Chapter 1
JASMINE'S POV
The bar a bit dark. It was filled with smoke and the scent of cheap whiskey. It was barely past noon, but in this part of town, time didn't matter. It was always night here—inside the walls, in people's hearts.
I wiped down the sticky counter for the third time, trying to focus on the task, not the past.
But memories had a way of clawing their way back in, no matter how hard I tried to bury them.
I was once a brilliant surgeon. A woman with a white coat, a dream, and a fiancé I would have died for. I was going to change the world. But instead, the world changed me. I was arrested on my wedding day, accused of murdering the wife of the most powerful mafia godfather. It had been raining that day. The same day I was supposed to say "I do" in white silk and roses, I was dragged away in hand cuffs. I was betrayed. By the man I loved. Justin. My fiancé.
He didn't just turn his back on me. He gave the final push.
I spent five years behind bars for a crime I didn't commit. Five years of fists and filth and silence. Five years of learning how to survive with a limp and a shattered soul.
And now, here I was—working as a waitress a hole-in-the-wall bar.
I heard the laughter before I saw them. My stomach dropped.
Them. Justin's friends.
The hyenas.
They strolled in like they owned the place with expensive watches on their wrists and designer jackets slung over their shoulders. Money never made people cleaner—it just helped them hide the blood on their hands better.
"Look who it is," one of them said with a smirk "If it ain't the jailbird herself. You done wiping tables with that criminal record of yours?"
I kept my head down. "What can I get you?"
"You could start with a smile," another one sneered, leaning far too close. His breath reeked of gin and rotting teeth. "Or is that something they beat out of you in prison?"
The others howled with laughter. One of them knocked over a tray of empty glasses on purpose. "Oops. Clean it up, doc. You still any good with your hands, or did they break them too?"
My fists clenched at my sides.
"Back off," I said.
"Oh, she speaks," the tall one said, pretending to be shocked. "What's the matter, sweetheart? Not so high and mighty without your scalpel, huh? What a waste. All that brainpower, gone just like that."
I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw a bottle at their smug faces. But I couldn't. I needed this job. I needed to keep my head down, survive, save, and plot.
Their laughter kept ringing in my ears.
Then the door slammed open.
I turned—and everything slowed.
People entered the bar. They weren't customers.
Five men in black came in. They wore masks and had guns in their hands. They weren't the kind of thugs that waved guns around to look tough. These were real professionals. Cold. Calculated. Deadly. One of them fired into the ceiling without warning.
Bang!
Plaster rained down. People screamed. Glass shattered. The bartender hit the ground. I ducked behind the counter. My heart was hammering so hard it felt like it might burst through my ribs.
"Everyone down! Now!" a voice barked in another language—Russian maybe, or Romanian. Definitely Eastern European. This wasn't just a robbery. It was a hit. A message. A mafia-style clean-up.
I looked over the bar.
Customers dropped to the floor like dominoes, some crawling toward the back exit, others frozen in terror. The hyenas—Justin's idiot friends—weren't laughing now. One of them pissed himself, trying to crawl beneath a table while the others raised their hands.
A second man opened fire—ratatatatatatat. Machine-gun burst. The wall behind the bar exploded. Bottles shattered like fireworks. Liquor soaked the floor, mixing with blood.
One of the waiters was hit.
He collapsed near the kitchen door. My stomach twisted at the sight of him. I felt bile climbing up my throat.
I've seen people die. But nothing prepares you for the sound or the sight of it—the sound of a body hitting the floor or the choking gurgle as blood comes out of their lips.
I pressed myself against the bar, trying to be small, invisible, forgotten.
That's when I saw him.
He wasn't with the attackers. He wasn't wearing a mask. He had no fear in his eyes. He stood between me and the chaos, as if shielding me. He drew out a gun from his belt.
He returned fire like he'd done it a hundred times before.
Bang. Bang.
Two of the invaders dropped to the floor. His movements were smooth and deadly. Not frantic. Not flashy. He fired like he knew what he was doing.
Another guy lunged at him with a blade. The man dodged it, twisted the guy's arm and slammed his gun across the man's temple. The attacker groaned then collapsed to the floor.
But the man wasn't fast enough.
A shot rang out.
He staggered.
Blood poured out from his side.
He looked straight at me before falling behind the bar. His body crashed just inches from mine.
That was when I forgot to be afraid. Forgot the bullets. Forgot the danger.All I saw was blood. His blood.
And something inside me—something buried under years of pain and silence—snapped back into focus.
He was hurt. He needed help.
"Shit," I muttered, scrambling to him. "Hey. Hey!"
He groaned as more blood poured out from his side.
"I can help," I said, reaching for him.
His hand lashed out and grabbed my wrist. He glared at me with intense blue eyes.
"Don't. Touch. Me." His voice was rough, cold, commanding.
"I'm not trying to hurt you."
"I said back off." His eyes were wild with pain—but not fear. Defiance. Like a wolf refusing to die.
"You'll bleed out." I said.
"Better than trusting some waitress with shaky hands."
That stung. He didn't know me but he cut straight to the bone.
"You don't know what I am." I said.
"Don't need to. Just leave me."
I assumed he was just a low level gangster. I just wanted to help him. If he was, then we were alike in that way. We were disposable.
"I've seen people like you," I snapped. "Disposable pawns. Used by your bosses, left to rot in alleys. You're just another foot soldier to them."
His jaw tightened. "And you think you're better?"
"No. I think I know what it's like to be discarded."
Our eyes locked and in that moment, the gun fight didn't matter. It felt like we were the only ones in the bar. His eyes….God, it felt like staring into the ocean.
"You'll die here if you don't let me help." I whispered,
He didn't answer.
So I took that as a yes.
It took everything in me to drag him out the back exit during the chaos. My leg screamed in protest, but I ignored it. He was heavy. My arms trembled.
"You're insane," he grunted.
"You're welcome."
-
My apartment was barely a room. I just had a narrow bed. There was a table covered in vials and gauze. A cracked mirror. I had managed to get him here with the help of a cab driver. The driver insisted on taking us to the hospital but I convinced him I could handle it.
When we got inside, I laid him on the bed, tearing open his blood-soaked shirt.
The wound was deep.
"You're lucky," I muttered, grabbing antiseptic. "It missed the lung."
I was just about to clean his wounds when it happened. He grabbed the gun from his waistband, cocked it, and pointed it directly at my head.
I froze.
"Don't touch me." He said.
