by Katee Robert
Meg answers on the second ring. “Good morning, Jasmine. Still thinking about last night?”
I ignore the bolt of heat her words bring. “This is business.”
“Ah.” The barest of hesitations. When she speaks again, her voice is absent of all emotion. “I take it you’ve thought about my offer.”
The edge of this cliff crumbles beneath my feet. I can’t live with myself if I pull back now, if I change my mind and spend the next twenty-five years waffling over my decision. I’ve already survived that time period under the control of someone else. I can’t do it again. I won’t.
I clear my throat. “I’m going to need assistance getting out of the penthouse.”
“Consider it done. Be ready in an hour.” She hangs up, leaving me with more questions than reassurances. If she’s able to penetrate Jafar’s defenses that easily, she must have had this set up already. She was that sure of me.
The realization doesn’t comfort me, but I doubt anything can at this point. I hurry into my room and pull on a pair of black leggings and a cropped over-sized T-shirt. It’s hardly an outfit built for stealth, but it’s better than the gowns beginning to clutter up my closet. I pull my hair back from my face and lace up my shiny new tennis shoes.
My phone rings, and I hold my breath as I answer. “Yes?”
“Take the elevator down to the parking garage. Level two.”
I don’t question Meg. I rush to the elevator and, sure enough, this time it allows me to go all the way down to the indicated level. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Like you said—it’s business.”
As much as I want to argue, I make a noncommittal noise instead. Meg is helping me and that’s enough. The reasoning doesn’t matter. The actions do.
The parking garage is dimmer than I remember it, but it’s just as well. A black limousine pulls up and Meg opens the door. There’s nothing in her expression to indicate that, fewer than twelve hours ago, I had my face buried in her pussy and licked her to two outstanding orgasms. We might as well be acquaintances for all the warmth she gives me. “Come along.”
A small voice chooses that moment to point out that I’ve done nothing I can’t take back yet. Getting into that car crosses a line in the sand, and becomes a betrayal that Jafar will not forgive. If I turn around now, no one has to know what I intended.
I climb into the car.
It’s only when the door shuts I realize Meg isn’t alone.
Hades smiles at me, the warmth of the expression pushing me back against the seat. Seeing him in the club was one thing, but at least I had Jafar to dampen his presence. I have nothing to shield me now. The man is attractive in a refined kind of way that comes with age and power, his silvered temples and the deep laugh lines bracketing his mouth and eyes marking him as somewhere close to middle age. The black glasses and perfectly tailored suit only add to the impression of a man used to money and comfortable with power. “You’ve really stirred the hornet’s nest, haven’t you?”
It’s everything I can do not to shrink into myself. There’s nothing overtly threatening about this man. Even his question is dry and filled with the amusement Hades seems to give every word that he doles out.
And yet.
The feeling of a threat remains all the same.
I force myself to lift my chin, to meet his dark gaze. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“No, the innocent rarely do.” He shrugs as if it’s of no concern to him, as if his very presence in this car doesn’t represent things I’m afraid to think about.
I glance at Meg. I can’t help it. She’s perched next to Hades in a short black dress, his hand resting on her thigh with the ease of long familiarity. She doesn’t smile or give me any kind of reassurance that I haven’t made a terrible mistake, which only confirms that I have.
Damn it, but I should have known better than to expect this gift to come without strings.
I did know better, but I ignored my instincts, the prize too tempting to resist.
It takes two tries to clear my throat. “What is it you want?”
“It’s not about what I want, sweetheart.” He idly strokes Meg’s leg. “A man’s word is the only thing he has worth anything in this world.”
I raise my brows. “I would think the price of your suit and the luxury in your club seems to suggest otherwise.”
He chuckles, the sound warm enough that I have to fight not to smile with him. “I do regret that you were pulled into this. You seem like a good girl, and my Meg likes you.”
“I do.” Meg traces her fingers over the knuckles of Hades’s hand. “But, like you said, your word has to mean something.”
“Right you are, love.” He shrugs. “You seem scrappy. I’m sure you’ll come out on top of this.”
The car takes a turn and pulls into another parking garage. We’ve barely been driving ten minutes, if that. I glance out the window as we pull to a stop and go still. Ali stands easily with a pair of men, his gaze hungry as it rests on the car, as if he can see me through the tinted windows. I look back at the couple, at Meg. Is there sympathy in her blue eyes? I can’t be sure. “Don’t do this. Please.”
“Like I said, I’m only as good as my word, and a deal is a deal.” He almost—almost—sounds sorry about it. I don’t believe the regret for a moment, but it’s still salt in the wound of betrayal.
I turn to Meg. “Why?”
She has the grace to flush. “He made a deal.”
I don’t ask what Ali offered them. It doesn’t matter. I have to clench my hands to keep from reaching for her, whether in violence or pleading. “What if I want to make a deal?”
“Sorry, love, but he got there first.”
Ali wrenches the door open and sticks his head in. He gives Hades a smug grin. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
“Wish I could say the same.” He waves his hand. “Take your woman. I expect you to follow through on the terms within the week.”
