Chapter 61 Vanilla
JASMINE
Richelle’s car smelled like vanilla air freshener and coffee. It was too normal.
After everything that had just happened, the quiet hum of the engine and the red glow of streetlights felt wrong—like the world had decided to move on without acknowledging the disaster I had just lived through.
I hugged myself in the passenger seat, staring out the window as buildings blurred past. Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
Finally, Richelle broke the silence.
“He brought a gun into your room, Jasmine.”
Her voice wasn’t accusatory. It was trembling.
“I know,” I whispered.
My throat felt raw, like I had screamed too much even though I hadn’t. She glanced at me. “That’s not love or safety. That’s control.”
I flinched. “Raymond made him angry on purpose.”
“That doesn’t excuse it.”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t know who’s telling the truth anymore.”
Richelle parked outside her apartment and turned off the engine. The quiet pressed in on us.
“He said Damien wanted to make you an escort,” Richelle continued gently. “Is that what you think?”
My chest tightened. “I don’t know what to think. Damien didn’t deny it.”
She sighed. “it didn't seem like Raymond wanted to tell truth, he weaponized it.”
I leaned my head back against the seat. “And Damien didn’t explain himself l.”
Richelle reached over and squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to decide tonight.”
Inside her apartment, she made me tea. I sat curled up on her couch, staring into the mug like it held answers.
“My whole life,” I whispered, “I’ve been running from a man who wanted to own me.”
Richelle sat beside me. “And now?”
“And now I'm married to one who almost killed another man for kissing me, even if it is just a contract” tears slipped down my face. “I don’t know which is worse.”
Richelle pulled me into her arms.
“You don’t have to choose tonight. But you can choose not to let that pattern repeat”
For the first time since everything began, I allowed myself to cry.
DAMIEN
A week had passed, but it felt like months. The house was too quiet. No Jasmine. No Richelle. No voices.
Just the echo of my own breathing. I poured myself a drink and didn’t even taste it.
Raymond’s words replayed in my mind like a curse, over and over again, mocking me and I fell right into his trap.
You groom girls for your clubs.
You wanted to make her one of them.
I slammed the glass onto the counter so hard it cracked. “That’s not true,” I growled to the empty room.
But my past stood in front of me like a witness.
I had brought girls into that world. I had trained them. I had watched them become something they were never meant to be.
And Jasmine…
Jasmine had walked into my life fragile and scared and beautiful. Had I really believed I could touch her world without staining it?
I sank onto the couch and buried my face in my hands. When she begged me to stop choking Raymond… Her voice.
That fear.
I had sworn I would never be that man again.
And yet there I was—gun in hand, rage in my eyes. I stood and walked into my bedroom. Her scent still lingered on the pillow, I refused to lay on it myself.
Vanilla. Wine. Jasmine.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” I whispered.
My phone vibrated.
A message from Dominic.
Dominic: We need more girls
Me: I'm don't do that anymore
Dominic: what happened
Me: I lost control in front of her
Dominic: why
I exhaled sharply and typed back.
Damien: He kissed her.
A pause.
Then
Dominic: And you nearly killed him for it.
Damien: I would’ve.
Dominic: That’s the problem.
I closed my eyes.
Dominic: You’re not just protecting her. You’re afraid of losing her and you know that fear is the only killer of control, let it in and you loose yourself
I didn’t reply.
Because it was true.
I had been trained to dominate, to intimidate, to destroy threats. But Jasmine was not a battlefield.
She was a choice, and I had failed her.
~
The front door opened with a familiar creak.
Damien didn’t look up. He sat on the edge of the couch with a glass of whiskey in his hand, the amber liquid trembling slightly from the tension in his grip.
The house smelled wrong without Jasmine—too empty, too sharp, like a place that had forgotten how to breathe.
Darcy stepped inside and paused.
Her eyes swept the living room first. The overturned chair. The faint smear of blood still visible on the marble floor where Raymond had fallen. The half-empty bottle on the table. The silence.
“Damien…” she said softly.
He didn’t answer.
Darcy removed her coat and set her purse down slowly, as if sudden movement might break him. She walked further into the house, her heels echoing against the floor.
“Where is Jasmine?” she asked.
Still no response. Her heart tightened.
She moved closer, leaning down infront of him.
“Damien.” He lifted his gaze then. His eyes were dull, rimmed with red, not drunk enough to forget but not sober enough to face it.
“She’s gone,” he said at last.
Darcy’s breath left her in a slow exhale. “Gone where?”
He swallowed. “Richelle took her.”
Darcy closed her eyes for a brief moment. “Why?”
Silence.
She reached out and placed her hand over his clenched fist. “Talk to me, my son.”
Damien laughed once—short and bitter. “You wouldn’t like the answer.”
“I already don’t like the silence.”
He stared at the glass in his hand. “I lost control.”
Darcy’s jaw tightened, but she stayed gentle. “How bad is it?”
His voice broke. “She was scared of me.”
Those words landed heavier than any confession could have. Darcy stiffened. “Scared… of you?”
“She saw me with a gun. She saw me choke Raymond. She begged me to stop.” His fingers curled tighter around the glass. “She looked at me like I was the same man I used to be.”
Darcy sank into the armchair across from him.
“So the past caught up to you.”
“I brought it into the house,” he admitted. “Into her world.”
Darcy shook her head slowly. “After everything you fought to escape… after everything I raised you to leave behind… you let that life touch her?”
Damien didn’t defend himself.
“That life,” Darcy continued quietly, “is the reason your father is in the ground. It is the reason you grew up too fast. It is the reason I prayed every night that you would be different.”
His jaw clenched.
“And now,” she said, her voice trembling with restrained anger, “that same darkness is standing between you and your wife.”
“She kissed Raymond,” Damien muttered.
Darcy blinked. “What?”
“She kissed him. He told me. To provoke me.”
Darcy exhaled slowly. “And you believed him?”
“I saw it in her eyes when he said it,” Damien replied. “Guilt. Fear. Confusion.”
Darcy leaned forward. “So instead of asking her, you terrified her?”
His shoulders slumped. “I didn’t mean to.”
“But you did.”