A Commitment to Love, Book 3 (41 page)

Buying the tour guide off was no problem. Most would do anything for ten thousand dollars. Simply luring a group into an abandoned building hadn’t been a problem. So there left just one thing. How the hell would I get Jasmine out of the damn building, and still be alive enough to enjoy our life?

That was plan B.

“Don’t even talk to my daughter.” Benny attempted to move forward. My two men that had their guns on him raised their weapons higher, as if aiming for his eyes.

“Benny, I have a question,” I said. “Do you trust Jasmine’s counting?”

“What?” he asked in a gruff tone.

“Do you trust her ability to count?”

“Get on with it, little boy. The more you talk the more I’m thinking about killing us all.”

“Fine.” I smirked. “Jasmine, do me a favor and look at Benny’s face.”

She leaned forward and stared at him. Once she realized what I was talking about, she gasped and took a step toward me.

“How many red dots are on that devil’s face?” I asked.

She didn’t even hesitate. “Five.”

“Five red dots.”

Benny moved his face from side to side, searching out the snipers.

“Go ahead and show yourselves, guys,” I said. “The jig is up and I have a ride to catch. And by the way, Benny, this is by far my favorite part of the plan.”

In the coffin-like beds at the center of the room, my five men took off those blankets that covered them and rose. It was a long shot that the plan would work. Anything could’ve happened. Benny could’ve walked into the doss house’s space and got nervous. No tour entered a building, at least not any that my men had checked.

But his craziness for Ripper would be the perfect cheese to lure him into the cage.

The snipers kept their target’s lights on Benny’s face.

“So,” I rubbed my hands together. “Jasmine’s counting says that we’re done here. I have two guys at your side and five at your face. Not even Houdini could escape those bullets. Even worse, I made this a little competition among my guys. Anyone who kills you gets a million dollars in cash.”

“They’ll die before they’ll see that money.” Benny glared at the snipers. “You’ll be in a casket before you spend it. You don’t want my kind of trouble.”

“Oh shut up, old man, and accept defeat for once.” I checked my watch. “Okay, tesoro. Let’s go.”

Jasmine took another step away from the wall, but she didn’t come my way. Instead, she went toward him. “No.”

“Jasmine?” I raised my eyebrows.

This is not the plan. What is she doing? Is she going to try and save him?

She didn’t answer, and the stress of the room reached an all new height. None of my men expected her to move closer to him. Even a few of Benny’s guys stirred in their position.

Benny laughed. “Jasmine is very smart. She understands that I won’t give up.”

She closed the distance between Benny and her. “He’s right, Chase.”

Another step.

Her hands shook. “You don’t know the things I’ve seen him do.”

Barely a foot lay between them and I almost screamed,

until …

In a blur, she raised that pocket knife and slammed it into his chest, and then she ran. Jasmine raced away. Blood spurted from Benny’s chest. He screamed, grasping at the handle of that little knife. And my tesoro sped right to me.

I stood there in shock, but not for long.

Because the shots came next. I didn’t know who pulled the trigger first, but bullets began to fly as Benny sank to the floor, tears spilling out of his eyes while he tried to yank that knife out of him.

“Let’s go!” Jasmine screamed at me.

“What?” I nodded my head like a crazy man. “I mean yes. Fuck. This way.”

I held her hand and we rushed away, crouching somewhat as more people shot. And then darkness came. Either some genius had shot the lamps out or stray bullets got to them, but now we couldn’t see.

Please, God. Get us out of here!

I tightened my grip on Jasmine’s hand and dragged us forward. Someone grabbed my arm. I punched them in the face.

“Mr. Stone! It’s me, Thomas!” The guy grabbed at my arm again. “I can take you to the helicopter.”

I had no idea who the hell Thomas was, but if he knew about the helicopter, then he was one of my men. “Let’s go.”

Somehow we made it out into the back stairwell, which was the way I’d come in. Jasmine remained silent and kept up with us as we dashed up the stairs. I wasn’t surprised. She ran every damn day like it was some sort of religion. She probably could get up there faster than me.

“You stabbed him.” My eyes widened as I panted.

“Yes.”

“And holy fuck, I think you got his heart.”

“I aimed for it.”

“That was goddamn it fantastic!”

“I hope he’s dead.”

“Hell yes. Me too.” I almost doubled over with laughter, if not for the pain shooting up my legs. We continued up to the third floor. Booming blared below us. The gun fight went on, and I doubted anybody else would make it out of there alive.

And then a door slammed downstairs and footsteps boomed below us.

“Someone’s coming,” Thomas announced.

“You’re a goddamn genius. Get behind us and shoot at them.” I made sure Jasmine got in front of both of us. “All I care about is getting her to this helicopter.”

Someone shot up at us, right as we made it to the roof’s entrance, but it no longer mattered.

Cool air hit my face. Jasmine ran right with me, hand-in-hand toward the helicopter. She climbed in, and I followed.
So close. So fucking close.
Thomas got in next to the pilot, reloading his gun and preparing to shoot if he had to.

The helicopter lifted.

