Chapter 92 Skin
Her thoughts raced ahead to her uncle’s reaction. His stern face. His protective anger. The disappointment she feared more than anything.
Uncle Thomas and Damien were not enemies, but they were not friends either.
They existed in the same circles of wealth and influence, respectful but distant—two powerful men with very different ideas of how the world should work.
“No,” Jasmine said at last, shaking her head. “It’s alright. I can manage my uncle just fine.”
Damien searched her face. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she replied, though her voice trembled just slightly. “This is something I need to do alone.”
He nodded slowly. “okay, love”
Damien stepped out of the car and walked around to her side. He opened the door and held out his hand to her like a gentleman from another era.
Jasmine slipped her hand into his, letting him help her out. Her dress fluttered in the breeze as she stood, and for a moment, the world seemed to pause around them.
He walked her to the entrance of the restaurant, stopping just beneath the awning. The smell of spices and fresh bread floated out to greet them.
Damien turned to face her fully.
“Text me when you’re done,” he said. “I’ll send Marco to come pick you up.”
“I will,” she promised.
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek—gentle, lingering, full of things he didn’t say aloud. “Be brave, tesoro.”
Jasmine swallowed. “I’ll try.”
She turned and stepped inside the restaurant, the door closing softly behind her.
Damien stood there for a long moment, watching her walk away. Her hips swayed slightly with each step, and the pale yellow of her dress disappeared into the warm glow of the interior lights.
He inhaled deeply, a grin slowly spreading across his face—one that held pride, longing, and just a hint of trouble.
Then he turned back to his car, slid into the driver’s seat, and drove off.
~
Damien sat alone in his car in the parking lot of his office building, the engine long since turned off, the world outside reduced to muffled noise and distant motion.
The towering glass structure loomed above him, its upper floors glowing faintly with the last of the workday lights. Employees drifted in and out through the revolving doors—laughing into phones, checking watches, living lives untouched by the weight pressing down on his chest.
Jasmine was not here.
She was across the city now, sitting in Uncle Thomas’s restaurant, facing a past she feared more than anything she had ever known.
He should have gone inside and buried himself in contracts and meetings and anything that would stop his thoughts from spiraling.
But he hadn’t.
Damien barely noticed the building at all. His gaze was fixed on his phone, on one single name.
Percival.
His skin broker.
The name itself felt sharp, dangerous. His thumb hovered above the screen, unmoving, as though the glass might burn him if he touched it.
One month.
That was all Dominic had given him.
Just one month to settle the first favor.
A week had already slipped through his fingers like sand. Seven days gone, and Damien still had not found the courage to make this call. Each morning he told himself he would do it later. Each night he promised tomorrow.
But now, sitting in the quiet of his car, with Jasmine miles away and danger inching closer with every passing hour, he knew there was no more room for delay.
The longer he waited, the closer the threat crept toward her. This was only the first favor.
What would the second one possibly be?
The thought alone made his jaw tighten.
Damien leaned back against the seat and inhaled deeply, forcing air into lungs that felt too tight, too full of fear and fury. His chest rose and fell slowly, deliberately, as though breathing itself had become a task requiring discipline.
“This ends soon,” he muttered under his breath. “After this… it ends.”
He pressed the call button.
The line rang once.
Only once.
It always rang once before Percival picked up.
It was the same this time. Damien put the phone on speaker and set it on the center console. For a moment, there was only silence—then a soft, precise sound filtered through the speakers.
A blade slicing into flesh.
Not human flesh. Fruit.
He could hear the slow, deliberate scrape of metal against skin, the wet sound of separation. Damien closed his eyes briefly, already picturing the scene on the other end of the line: Percival seated at his dark wooden table, knife in hand, movements controlled and elegant, as though violence itself were an art form.
“Mr. Blackwood,” Percival’s voice finally came through.
It was cool. Calm. Devoid of emotion.
Not a trace of surprise. Not a hint of warmth.
Just acknowledgment.
“Percival,” Damien replied, his tone equally controlled.
There was a pause, filled only by the faint sound of cutting. “It has been five months and one week since you last called me for business,” Percival said mildly.
On the other end of the line, Percival angled the sharp knife in his hand with care, gently peeling the red skin from an apple in one long, continuous strip. The thin ribbon of peel fell onto the plate in front of him, landing beside several others already arranged with unnatural neatness.
His phone lay beside the plate on the dark wood table, the speaker glowing faintly.
He continued peeling, unhurried.
“I want to place an order,” Damien said.
His voice was flat. Businesslike. Empty of feeling.
“Quantity?” Percival asked immediately.
The question came out as if he were asking about bread rolls or bottles of wine. Trained. Specific. The voice of a man who knew his trade intimately.
“Three.”
Percival’s knife did not stop, but his eyes lifted briefly toward the heavy wooden doors of his office.“Build?”
“Nothing specific.”
Percival hummed softly. A small, sealed-lip smile curved across his face as he finished peeling the apple completely. He set the knife down with deliberate care and picked up the apple.