Chapter 37
Jasmina
“I’M SORRY, MIJA. I had to come as soon as I could.”
“We’re on our honeymoon …”
“I know. I know. Aye dios mío, I know. Did he hurt you yet?”
“Hurt me?” I frowned at him, confused.
“We took him by surprise. Fitzpatrick, he went for the captain, and I’m sure my men have him now. I’ll give you the honors, but we must go.”
“What?” I shook my head. “I’m not going, Monte. I married him. I married Callahan for us. What are you talking about?”
He grabbed my arm quite forcefully and started moving me toward the deck. I wasn’t complying because I agreed with him, but more because I needed to make sure Callahan was okay.
“He’s gone far enough with trying to get a child from you. And you know all these years I kept pushing you, mija, when I should have been focused on a trail. I’m sure I’ve found something now. I’m sure—”
“Stop.” I ripped my arm away from him. “Where is my husband?”
A wicked smile crossed his face. “Come. I’ll show you.”
“No need.” Callahan appeared from down the dark hallway, his arms crossed and a look of murder in his eyes.
“Where are …” My uncle glanced from Callahan to me and then to Callahan again. Then he pulled a gun so fast, even I was caught off guard. “Where are my men?”
“The two guys you thought were tying me up?” Callahan scoffed and walked forward, like he wasn’t at all concerned that Monte had a gun aimed at him. “They’re dead, Monte.”
“What are you doing here?” I practically spat at my uncle now, my adrenaline pumping as I listened to him say he’d had men go for the love of my life.
“Mija, your aunt said you might have fallen in love. And I’m sorry if you did. I have this boat surrounded now. Men everywhere. You’ll find another man.”
“Find another?” I glanced around. I didn’t have any weapons on me, didn’t know if Callahan did either.
I was caught completely by surprise. I didn’t know where Fitzpatrick was or how many men were out there, but I knew we were in trouble. I’d been so stupid to tell Callahan I didn’t want his men on this boat.
We might freaking die, and it was going to be my fault.
“Tío, I don’t know what your plan was here, but we cannot kill a Diamond.” I tried to de-escalate the situation.
His gaze ping-ponged between Callahan and me. “It’s the only way for us, now, Jasmina.” Monte shook his head.
Callahan put an arm around me. “Is it, though, Monte?”
Monte’s eyes narrowed at him, and he shook his gun. “I considered this partnership, but the second you two went after the trafficking side of our business, Fitz had a better offer.”
“For what?” My heart pounded, blood whooshing in my ears as I heard him admit he wanted a part of that business.
“For our territory to stay the way it is. To expand it. To be what my father once was.”
“He was so deep into drugs, and—” I tried to reason with him.
“He was on top of the world, and we will be too.”
“You’re not seeing things clearly, Monte. Fitzpatrick has never been who we wanted to partner with—”
“It’s the only way now!” he practically screamed, and I glanced at Callahan, who gave me a look like he wanted me to stay calm. “I tried to guarantee you wouldn’t get pregnant so once you were back to us after two years, we’d rebuild—”
“Tried?” I asked him quietly. “Tried what?”
“Oh, you know …” He chuckled like we were at his mercy and he had all the time in the world. I let him. I was searching for a weapon.
The thing about a man who’d been kicked so many times, whose ego had been destroyed, was he’d ruin himself just to build it back up to anyone who would listen.
“I hired them.” He shrugged. “I left the door unlocked, too, so they could gut you. You were a bit injured, but at least I got you to keep your hands to yourself for a while. Although those bastards didn’t do their job well. ”
“You tried to make me … That was you? Not Fitzpatrick?” I breathed out, all the air leaving my lungs in a whoosh. My objective to keep him occupied while I looked for a weapon left my mind.
My heart was actively breaking. My family picture, marred and destroyed. Monte was supposed to be the good one, the uncle who cared about me, the man who stepped in when my father died.
I almost crumbled, but Callahan’s arm held me close, lifting me up.
He didn’t interrupt. He let me have this moment.
“Oh, don’t throw stones, Jasmina. Haven’t you been sleeping with the enemy?”
My heart pumped blood hard and fast through my veins, and they started to fill with rage. Was he serious? “You handed me to the enemy!”
“Bah, I tried to make it Maribel. She’s already barren.” The revelation walloped me with sadness and fury for her.
“What?” I whispered. The father she was supposed to trust had been using a weakness of hers, one I didn’t even know about.
Weaknesses were the one thing the family told us to protect and hide, and yet Monte had turned on his own family to capitalize on it.
“She would have been perfect! You and Annarose were supposed to bring us to that trust when you were ready. I told your ridiculous aunt I’d wait for it.
I’d be the kind father figure she always wanted me to be.