I caught my breath for a moment to mumble, “Sorry for yelling at you, Thomas. You did a good job.”

He replied, but I had no idea what he’d said, because all of my attention shifted to my tesoro as she wrapped her arms around me so tight, buried her face into my chest, and cried, “He killed Troy.”

My body stiffened under her. “What?”

“He killed him,” she cried.

We rose higher into the air and I held her close to me. “Troy?”

“He’s gone.”

My heart broke. How the hell had Troy, her brother, somehow seeped into my chest? How did he make me care? How did he want me to take revenge out on his death? Just like Jasmine, somehow, he’d snuck into me, and made me love him.

“No.” My body shook.

“He’s gone.”

I held her closer to me. “I wish I’d put a goddamn bomb into the building to blow his body into bits of sand.”

And she cried in my arms the rest of the helicopter ride.

C
HAPTER
24

Jasmine

B
esides
the slicing of helicopter blades in the night sky, silence filled the rest of the ride.

Chase held me and I didn’t think he would let me go anytime soon. Every tear that fell from my eyes, he kissed away. Each cry of sadness, he muffled with his mouth on mine. Anytime I tried to mumble some sad word, he whispered he loved me, over and over in my ears.

“You’re safe now, tesoro. I love you.”

No woman should be this lucky. I’d lost my brother, underwent anxiety from Benny, and had to ready myself to face even more possibilities ahead. Yet, this man had organized a small army and saved me.

His phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered, “What?”

A few seconds passed.

“And his body?”

My heart boomed in my chest.

“I don’t pay you to think,” Chase said. “I pay you to know. I want evidence that’s he’s dead, not a fucking percentage of possibilities.”

Chase slung the phone on the helicopter’s floor and returned to me.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“One of my men. There are a lot of bodies in the doss house. They’re checking for Benny’s.”

I froze. “But is he dead?”

“It’s going to be okay.” He placed his hands on the side of my head and stared into my eyes. “Whatever happens now, we’ll face together. Don’t you ever leave me like that. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I almost went crazy.”

“Okay.”

“Vivian is at the hotel. Once I realized Benny and you were at the tour, I had a team go in to take over that mansion.”

“How did you find it?”

“I had infrared light scans all over the documented vacant mansions on Bishop’s Avenue. His was the only abandoned one that showed people inside.” He frowned and looked away for a second. “Tesoro, I’m … I’m sorry about Troy.”

Water glazed over my eyes, but I forced myself to not let anymore tears fall.

“I liked him,” Chase said. “He was an amazing man. He was a good brother to you. I really liked him, and I’m so sorry that you had to deal with this.”

“I’m okay—”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, you’re not, and you won’t be okay for a while. I know death. I know what it does to a person. When I lost my mother, it crushed me for a very long time. In the end, it was probably why I went on my ignorant path of possessing women. Either way, I’m here for you. Every moment of the day, I’ll be here. If you need to cry, do it. If you need to yell, do it. Just understand that I’m never going to leave your side.”

“Okay.”

“Never.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“Good. You need to be scared.” He wrapped his arms back around me. “You need to understand that I won’t ever let you free.”

I hugged him back. “Good.”

“With death, there is only moments. That’s the way you heal. People say to take it day-by-day. I disagree. You have to take it minute-by-minute. No more. No less. Just think about each minute in front of you, and the task for that minute, and keep pushing on.”

“Okay.”

“What do you have to do for the next minute?”

“Hold you,” I whispered.

“Hmmm. I think that’s a beautiful task.” He landed kisses on my neck and with every few, he nipped at my skin as if he yearned to devour me in that helicopter.

And then a dark thought came to me, I pulled out of his arms and leaned away. “Where’s my mother?”

“No.” He wagged his finger. “That’s not your task for the next minute.”

“Where is my mother?”

“You’re not Goddess of the Day. You lost several of those days, when you ran off. Now you owe me some days.”

“Chase, I’m not playing.”

“Neither, am I.”

I climbed out of his arms and he lifted the side of his lip into a sneer.

“Must we talk about Sophia now?” he asked.

“Yes. Why? Where is she? Did you send her back?”

“No. I wasn’t sure if I would need her here.”

“Need her?”

“She helped me get here. Granted, she helped all of us get here through her plotting, but I still owe her for putting me on the path to you.”

“You owe her nothing.”

“I’ve got you.” He pulled me back to him. “I owe her the world.”

“Troy believed that she had a lot to do with—”

“She did.”

“You didn’t even know what I was about to say,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter. Trust me. I know a whole lot more about that woman than I should. Whatever Troy thinks she did, most likely it’s true.”

“Meaning?”

He tapped his finger against my side. His signature nervous habit.

I raised my eyebrows. “What?”

“Now’s not the time to discuss her. You have to mourn. We have to take care of Vivian. In the morning, I’m going to need to have my legal team deal with London’s police. Back in the States, they’re still fending off the police for Lucy’s death.”

“They suspect you?”

“I’ve heard nothing yet, but if they’re smart, they’ll come looking for me. That being said, we deal with Sophia later.”