“Consider it done.” Ali grabs my hair and half drags me out of the car, dropping me at his feet. He slams the door shut and stands over me, seeming to relish the position. “Hello, Jasmine.”
I gingerly touch my stinging scalp. He made a deal. He’s treating me like I’m a cow to be traded, and the derision on his face stings more than my flaming skin. “You bastard.”
“Only according to my mother.” He laughs, but the men at his back remain as stone-faced as ever. Ali motions to the one on the right. “Pick her up. Let’s go.”
I don’t want to go wherever they intend to take me, but I haven’t magically developed combat skills along the way and so I’m helpless to fight as the man ignores my attempts to hit him and tosses me over his shoulder. I barely get a chance to register how different this is than being hauled around by Jafar when the asshole throws me into a trunk. Ali’s face is the last thing I see before they slam the lid closed.
A trunk.
That fucker put me in a trunk.
Panic flutters in my throat, but I force it down. Jafar might come for me, if only to deprive Ali of his prize, but the fact remains that Ali has evaded Jafar’s reach for days. Will he find the man eventually? Yes, I have no doubt of it. Will he find him in time to save me?
That, I can’t guarantee.
I close my eyes and concentrate on taking slow breaths until I can think clearly again. I can’t count on help, which means I must save myself. The path forward isn’t clear to me, but there’s not a single thing I can do while I’m trapped in a trunk. I cannot panic. Panic is death.
I settle in to wait.
Time passes strangely without any indicators to guide me. It could be fifteen minutes before the car rolls to a stop. It could be two hours. Despite my best intentions, I’m left blinking stupidly into the light when Ali opens the trunk and grins down at me. “Welcome home, Jasmine.”
Horror washes over me with a sickening finality. Surely he can’t mean …
But when he pulls me to my feet, I se
e that he meant it in the most literal way possible. He’s brought me back to my father’s house. My legs refuse to hold me, but that barely causes Ali to blink. He merely motions to his man to pick me up again. There’s no crowd waiting for us this time, just an eerie echoing feeling that makes me believe everyone else has emptied out. And why not? This house makes little sense as a location for a base of operations. It’s not even in the city proper. Of course Jafar would have ordered the men to move to key spots in his territory to consolidate power.
Has he even been back here since that night?
They carry me down the hallway, and I stare hard at the spot where Jafar fucked me. My panties and robe are still wadded up against the wall, evidence of what I considered my shame. The very idea is laughable now. That night was the cumulation of five years of stifled desire and need. I still desire Jafar. My leaving changed nothing.
I can’t rely on him to save me.
Ali’s man drops me to my feet and Ali grabs my arm in a rough grip to shove me into an all too familiar room. My room. He stalks to the wall and yanks the landline phone out of the wall. “You won’t be needing that.”
I plant my feet and stare him down. “This isn’t going to end the way you want it to.”
“Bullshit.” He hits me. It’s almost casual, a backhand to the face that sends me stumbling a few steps from him. The blow is so reminiscent of my father that I laugh. Those are too large of shoes for him to ever be able to fill, even on his best day. Ali is a bully and, if he’s sly, he’s nowhere near sly enough. Coming back to this house was a mistake, bringing me here an even larger one.
Ali shrugs like he thinks he’s some kind of prize fighter. “Play nice, Jasmine, or you won’t like what comes next.”
I straighten slowly and stare him down. “I suppose we’ll see, won’t we?”
He must expect me to fall to my knees and beg for mercy, because my calm seems to rattle him. Ali shakes his head. “I’ll come for you later.” And then he’s gone, sweeping out of the room and slamming the door behind him. I listen and, sure enough, the lock clicks as he seals me in. It seems I am forever destined to be locked away by men.
No longer.
I cross to my desk, to the spot on the floor where, half hidden by my rug, my sharp letter opener lays where it fell that first night. I hesitated then, whether because of nerves or because some part of me recognized the man in my room as Jafar.
I won’t hesitate again.
The letter opener feels good against my palm, its cool a contrast to the angry heat throbbing in my cheek where Ali hit me. A feeling wells up inside me, the sensation akin to seeing a train barreling down the tracks in my direction. I could try to flee, but the train is inside me. There is no escape. Instead I welcome it with open arms, embracing the emotion fully and letting it permeate every part of me.
Rage.
It’s blades and fire and pain, twenty-five years cumulation of it. How many times have I swallowed this emotion down, again and again until I’d surely choke? So many nights spent staring into the darkness and wondering if it mirrored what I held inside me.
Now I know the truth.
I take a breath, and then another, forcing air into my lungs. Rage is only useful if it doesn’t hamper my ability to think and plan. I glance at the door. Ali will come for me. If not today, then tonight. He can’t cement his power grab without appearing to bring me to heel, just like Jafar needed the appearance of doing the same.
Always the pawn and never the queen.
Fuck. That.
I’m taking the throne now, and if I have to cut Ali to pieces in the process, he deserves nothing less. In fact, I welcome the violence. I take a step toward the door before I catch myself and turn to the desk. I may have learned to pick the lock of my bedroom door when I was all of seven years old, but walking out of this room without a plan is foolish in the extreme. That’s the rage talking, and I need logic to guide my steps, even if the anger is what will give me the strength to do what needs to be done.
