Chapter 10: Veiled Vows: Chapter 10

The wait is the worst part. Catherine’s frantic SOS text yesterday led me on a chase across the city to a clinic where they refused to let me see her because I’m not a family member. No rule prevented me from waiting outside so I parked up and waited.

Nearly twenty-four hours later, the doors to the clinic open and Catherine limps out with a nurse holding onto her hand.

“Catherine!” I nearly eject my kidney with how hard I hit the door in my scramble to get out of the car, and my less than graceful display has the nurse backing Catherine up toward the door as if I’m some kind of threat.

“It’s okay,” drifts Catherine’s voice as I run closer. “She’s my friend.”

“Are you sure, love?” The nurse doesn’t look convinced when she pats Catherine’s shoulders, but Catherine nods.

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“Catherine!” As soon as the nurse steps back, my arms lock around Catherine and I pull her into a tight hug until she whimpers in pain. I try to release her, but she clings to me with both hands and tears quickly soak my shoulder. “I’m here. I’m here. What happened?”

I hold Catherine until her initial burst of tears pass, then she cautiously lifts her head and struggles to look me in the eye. And no wonder. Half her face is swollen and purple from deep bruising. One eye is painfully bloodshot, her lower lip is clinging to life with stitches, and deep black bruises ring her neck. Everything else is hidden beneath her clothing, but I get enough of a picture to understand why it took so long for her to be released.

“Oh my God …”

“Don’t say that,” Catherine says, her words trembling. “I-I need you to tell me that it doesn’t look that bad.”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me what happened?”

She glances around, her eyes swimming and her grip tightening when I step down the path. To keep her calm, I link our arms and slowly guide her. “It’s nothing.”

“Catherine, don’t give me that. We both know this isn’t nothing. Was this a hit? A message? Is someone trying to get to you? Or your family?” Catherine’s family may be low on the food chain, but that doesn’t make them exempt from pain. People have been targeted for a lot less.

“It’s nothing like that,” she says quietly. “I just want to go home.”

“No, honey. We’re not doing this. Please tell me we’re not doing this.”

“Doing what?” She still doesn’t look me in the eye when we reach my car.

“Protecting the people that did this. I swear to you, there is nothing and no one worth protecting over something like this. You know me, sweetie. You know I can take care of this.”

Catherine finally looks up at me, and the defeat in her eyes breaks my heart into a thousand pieces. “I don’t want to go home.”

“That’s okay.” I smile warmly. “You can stay with me. Come on.”

Helping her into the car takes a minute or two due to her injuries and some stiffness in one of her knees, but once she’s settled, I buckle her in and we leave the clinic behind. I keep the music on low to create a pleasant atmosphere and keep one eye on her at all times while questions burn in my mind. Eventually, I can’t stay quiet as much as I know I probably should.

“Are you sure this wasn’t targeted? Even if it wasn’t, if some shitty little mugger thinks he can get one over on you then I’m telling you, I’ll make sure he doesn’t walk again.”

“It wasn’t that,” Catherine murmurs, plucking at her jeans. “It’s not … it’s nothing.”

“Don’t do that. Your pain is not nothing. Not to me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Honey, you have nothing to be sorry for. But look at me, you know I can make sure whoever did this pays for it. And if you’re worried about me getting hurt, or it’s about your association with me then I promise you⁠—”

“It was Seth.”

Three small words suddenly turn my car into a gigantic cavern. Everything falls away, including my focus on the drive as anger fogs my vision and Catherine’s voice becomes a very distant hum.

Seth.

Catherine’s perfect boyfriend Seth?

The dude with the curly hair and the dogs. The love of her life?

I glance at her. She’s watching me with wide eyes as if my reaction will make or break her. Too many questions flood my mind, but in the end I only need to know the answer to one. It’ll determine how many of his fucking bones I break.

“Is this the first time?”

“Please don’t kill him.”

“Catherine, is this the first time?”

Her silence lasts until we turn onto my street and are greeted by the perimeter guards.

“No.”

I feed Catherine and let her shower, then I tuck her up in my bed with a bucketload of painkillers and a guard at the door to keep her safe. Then I put out a call for someone to find Seth and to call me when they have an answer. I’m so distracted by the ways I’m going to hurt that man that I don’t notice my father has joined me in the garage until he pulls the handgun out of reach.

“What is this?”

“It’s a gun,” I say tightly, snatching it back. “Do you need a lesson?”

“I’m asking what it’s for.”

“Shooting people.”

“Jasmine.”

“Dad.”

“I noticed you brought your little friend home. What happened?”

Lifting my gaze, my anger flares slightly at the impassive look on his face. “I’m sorting it.”

“With this?” He motions to the gun. “Don’t you think we have enough trouble to deal with? I don’t have time to waste on you running after these nobodies and kicking up a fuss outside of this family.”

Of course. Because all he cares about is money and power. Helping people is only worth it if it benefits him, or harms someone. I know if I told him the Yakuza did this, or that hurting who I’m about to hurt would give him a leg up with guns or drugs, he’d give me ten assassins at the drop of a hat.

“Don’t worry.” I slide the weapon into my hip holster and snatch up a long, thin chain for my pocket. “It’s not your time I’m wasting. I’m getting married, remember? Soon, none of my time will be yours.”

Seth is at a gym a few blocks away from Catherine’s apartment. The guard that found him remains, watching him from across the street until I get there, then offers to come inside with me, but I refuse. I need to do this myself.

I need to make sure this bastard isn’t in a fit state to lift a hand to anyone ever again.

He’s working on a bench press when I walk in and doesn’t notice me as I stride across the empty gym floor. Seth’s lucky he’s the only one in here because if there had been anyone else, I’d choose to take him to a different location, and he most likely would never come back.

