Page 59 of In the Dark

“There’s a list of those businesses … and of caterers we use within the community.”

“You’ll get me both?” she said, no waver in her voice.

Interesting that Jasmina felt she needed to handle all the fallout from Paolo on her own. “What’s your intention with these companies Paolo was working with? I said I would handle it.”

“I … I have to make it right too. I need to help.”

“Then, let me look into it first.”

“No.”

“No?”

“It was my family’s doing—”

“And you’re about to be my family, Jasmina,” I told her. “You’re about to be my wife. Do you know what that means?”

She chewed her cheek, not saying anything right away, so I answered for her.

“It means my bank accounts, my businesses, my name, my syndicate are at your disposal.”

“But this isn’t real—”

“You’ll be my wife. I don’t intend to fake that at all, Jasmina. Not at all.”

“Okay,” she whispered. And then she nodded like she finally might accept help from me in the way she never asked for it from anybody else. Then she smiled softly and murmured, “Since I’m going to be your wife, you know I should be able to have the food I want at the wedding too.” Her eyes almost twinkled as she fell back into giving me a hard time. “And you’re going to make that happen even if it’s not catered in from Paradise Grove, Cally baby.”

That fucking nickname. There was the viper.

16

Jasmina

WAKING TO LITERAL BLUE birds chirping outside felt a bit too happily-ever-after for me even after settling into a routine at Callahan’s estate for two weeks. After he’d finally agreed to more time for wedding planning, I’d really tried to get comfortable enough to put together the wedding I didn’t want.

And the more I did, the more I started to want the wedding. Because Callahan Knight was all he promised to be. He trusted me, gave me the damn two months I needed, and seemed to push me when I needed to be pushed without going too far.

I went to do a daily check of my wounds and sighed at the progress.

The red lines meant the wounds were healing well. I’d quietly taken the stitches out the night before in the bathroom. There was definitely less pain unless I tried to move quickly.

At least there would be no wedding for another two months. I’d accomplished one thing but catapulted myself into ten others with seeing the security footage of Paolo.

Something about the footage of the background, a faded graphic that I felt like I shouldn’t overlook, got me back to thinking about the SD card I kept stashing in my pocket or under my mattress.

I was discreet about when and where I hid it but kept wondering how I could crack the username and password. Callahan hadn’t made that easy at all.

Sure, he left me with my laptop at night, but I couldn’t do much with it. I knew he was probably watching my every move on there somehow.

At one point, I did do some private browsing just to see if I could find anything out about Paolo’s secrets and also about the man who I was marrying.

I didn’t get much on Paolo. As for what my cousin told me about Callahan, I searched for Knights in the media, and boy did that come up with much more.

I didn’t pay attention to gossip websites or social media, but it seemed Callahan was a big part of it. Maybe I wasn’t as versed in who Callahan Knight and all the Diamonds were, really.

Not so much because of his name, but because of the businesses he ran and the women he dated.

Models.