Page 178 of The Art of Ruin

Her breath catches. “Adriano—”

“I’m coming for you.”

The phone shifts again, and Jasper’s voice returns, too close and too pleased with himself. “You should hear what she sounds like when she cries.”

For a second, there’s nothing human in me.

Nico steps closer, his hand hovering near my arm, and I realize vaguely that my expression must have changed enough to worry him.

“You want money?” I ask.

Jasper laughs, brittle and cracked. “Money? That won’t buy me back my reputation. You made sure of that.”

“Then tell me what you want.”

“I want you to know what it feels like.” His voice breaks slightly on the last word, and somehow that makes him more dangerous. “I want you to stand there with all that power and understand you can’t stop me.”

The fear in my chest turns over.

Because there it is. He wants revenge and he feels like he has nothing left to lose and I did that.

A man with nothing left to negotiate for is a man with no reason to be careful. “You let her go,” I say quietly, “and I’ll help you disappear before the Feds close in. Passport. Money. Safe route out. You know I can do it.”

Nico’s head turns sharply toward me, but he says nothing. I know we don’t swim in that world anymore but just like he dove back in for Isabella, I’ll do the same for Casey.

Jasper is silent for a moment. Then, softly, “You’d do that?”

“Yes.”

And I mean it.

Not because I intend mercy. Not because he deserves air after this. But if Casey walks away alive, I’ll hand him anything he asks for in the moment and hunt him later when she’s safe.

“Liar,” Jasper says finally.

Then the line goes dead.

For one second, no one moves.

Then my phone leaves my hand and shatters against the far wall hard enough that people outside the glass walls of my office flinch.

Rossi’s phone rings almost immediately.

He answers, listens, and looks up at me with grim focus. “We have the car. Red Hook warehouse district. One of the traffic cameras caught the plate.”

The world narrows to a single point.

I reach inside my jacket.

Nico catches my wrist before I can pull the gun free.

“Adi.”

I look at him.

He sees everything. The fear. The fury. The part of me that’s already standing over Jasper’s body and deciding how much pain is enough.

His grip tightens. “We get her first.”