I was on a game show, but the price was my life.
“Jesus, Tía.” The anger bubbled up inside me fast, and it burst out everywhere so quickly I couldn’t rein it in. “I had trauma to my uterus. Did you forget?” I whispered furiously at her.
“Bah! No. I did not. It’s why Monte and I made sure to get you these.” She shoved packages of pills in my hand. “Make sure you’re taking them so you don’t conceive. You’ve already been unsafe and stupid enough.”
“Unsafe and stupid?” I felt like I was gasping the words. After how I’d put myself here, after how I’d tried my best over and over again to show her that I was doing everything I could for the family. “I gave him my hand instead of Maribel’s.”
“Monte wanted it to be Maribel. We are supposed to listen to him. Not question his decisions. You did, though. You thought it your place to do anything without him telling you to?” She poked at my shoulder. “He runs this family now.”
“But I’m a part of it,” I whispered, because didn’t she see that I’d been doing all I could?
“You’re ungrateful, and you don’t listen. So listen now. You tell us every single thing that man is doing with our businesses so we can stay afloat through these two years.”
“I have …”
“Well, the sex trafficking was one thing, mija. And I understand your heart. But that makes enemies. Men who thought they would remain anonymous.” She’d been so kind, so understanding when I told her at dinner with Callahan.
“But you said—”
“I said what I had to at the table with a Diamond.” She tutted. “Now, shape up. Don’t fall in love. And keep it together. For the family.”
For the family?
What was a family?
Who was my family when I was about to marry into another one? I couldn’t tell her it was too late. I couldn’t tell her I was already halfway down the throat of the dragon that was Callahan and I already liked the heat way too much.
“Don’t worry, Tía,” I whispered, my voice sounding steadier than I felt. “I know exactly who he is. I know exactly who I am too.”
I didn’t, though. Before, I would’ve apologized to her, I would have scrambled across the floor to find the broken pieces of our relationship and mend them, I would have even offered up the SD card I still had hidden.
Before I was loyal to them.
All for the family.
Now, I wasn’t sure if I was loyal to anyone at all.
Because the one thing I could agree with my tía on:
I hadn’t had my period. And the doctor had said I was healthy enough to do so.
The music swelled, a haunting cello arrangement that sounded more like a requiem than a processional. I stepped out onto the sprawling lawn of Callahan’s estate, my heels sinking slightly into the perfectly manicured grass.
The dress had come hand delivered to our home, sent directly from the designer. It was simple, yet perfect. Timeless but also sexy. It was conservative, but with a slit that also screamed fearless.
And it was a pure, pure white.
Not because I was innocent and untouched. Not because I was some lamb being led to the slaughter. I had earned it the same as every bride, lied for it, and survived the wreckage of my family to stand here. Whether I was walking toward the love of my life or the bane of my existence didn’t matter.
Today, they were the same man. Callahan had changed me. Made me someone different. Made me someone I might be proud of, but I wasn’t sure of yet.
I stared ahead, but not at him. I took in the beauty of the setup.
It was like a page ripped from an elite bridal magazine, but with a darker, sharper edge.
Thousands of delphiniums and hydrangeas in shades of electric and midnight blue spilled over ivory pillars.
Callahan had personally seen to the palette; he’d wanted the florals to match the rebellious blue streaks in my hair.
That one detail—the fact that he noticed the small, jagged parts of me and wanted to celebrate them—brought a burn to my throat that I fought to swallow. He was supposed to be the enemy, yet he was the only one who had ever really seen me.
The estate glittered. Thousands of hand-cut crystals hung from the weeping willow trees, catching the dying orange light of the sun and shattering it into a million jagged diamonds.
The elite of Paradise Grove stood in silence along with the Irish, Ruizes, politicians, celebrities, and CEOs alike.
I saw the disdain on women’s faces and the cold anger in the men’s.
But as I passed, I caught the eyes of my tía and tío. Their eyes held fear.
Adamantem infractum manet. It was the first time I thought it. The first time I felt so completely disconnected from the two people I thought were there to help me all along that I almost froze to comfort them rather than myself.
Tía Perla was trembling as I got to her side and leaned in to hug her. A small, broken sob escaped her lips as she whispered, “I’m just trying to protect you from him, mija. Remember that, okay?”
I squeezed her hand once, not sure if I could say any words at the moment, not sure I could console her any more than that.
Instead, I turned to find the man who had proven to be more of an anchor to me than anyone else.
I turned to look at my groom, to take in the man I knew I could trust, to get lost in his gaze instead of anyone else’s.
Callahan stood under a canopy of white-and-blue roses framed by the bleeding rays of the sunset.
He didn’t look like a groom; he looked like a conqueror.
As a member of the secret Diamond society, he was supposed to be a ghost, a myth of power.
But here, he was terrifyingly real. Unbreakable. Eternal.
He stood with a lethal, quiet stillness that commanded the very air in the lungs of everyone present. He was a god among men in his all-black suit, but I saw the sparkle in his eyes as they locked with mine. I saw how his muscles tensed a little, like he was trying to restrain himself.
I took the final step, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. He reached out, his large, warm hand enveloping mine. He brought my hand to his lips, his gaze locked on mine with a terrifying intensity.
“My viper,” he murmured against my skin.
The world went silent. I didn’t hear the officiant. I didn’t hear the wind in the trees. His voice burrowed deep into my marrow, setting up a permanent home in the parts of me I thought were only for myself.
I moved through the ceremony like I was in a trance. I think I whispered “I do.” I think I smiled for the cameras. But all I truly felt were his eyes—heavy, dark, and possessive.
When it was time to seal the deal, Callahan didn’t just lean in.
He stepped forward, his massive frame eclipsing the sun, casting me in his shadow.
He placed his hands on my cheeks, his palms rough and commanding.
Before I could breathe, he shifted his body, turning his back to the crowd.
He used his broad shoulders as a shield, blocking the view of every socialite and spy in the audience.
“What are you doing?” I stuttered, my hands clutching his lapels for balance.
“Not giving them the show they want,” he growled, his voice dropping to a low, carnal vibration. His eyes dropped to my lips, darkened by a hunger that made my knees weak. “It’s only about you and me, Viper. And I’m giving you and me exactly what we need now.”
He crushed his mouth to mine.
It wasn’t a polite kiss for the public. It was a deep, soul-stripping claim like he was marking every inch of my soul before the world could try to take me back. It tasted of him, of trust, and of that signature dark, obsessive promise he always gave me. It tasted of love.
Because I did love him. Because I’d fallen for the enemy. And I molded myself to him, not caring at all.
He kissed me like it was the first time and the last time.
Maybe it was. We were different now. We were married.
We’d be different married.
We’d answer to so many more. We’d done it for them, but it felt like this kiss was for us.
For better or for worse.
As he pulled away, his thumb swiped a stray tear from my cheek. And I realized with a jolt, I was crying.
Jasmina Ruiz never cried.
But I wasn’t Jasmina Ruiz anymore.
I was Jasmina Knight.