” He said it like it disgusted him, like it was a weakness rather than a strength.
“That was my only misstep because you don’t listen. ”
“Listen? I’ve listened to you all my life. I did everything for this family.”
“You do him for the family too?” Monte waved his gun at Callahan.
I glanced at my husband, and I realized my weakness was that I’d been blinded all these years by my need to love Monte, by my need to want a replacement family when my parents were taken from me.
My weakness was I focused on that and not on the truth.
Monte had used my weakness too.
I stood tall and cracked my neck once. “No. I slept with my husband for myself. For my family, not yours.”
He scoffed, not really knowing that I was talking about the baby inside me.
“You and him aren’t a family. You’re a cobbled-together arrangement that is going to come to an end.
Know why? Because he dies tonight. And Fitzpatrick will take down the other Knights one by one with me.
I’ll have a hold on the country like your father never did. ”
“My father?” I shook my head at him. My father wasn’t power hungry.
I might have been only six when he passed, but I remembered him stopping work when I tapped on the bottom of his desk, I remember him dancing with me in the kitchen, I remember him coming home every single night to be with my mother and me.
“He didn’t need the country under his thumb. ”
“Because he was blinded by you! Your father was family, but he was also a lovesick, dumbass snake. He’d had an empire of sex trafficking handed to him, a good deal with the Irish and your grandfather, and then he’d been weak and fallen in love with his stupid wife.
She’d been trafficked, you know that? She was one of ours, and he fell for her sob story.
Your mother was trying to change things, to make him give it all up.
” He walked up to me now and was about to point the gun at me.
I felt Callahan move, but I was faster. “You and that whore of—”
It was all I needed. Him this close. Because men were stupid when they were emotional and felt threatened.
Women, though, we were powerful and ruthless when someone cornered what we held dear. We could lift cars when our babies were in danger.
I was madder, stronger, and more vicious than my uncle would ever be.
I whipped my hand up to hit his wrist while I ducked out of the way of his shot. The explosion rang in my ears, but I kept moving. My uncle was slow, out of practice, and he didn’t have much to lose.
I had everything. I had a new husband. A new baby. A new life that I wanted.
I was going to disarm him with a knee to his groin and a twist of his wrist, but Callahan had him in a chokehold while I cranked the weapon from his fingers.
God, he was hot.
“Adamantem infractum manet. Do you know what that means, Monte?”
I turned the gun on him.
He grumbled that it was bullshit.
“Actually, it means that a diamond remains unbroken. It means those who are Diamonds protect their families.” I waited a beat. “Call my mother that again, Monte.”
His eyes flicked toward the door. “Mija,” he said softly, and then he smiled almost gently. “My men have this boat surrounded, and your captain’s dead.”
Callahan squeezed Monte’s neck. “Monte, do you really think you have the manpower to surround my yacht and that I wouldn’t have it wildly secured with such precious cargo?”
“Cargo?”
“My wife. I told you I wouldn’t let you risk her life again.”
“You’re a fool. I planned this. I planned it all.”
“Your plan was three boats, a small crew of men I could take, let alone my wife. She’s a much better fighter than me.” He winked at me. “I let you on this boat.”
“You didn’t.” He shook his head, but he was getting nervous. I saw the vein in his temple bulging and the sweat starting to form on his brow.
“If it’s so well planned, where are your men?” Callahan shook his head and shoved him away so that my uncle was on the floor gasping for breath. “They’re dead, but I wanted to give you a chance. You see, I was concerned about your involvement, Monte. But I was also convinced you loved your niece.”
“I … I do.” Monte tried to change tactics.
“No, Tío. I think you love your pride more.”
My uncle tried a last-ditch effort to pull his other weapon, and I swear Callahan let him because the gun was to his head and my husband still rolled his eyes.
Maybe because Callahan knew I had his back and he had mine now.
He knew that just as fast as my uncle got the gun to my husband’s head, I had one to his head. “Touch my husband, and I’ll blow your head off, Monte.”
“Put the gun down, Monte,” Callahan said. “Your men are surrounded, and there’s a laser at your temple. Not only that, it seems my viper has the best shot here on this boat.”
“Mija,” Monte whined at me.
“Don’t,” I spat, my adrenaline whooshing through my head. I blinked twice before I told him, “Lower your weapon and take a seat. You’re my tío, the father of my cousins, the husband of my aunt. Act like it.”
He nodded and held up both his hands like he was surrendering.
I didn’t care. I was tying his ass up until I knew exactly what was going on. I heard a helicopter in the distance and Callahan shrugged, giving my uncle a look. “More back up, Monte. Better make a better case.”
“Give me the evidence. And I’ll be the judge and jury to see whether you live through the night.”