"She was admitted to urgent care just under a week ago. Used a false name. Bruised ribs. Sprained wrist. Minor lacerations all consistent with a beating."
I close my eyes for a slow breath, but it does nothing to quiet the fury building inside me. On the monitor, Jasmine shifts in the bath, her hands curling close to her heart, as if she’s holding herself together.
She ran from this man. She ran until she was broken and exhausted. She stumbled into my casino with nothing left, and she still carried herself with more quiet strength than most men I’ve put in the ground.
And he thinks he’ll find her and take her back.
No. This ends tonight.
"Find him," I say, my voice low enough to scrape gravel. "Find everyone connected to him. I want locations. Associates. Gear. Everything."
"Yes, boss."
I hang up without another word and turn my attention back to the screen.
She is drifting off in the warm water. Good. She needs rest.
She breathes shallowly. A small sound escapes her throat, like a tiny crack in the armor she’s been holding up. Something raw and protective pulls tight inside me, a sensation I have never felt before.
I sit forward again, elbows braced on my knees, watching her the way a storm watches the coastline it’s about to consume.
She doesn’t know that she’s safe because of me. She doesn’t know that I’m already planning the destruction of the man who hurt her. She doesn’t know that her winning that jackpot pulled her straight into my path.
But she will.
I let the room fall silent around me, lights flickering across my face as the feed updates.
I watch her breathe while the water cools around her, and I feel the decision settle deep inside me, solid and absolute.
She came into my world tonight by chance.
Luck struck, probably for the first time in her life, in my casino.
As I watch her finally drift toward sleep, something deeper than desire coils through me. It’s not just possession. It’s not just fury on her behalf. It’s an instinct older than logic, older than restraint, older than the man I’ve spent my life sculpting myself into.
I want to claim her. Protect her. Keep her under me and around me and tied to me so completely she never has to run again. The thought takes root and settles inside me. I imagine her carrying my future beneath her ribs, safe in my home, in my bed, in my world.
The urge is so sharp and sudden it steals the air from my lungs, but I don’t fight it. I’ve never wanted anything with the claritythat I want her. And now that fate has pushed her into my hands, I’m going to make damn sure she becomes mine in every way a woman can belong to a man.
Jasmine
It’s the way the water has taken on a chill that wakes me. I don’t know how long I was asleep in there but I feel a thousand times better.
I pull myself out of the bath, the pain at my ribs having settled to a dull ache having been soaked in hot water. The white fluffy robe is monogrammed with the hotels emblem, shrugging into it feels like wrapping myself in a cloud.
It isn’t until I see my reflection that I realize I’m smiling. It feels foreign on my face, and I have to quickly remind myself not to get used to this. As soon as my money arrives, I’m leaving Las Vegas, maybe even the USA if I can get a passport sorted.
I’m squeezing water out of my hair with a towel when there’s a knock at the door.
It isn’t loud or demanding. It’s careful, almost polite, but it cuts straight through the haze of relaxation and sends my pulse charging up my throat. The suite is still dim, the curtains pulled shut against the Vegas night. The clock on the nightstand tells me it’s barely past midnight.
Another knock comes, gentler than the first.
My heart slams against my sternum. Logic tries to shove its way through the panic, reminding me of where I am. A casino hotel. Staff doing their jobs. Probably here with paperwork ora form I need to sign before they release the money. Normal. Routine. Safe.
But routine doesn’t knock like it knows I’m scared.
Routine doesn’t make the hairs lift at the back of my neck.