“Seth?”

He grunts as the bar lowers down onto his chest and his eyes flit to me with a frown. There are a few scratches down one cheek, and I’m proud of Catherine for fighting back. Not that she ever should have had to.

“Who’s asking?”

“I’m Jasmine. You might have heard of me?”

Just as Seth begins pushing the bar back up to the safety hooks above him, I lean over and place one hand on the bar. Leaning over, my body weight and strength fight against Seth’s.

“The fuck man? Get off the fucking bar.”

“I’m here to have a little chat.”

Seth strains harder, and while the bar shifts back and forth by an inch, he isn’t able to raise it past where I’m pressing down. Eleven years of working on myself to make sure no one can ever snatch me up again has given me enough strength that someone like Seth is a piece of cake.

“Get off, you crazy bitch!” His face slowly turns red from the strain. He puffs out his cheeks, sweat rolls down his forehead, and the veins across his thick neck bulge out as he wrestles to prevent the bar from dropping onto his chest and crushing him.

“I’m crazy? Maybe. But you shouldn’t say something like that to a stranger because I might not be the cute and cuddly crazy. I might be the slit your throat and eat your kidney kind of crazy.”

“Fuck—” Seth’s arms give way and the bar thumps down on his chest, forcing air past his puffy lips. He gasps and kicks his legs back and forth. “H-Help me!”

“Did Catherine ask for help?” My eyes narrow. “Did she beg you to stop when you were breaking her bones and splitting her skin?”

Beyond the panic and desperation in Seth’s eyes, there’s a glimmer of recognition as his struggles increase.

“Did she fight like this while you were holding her down, huh?” Leaning forward, I press down harder until Seth is gasping and wheezing for breath. “Did you like it when you got covered in her blood? When you punched her so hard that you cracked her eye socket? Did that make you feel like a big man, Seth?”

With a final push, I step back and watch as Seth is finally able to topple the weighted bar to the side in a deafening clatter. He rolls off the bench coughing and gasping, then he spits mouthfuls of extra saliva onto the floor.

I barely give him a chance to catch his breath because then I’m over the top of him winding my long, thin metal chain around his throat. He chokes immediately and lifts a hand up, clawing at his own throat while I tighten the chain, plant a knee between his shoulders, and pull him taut like a drawstring.

“I thought long and hard about what I was going to do to you when I found you. You hurt my best friend, and usually that would be a death sentence, but for some reason, Catherine doesn’t want me to kill you. So you better get prepared to thank her for every disgusting breath you take from now on because I am going to be there. Every second of every day, you hear me?”

Seth’s face switches between several shades of purple and scrapes at his throat with his nails trying to find any kind of grip underneath the chain. But there is none. It’s so taught that it’s sinking into his flesh deep enough that if I choose, he’ll die this way.

“Because you’ve hurt her. And scared her. And I can’t imagine how long it’s going to take her to recover, so I’m going to make sure that I haunt the rest of your life. If I’m not there watching you, my people will be. Maybe they’ll hurt you. Maybe you’ll find a razor blade in your burger, or the brakes cut on your car. Maybe you’ll find an allergen in your coffee or someone will break into your home. You won’t know. And you won’t ever be calm again, you hear me?”

Tightening the chain, I lean down and press my lips lightly to the shell of his ear. Seth makes a terrible, pained sound and tries to toss his head back and forth.

“Now say thank you.”

“—hrk!”

“Say thank you.”

“Th—hr—thank… y-you!” The words scrape from his swollen throat like air escaping an overfilled tire, and his eyes roll back when I finally step back and release the chain. It slides like water from his throat, and Seth collapses forward coughing and retching on the ground.

“You’ll never know peace again,” I mutter, staring down at him in disgust. “Welcome to hell.”

I’d much prefer killing him, but the last thing I want to do is make Catherine feel like I’m not listening to her, especially when she’s just been through something so traumatic. So I will wait until she is better, until Seth is nothing more than a distant thought in her mind as she embraces her new life, and then I will kill him.

Leaving the gym, I head down the street and send a quick message to one of my team leads. Seth is to be at the top of their list, and I want him messed with until he breaks down and comes begging for me to kill him. The confirmation comes through thirty seconds later. Excellent.

It’s the least he fucking deserves.

I can still smell the stink of his sweat and disgusting cologne, so rather than walking all the way back to my car and waiting guard, I head for the nearest convenience store. With each step, my anger slowly begins to fade. Despite knowing nothing about Seth, I can’t help but feel like I let Catherine down. With everything going on, I should be able to look out for my best friend and keep her safe. What use is all this power and all these people if the ones I care about slip through the net because of some despicable asshole?

The convenience store clerk jumps when I slam down my chosen drink on the counter, so I flash her an apologetic smile. It’s not her fault I’m so pissed off at the world. First my father and his stupid comments, Seth and his violence, Santino and his fucking war using me as a pawn all those years ago.

I’m tired of men.

I pay for my drink and snack with a handful of crumpled dollars, but as I’m heading outside, the clerk stops me just at the door.

“Miss! You paid too much!”

“Keep it,” I say, heading outside. “Buy yourself something nice.”

“But miss⁠—”

Turning away from her as she steps out from behind the counter, movement across the street catches my attention and my heart lifts unexpectedly.

Is that Roman? He’s coming out of the deli across the street, tossing some keys back and forth in his hand. We lock eyes for a split second, then his eyes widen in alarm as the blare of a car horn tears through the air.

There’s no time for me to react. The second I see the car screaming toward me with a screech of brakes is the same second it slams into me and knocks me clean off my feet.