The strength to kill Ali.
Chapter 19
Jafar
“She’s gone.”
After last night, I spent all day waiting for this call. Knowing what we shared wasn’t enough to keep Jasmine at my side.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Keep a man on her for the time being.” As tempting as it is to track Jasmine down and haul her ass back to the penthouse, if I do that, I’ll break something between us. Something new and fragile and infinitely rarer than I could have dreamed.
I love her.
The truth should be cause for celebration. She loves me, too. She might not have said it aloud, but it’s there in the trust she places in me every time we interact. Relationships have been started on less, and ours has a whole hell of a lot of foundation—and baggage. It’s the latter that we have to work through, and right now that means Jasmine needs her space. When I put her in the penthouse, I wondered how long it would take her to figure out how to override the elevators. Her father tried to lock her up, too, but she always managed to slip free of the barriers he put in place. A locked door had nothing on that woman.
Yes, I love her, and that means I have to let her go.
Jeremiah clears his throat. “Sorry, Jafar, I wasn’t clear. Someone outside hacked the elevators to take her down to the parking garage. I have her getting into a car I’ve traced back to The Underworld.”
I go still. “Did she make a deal?” It’s more rhetorical question than anything, but Jeremiah answers me all the same.
“I don’t think so. It took us a few minutes before we realized she’d left the building, but they didn’t go straight back to the club. They took a detour to a hotel around the corner.” A hesitation, the only warning I get before he delivers unwelcome news. “They dropped her there. With Ali.”
My vision goes white for several seconds and it’s all I can do to breathe through the fury. “Then Ali is the one who made the deal.”
“That’s my bet.”
I turn and head for the exit. It’s one thing for my woman to decide she needs some fucking space and take it. This isn’t that. Jasmine would never go to Ali, not willingly. If that was even an option, she wouldn’t have begged me to save her that first night. She wouldn’t have vomited after her encounter with him in The Underworld. To think of her in his hands right now …
I can’t afford to think about it. “Find him, Jeremiah. If he was in that hotel, then he left record. Find him right fucking now.”
“Yes, sir.”
I hang up and stare at the phone clenched in my hand. As satisfying as it would be to shatter it, it’s not worth the outward expulsion of anger. I close my eyes and count to ten, and then I do it a second time. My fury hasn’t retreated, the sharp edge of fear driving it on, but I can think clearer now. Jeremiah might be able to track Ali down now that we have an active starting point, but I know someone who will have that information at hand.
Hades was never one to leave anything up to chance.
I almost order my men to the car, but if my arrival appears like I’m launching an attack, that’s exactly how Hades will respond. The Underworld has only been under siege once before. It was before my time, but word has it that it lasted over a month before some sort of agreement was put in place. Jasmine doesn’t have thirty days.
She might not have even one.
It takes me twenty minutes to reach the club. I can barely hold myself still as I take the elevators up. I have never had a problem containing my emotions when my goal was at hand. Emotion is something to manipulate in other people. Letting it get the best of me? Unacceptable.
That’s not an option right now.
I keep thinking of the fear on Jasmine’s face that morning at The Underworld. The way she was willing to move to violence the night her father sold her in marriage to Ali. He will break her. I wasn’t lying when I told her that. I’m a monster, but at least I admit as much from the start. Ali plays the part of a hero, a good guy, and
saves his dark deeds for private.
Meg meets me at the second set of elevators. She holds up her hands. “You do not want to go up there looking like that.”
I plant my feet because I don’t trust myself to get close to her, not with Jasmine’s life and safety on the line. “You were there last night. You’re the one who put this into motion.”
She narrows her eyes. “Don’t try the white hat card, Jafar. Not with me. We’re all playing our own games right now. I’m sorry Jasmine got caught up in them, but it changes nothing.”
I glance up, as if I can concentrate hard enough to see through the floor to where Hades is no doubt holed up. “He took that deal knowing it would cross me.”
“He takes a lot of deals knowing they will cross a lot of people. Don’t act like you’re special.”
“She considered you a friend.”
“Did she?” Meg raises her brows. “Then you should thank me for removing her from your care because she’s a goddamn liability.”
I hate her in that moment. Meg pretends she’s above us baser creatures, but the truth is that she’s right down in the muck with us. If she wanted out, she could have pulled it off years ago. “If something happens to her because of his deal, I’ll personally burn this place to the ground.”
“You’ll try.” She gives me a long look. “You care about her.”
“No shit I care about her. Fuck, Meg, did you think this was all about power?”
“Power and sex.” She shrugs and toys with her long brown hair. “It always was for you.”
“It’s not so simple. Not with her.” I lose my cool and rake my fingers through my hair. This was a wasted trip. Once Hades makes a deal, he never goes back on it. He could give me the information I need if he’s feeling generous, but Meg standing here, playing the part of gatekeeper means that’s not the case. “Where is she?”
