Chapter 24 AFTER THE BLACKOUT
NIKOLAI:
I was on my third glass of whiskey already, and it wasn’t going to be my last.
I sat in my study, wincing as the whiskey burned down my throat. I replayed the memory from last night again.
“Stay behind me.” I had told her. But the crowd surged before I could reposition her. Bodies began pressing against the other, a tidal wave of perfume, sweat, and raw panic. Every person scrambling for their dear lives.
I tightened my grip for a second, and then she was gone. Someone slammed into her and her hands slipped away from mine.
“Jasmine!” I yelled.
I don’t raise my voice in public, I don’t repeat myself, and I don’t chase. But in that ballroom, beneath the chandeliers and flashing exit lights, I shouted her name like a man who had already lost something.
“Jasmine!”
I pushed through the crowd, shoving men twice my size aside. Someone stumbled, a woman even fell, but I didn’t look back.
Right then, I caught sight of a dark haired near the side corridor.
“Jasmine!” I called out, but it wasn’t her.
The smoke began thickening around me, as security ushered guests out. My men found me within seconds.
“Don—”
“Jasmine,” I managed, after inhaling too much smoke. “Find her.”
They didn’t hesitate.
The building was locked down within minutes. All exits were secured, cameras pulled, guests contained. I had half the city’s private security forces tripping over each other trying to cooperate.
But all that didn’t matter. She was nowhere. Gone, like she had dissolved into the chaos.
Back in my study, I poured another drink. I didn’t remember uncorking the bottle. My hand was steady. That was the unsettling part. I should have been breaking things. Instead, I was calculating.
Fire alarms don’t trigger without cause. Smoke doesn’t drift conveniently at the moment I remove a woman’s hand from my wrist. Crowds don’t surge sideways unless someone pushes from behind.
And Jasmine, Jasmine had called my name, like she was frightened, I remember…
“Nikolai!”
Just then, a knock sounded once before the door opened, pulling me out of memory lane.
It was Matthew, he didn’t wait for permission. He stepped inside, shutting the door quietly behind him.
His expression told me everything before he spoke.
“Any word?” I asked.
He exhaled slowly.
“No.”
Silence stretched between us for a while. Then, Matthew walked further into the room, stopping across from my desk. He spoke carefully.
“There’s something else,”
I lifted my gaze.
“Say it.”
He hesitated, but he still spoke.
“We can’t rule out that she used the chaos to leave.”
The glass in my hand cracked, a thin fracture splitting through the crystal beneath my grip.
“You think she staged a fire alarm,” I said evenly, “in a ballroom full of political donors and celebrities.”
“No.” He paused. “She might not have staged it all, but I’m saying she used the chaos to her advantage. She’s tried to escape multiple times before.” He continued.
“She called my name.”
Matthew held my gaze. “That could have been part of it.”
I stood, slowly. “She called my name,” I repeated. “She sounded afraid,” I continued quietly.
Matthew didn’t respond immediately. He had known me long enough to recognize when my mind was no longer open to persuasion.
“Alright,” he conceded. “Then someone took her.”
“Yes.”
That realisation alone felt heavy in my chest.
Matthew moved to the desk and placed a tablet down.
“We have a few leads.”
I walked around the desk, ignoring the fractured glass.
“Talk.”
“First off, power fluctuation in the west wing of the Beaux-Arts building. It wasn’t accidental. Someone accessed the internal fire system remotely.”
“How?”
“Override code.”
My jaw tightened.
“Second,” he continued, “there’s a blind spot in the side corridor. Temporary. The feed glitched for forty-three seconds.”
“Forty-three,” I repeated.
“Long enough.”
“And the third?”
Matthew’s expression hardened slightly.
“A vehicle exited the underground service ramp three minutes after the alarm. It wasn’t scheduled.”
“Plate?”
“Cloned.”
Of course it was. Very efficient and professional of the bastard.
My mind moved through names. Rival families, disgruntled contractors, foreign interests.
And then, Francesca. Her timing, her proximity.
Would she go that far?
Matthew seemed to read the shift in my expression.
“You’re thinking about her.”
“She was there.”
“So were three hundred other people.”
“She knows the building layout,” I said. “It’s her event.”
Matthew crossed his arms. “You think she’d risk this?”
“She said I was punishing her.”
“And?”
“You know how she is. She doesn’t like losing.”
Matthew didn’t disagree. But he didn’t agree either.
“There’s another angle,” he added.
I waited.
“Your shipments in Jersey last month. The ones that were intercepted.”
“That was handled.”
“Maybe not fully.”
I felt it then. Rage
“Bring me the footage from every angle,” I ordered. “I want guest lists, vendor contracts, staff rosters. I want to know who installed the alarm system, who maintained it, who touched it in the last thirty days.”
“It’s already in motion.”
“And the vehicle?”
“We’re tracking similar patterns across tolls.”
I stepped closer to him.
“Lock down the city.”
Matthew blinked. “Nikolai—”
“Lock it down. Airports, bridges, docks, private hangars, lock them all down.” I demanded. “If she’s moved,” I continued, voice lowering, “she hasn’t gone far.”
“And if she has?”
I looked at him. Something in my expression made him straighten instinctively.
“Then whoever took her,” I said quietly, “will understand what it means to take something that belongs to me.”
Matthew shifted slightly. I rarely lost control. But when I did, it wasn’t loud. It was calculative.
“Mobilise people,” I continued. “There should be no public noise, or unnecessary blood. Yet.”
“Yet,” Matthew repeated carefully.
“If this was a message,” I said, “I will respond appropriately.”
“And if it was her?” he pressed once more.
I turned away from him, walking toward the window. The city below glittered like nothing had changed.
“She didn’t run,” I said.
“You sound certain.”
“I am.”
Because when the crowd swallowed her, when her hand slipped from mine, she didn’t disappear quietly.
She called for me. And Jasmine does not call for my help.
Matthew nodded slowly.
“I’ll double the teams,” he said. “You should rest.”
I laughed once under my breath.“Rest.”
“Yes. Rest.”
He lingered a moment longer before leaving the study, softly closing the door behind him.
My silence returned, and I poured another drink. My mind replayed her hand slipping from mine over again.
Someone did this. Someone wanted to separate us. And somewhere in this city, she was waking up without knowing where she was. That thought didn’t sit well with me.
I placed the glass down carefully. Then I reached for my phone.
I placed one call, to a name I had not spoken in years.
If this was war, it would not be quiet. And whoever thought they could take Jasmine from me would learn very quickly who Don Nikolai Moretti truly was when you take what is his.