Page 27 of Veiled Vows

“I’m asking what it’s for.”

“Shooting people.”

“Jasmine.”

“Dad.”

“I noticed you brought your little friend home. What happened?”

Lifting my gaze, my anger flares slightly at the impassive look on his face. “I’m sorting it.”

“With this?” He motions to the gun. “Don’t you think we have enough trouble to deal with? I don’t have time to waste on you running after these nobodies and kicking up a fuss outside of this family.”

Of course. Because all he cares about is money and power. Helping people is only worth it if it benefits him, or harms someone. I know if I told him the Yakuza did this, or that hurtingwho I’m about to hurt would give him a leg up with guns or drugs, he’d give me ten assassins at the drop of a hat.

“Don’t worry.” I slide the weapon into my hip holster and snatch up a long, thin chain for my pocket. “It’s not your time I’m wasting. I’m getting married, remember? Soon,noneof my time will be yours.”

Seth isat a gym a few blocks away from Catherine’s apartment. The guard that found him remains, watching him from across the street until I get there, then offers to come inside with me, but I refuse. I need to do this myself.

I need to make sure this bastard isn’t in a fit state to lift a hand to anyone ever again.

He’s working on a bench press when I walk in and doesn’t notice me as I stride across the empty gym floor. Seth’s lucky he’s the only one in here because if there had been anyone else, I’d choose to take him to a different location, and he most likely would never come back.

“Seth?”

He grunts as the bar lowers down onto his chest and his eyes flit to me with a frown. There are a few scratches down one cheek, and I’m proud of Catherine for fighting back. Not that she ever should have had to.

“Who’s asking?”

“I’m Jasmine. You might have heard of me?”

Just as Seth begins pushing the bar back up to the safety hooks above him, I lean over and place one hand on the bar. Leaning over, my body weight and strength fight against Seth’s.

“The fuck man? Get off the fucking bar.”

“I’m here to have a little chat.”

Seth strains harder, and while the bar shifts back and forth by an inch, he isn’t able to raise it past where I’m pressing down. Eleven years of working on myself to make sure no one can ever snatch me up again has given me enough strength that someone like Seth is a piece of cake.

“Get off, you crazy bitch!” His face slowly turns red from the strain. He puffs out his cheeks, sweat rolls down his forehead, and the veins across his thick neck bulge out as he wrestles to prevent the bar from dropping onto his chest and crushing him.

“I’m crazy? Maybe. But you shouldn’t say something like that to a stranger because I might not be the cute and cuddly crazy. I might be the slit your throat and eat your kidney kind of crazy.”

“Fuck—” Seth’s arms give way and the bar thumps down on his chest, forcing air past his puffy lips. He gasps and kicks his legs back and forth. “H-Help me!”

“Did Catherine ask for help?” My eyes narrow. “Did she beg you to stop when you were breaking her bones and splitting her skin?”

Beyond the panic and desperation in Seth’s eyes, there’s a glimmer of recognition as his struggles increase.

“Did she fight like this while you were holding her down, huh?” Leaning forward, I press down harder until Seth is gasping and wheezing for breath. “Did you like it when you got covered in her blood? When you punched her so hard that you cracked her eye socket? Did that make you feel like a big man, Seth?”

With a final push, I step back and watch as Seth is finally able to topple the weighted bar to the side in a deafening clatter. He rolls off the bench coughing and gasping, then he spits mouthfuls of extra saliva onto the floor.

I barely give him a chance to catch his breath because then I’m over the top of him winding my long, thin metal chain around his throat. He chokes immediately and lifts a hand up,clawing at his own throat while I tighten the chain, plant a knee between his shoulders, and pull him taut like a drawstring.

“I thought long and hard about what I was going to do to you when I found you. You hurt my best friend, and usually that would be a death sentence, but for some reason, Catherine doesn’t want me to kill you. So you better get prepared to thank her for every disgusting breath you take from now on because I am going to be there. Every second of every day, you hear me?”

Seth’s face switches between several shades of purple and scrapes at his throat with his nails trying to find any kind of grip underneath the chain. But there is none. It’s so taught that it’s sinking into his flesh deep enough that if I choose, he’ll die this way.

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