Page 51 of In the Dark

“And yet you can’t get me to fucking eat? What a good owner you are.”

“Jesus Christ. Do you hear how ridiculous you’re being?”

I shrugged. “Not as ridiculous as a grown man thinking he can force someone to eat.”

He growled like he’d had enough. Good. I’d had enough of his shit too. “What will it take to get you to go in there for some food?”

Well, that was easy. “I want two months to plan the wedding.”

“You want more time to plan this stupid wedding? Fine,” he practically bellowed. “But you’re eating the whole-ass plate of food I order when we get in there.”

“Two months, Callahan. No changing your mind.” I had to be sure.

“I swear to God, I should have let you drown in that water,” he grumbled. “We’ll discuss it inside.”

Of course he had to use it as leverage. “Whatever,” I spat, trying to open my damn door. Of course, he’d locked it. “Oh my God. I hate you, you know that?” I told him.

He rolled his eyes and got out, slamming his door extra hard before he came to my side.

Asshole.

13

Callahan

“YOU CAN’T EXPECT ME to eat everything on each of these plates. You ordered the whole stupid menu, Callahan.”

I shrugged and sat back so I could put my arm around her. When we’d walked into the restaurant, I asked for a booth in the back. I didn’t want eyes that would make her uncomfortable, because it was true that most of the Diamond Syndicate was watching now.

I just needed the woman to eat. It’s why I chose to slide in next to her rather than across from her. We weren’t leaving until she gave in and finished a platter of food. “You wouldn’t tell me what you wanted, so now I got you everything to choose from.”

“That’s not how this goes. I didn’t want anything at all.”

“Nonsense. Try everything, and you’ll find something you want.” She looked absolutely affronted when I’d ordered, but I swear she licked her lips ten times before the food came.

“Why do you even care?”

“Other than the fact that it looks like I’m starving you? It’s been five days.” How many times did I have to tell her?

“It wasn’t that bad.” She hummed and looked at her nails, completely unconcerned. I wanted to strangle her.

“You’ve barely eaten a meal this whole time. Even Archer is starting to give me looks about your lack of appetite.”

“Like I said, I’ll eat when I’m less stressed about the timing of this wedding.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Not this again. What was she so afraid of? “I said you could have two months.”

“Well, I don’t exactly trust you.”

“After I told you at the house that I’m not going to lie to you?” I’d meant that. Jasmina wasn’t a fool, and I wasn’t going to treat her like one. On the contrary, the more I dug into the businesses of the Ruizes, the more I saw her handiwork. Jameson agreed too. Paolo may have done a lot of dumb shit, but having Jasmina helping him launder money and run businesses was genius.

“You also told me you would give me another week with my family.”

“That was …” I stopped myself. But she lifted an eyebrow, and I admitted to her in honesty, “That was me being impatient because I wanted you here and because I didn’t want you to run.”

“Ruizes are strong. We don’t run.”

“And Knights are Diamonds. Adamantem infractum manet. It’s the saying we go by. It means the diamond remains unbroken, Jas. That means a lot of things to our syndicate, like we take care of family, we trust one another, but also … We don’t take unnecessary risks.” I sighed because, at this point, it didn’t matter what I said: She had me by the balls when it came to this deadline. “I’m not going to go back on my word. You can have two months to plan, but I want those invites out now. I told you to have them done four nights ago.” I couldn’t believe the gall she had. “This is as much for me as it is for you and your family.”