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JASMINE

Twenty-four hours after discovering those further messages on my mother’s phone, I stand across the street from the parking lot where Roman agreed to meet her. It’s tucked away on the edge of the city, secluded and dark. The perfect place to lure a fragile woman and kill her. Several of my own guards mill around at various vantage points; two are on the roof of the building behind me, one tucked away in the dark next to the dumpsters in the parking lot, and a handful scattered up and down the street hidden in the shadows.

I’m ready for him.

And yet, deep down inside, I’m not.

The plan I laid out to Theresa involved never having to see Roman ever again, and I was determined to stick to it. Until now. Reading those messages reignited the confusion in my gut about our relationship. A relationship he claimed was all lies and manipulation.

Is it my love for him that seeks another reason? The baby in my belly?

Or just heartbreak?

God, this is such a mess.

My father is six feet under, dead to the world. My mother is barely holding herself together, and if I’m not careful, she’s going to spend the rest of her life in a hospital. And now the man I fell in love with is about to turn up to kill my mother, and I’ll have to kill him instead.

Happiness is fleeting, it seems.

“You good?” The captain of my security squad appears at my elbow as I rub my eyes.

“Tired.”

“How long do you want to wait?”

Glancing at my watch, I sigh. “Another half hour?”

“Alright. We’ll do another sweep.”

“Thanks.”

He walks away and melts into the shadows behind me, becoming a ghost identifiable only by his radio that crackles to life every so often. We stand and we wait.

Roman doesn’t show.

The seconds tick by painfully slow. My nerves fray further and acid fizzes uncomfortably at the base of my gullet. I’m gonna need a prescription for antacids at this point. Is the life of a leader always this stressful?

The rumble of a car engine suddenly fills the air and the entire street feels like it stands to attention, waiting to see if the car rolling down the street is what we’re waiting for or just someone who took a wrong turn. It’s not a plate I recognize, but it does pull into the parking lot. The engine turns off. The lights dim.

The door opens.

I bite the side of my tongue and walk forward out of the shadows as my heart races, preparing myself for what it will feel like to look Roman in the eye before killing him.

But it’s not Roman that climbs out of the car and looks around with a frown.

It’s Alto.

What thefuckis going on?

“Ah. Shit.” Alto’s face twists into a frown when we lock eyes, and he keeps one hand on the open car door. “The fuck are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” I reply coldly. “Where the fuck is Roman?”

“Roman?” Alto sneers his name like it’s a slur. “Why the fuck would Roman be with me?”

“Are you in it together, is that it? Is that the big fucking joke? All this time I thought you were against each other, that the brotherly conflict was justified, and it was all a fucking act, wasn’t it?”