The bathroom is what gets her. I knew it would. Balthazar might have been an asshole of a father, but he indulged his daughter’s material desires without limit. Whenever she wasn’t in her usual haunts, she could be found down by the fountain in the middle of his hedge maze. The whole thing is rather overdone for my tastes, over a square mile of curving paths and little courtyards, but it fit Jasmine’s fancy. Or maybe she simply needed to pretend she wasn’t walled in and the maze was her way of doing it.
I’ll ask her eventually.
Not today, though.
I wait for her to walk back into the room to speak. “I have business to take care of.”
She waves that away as if it’s not worth knowing. “You always do.”
Now’s the time to establish what this relationship will be. “When I get back, I want you naked and kneeling at the front door.”
She stops short. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Naked and kneeling. That’s an order.”
“When are you going to be back?”
I almost smile, but muscle the response down deep. “I’ll be back before dawn.”
“Before dawn,” she echoes, understanding washing over her expression. “You want me to wait for you. For an unknown amount of time. Naked and kneeling.”
I permit myself a tight smile. “Yes, Jasmine. That’s exactly what I expect.” I turn around and head for the elevators. The thrill of the push and pull with her, the fighting and resisting—It makes me so fucking hard, I can barely see straight. If I had my way, I wouldn’t leave her alone to stew over everything that’s happened tonight, but business has to come before pleasure.
Even if pleasure with Jasmine is business.
I step into the elevator and ride it down to the parking garage. Jeremiah, my second in command, meets me there. He looks a little worse for wear, his suit rumpled and his normally perfect dark hair askew. I note the blood spatter on his shirt. “It’s done?”
Jeremiah nods. “We ran into a few complications, but nothing the boys and I couldn’t handle.”
“Good.”
He glances behind me at the elevator. “You got your princess?”
“Among other things.” I head for the car and he falls into step next to me. “We’re ready for the next part of the process.”
He makes a face. “Ali slipped the net we cast for him.”
I pause. “Find him.” I wasn’t exaggerating when I called Ali a monster. He and I might have started in similar places—fighting our way up from nothing—but the few lines I refuse to cross are ones he tramples over with glee. He’s a sadist and a sociopath, his penchant for violence is only surpassed by his pride.
Taking Jasmine and dismantling his power grab will piss him off, and Ali is most dangerous when he’s furious. The man is a loose cannon and he’ll try to take Jasmine back. To take her from me. She’s a toy ripped away from him before he got it out of the packaging, and it will only add to his rage.
And if Ali can’t reclaim her?
He’ll kill her.
“Find him, Jeremiah. Find him right fucking now.”
Chapter 4
Jasmine
After twenty-five years in the same few square miles of land, Jafar’s penthouse is a revelation. I barely wait for the elevators doors to whisk shut before I give into my impulse to snoop. Easier to focus on that tiny pleasure than to think too hard about all the ways my life has gone up in flames.
My home is mine no more. If I could forgive my father for selling me in marriage—and I can’t—I still can’t forgive all the years of neglect and threats whenever I stepped too far out of line. Threats to carve away at the tiny list of my freedoms.
Now here I am, my leg in a different kind of trap.
I bypass the main living space and wander down the hall on the opposite side of the penthouse from my room. On the second door, I hit pay dirt.
I stand in the doorway for a long time, studying Jafar’s bedroom. I don’t know what I expected, but it’s just as stark and beautiful as the rest of the house. I would bet good money that he had someone else decorate it. To his specifications, of course, but some of the little details feel off.
Not the paintings, though.
They’re gorgeous.
I move on silent feet to stand before them. A trio, each in a deep red that sets something racing in my chest. Or maybe it’s the content of the paintings. Each is a close-up of a woman’s body. The first, the curve of her back. The second, a hip. The third, her breasts. The artist’s name is a tiny scrawl near the bottom of each. Death.
Interesting.
I force myself to abandon the paintings in favor of finding juicier information. His nightstand is a bust. It’s basically a small bookshelf. I peruse the titles but give it up for a lost cause. Jafar has a thing for nonfiction war stories. Of course he does. He probably reads them and takes notes before he goes into battle with his current-day enemies.