Chapter 51 The Face Behind the Name

Chapter 51 The Face Behind the Name

Nikolai:

“You’re wasting my time,” I said calmly.

There was a man tied to the chair in front of me, already barely conscious. One eye was swollen shut with blood dripping steadily from his nose onto the concrete beneath him. My men stood around the room in silence while Matthew remained near the steel table behind me, with his arms folded, and expression unreadable.

I rolled my sleeves higher slowly. “Talk.”

The man shook violently. “I told you—I don’t know her name.”

I grabbed his jaw hard enough to make him cry out.

“But you’ve seen her face.”

His breathing hitched.

“Yes.”

“Then describe her again.”

“I already did—”

I punched him across the mouth hard enough for the chair to scrape backward.

“You did it poorly.”

Blood spilled from his split lip as he whimpered.

Matthew sighed quietly from behind me. “Maybe let him breathe first.”

I ignored him.

The artist sitting nearby adjusted his sketchpad nervously. The poor bastard looked like he regretted every life choice that led him into this room.

“Start over,” I ordered.

The man swallowed shakily.

“She’s…” His voice trembled. “Tall but not too tall. Elegant. Everyone around her acted terrified. She had full pink lips, with high cheekbones, and this… this soft angelic face, but she is no angel.”

“Hair.”

He blinked through swollen eyes. “Blonde.”

That made me pause slightly. The artist continued sketching.

“Eyes?”

“Dark.” He winced. “Cold.”

My jaw tightened.

The man continued describing her facial features while the artist worked carefully. The longer it went on, the more irritated I became. Because none of it made sense.

Blonde? The Godmother was blonde?

I went over every female heir in the underworld that I knew of, and none matched. 

Finally the artist turned the sketch around slowly. The room went quiet. Matthew stepped closer first. Then his expression changed immediately.

I took the sketch from the artist’s shaking hands. And I stared for one long moment.

His sketch looked like Jasmine, but not completely. The hair was blonde. The expression colder, sharper.

But the eyes—Fuck!

Matthew looked at me carefully. “Nikolai…”

“No.”

“It looks like—”

“I said no.”

My voice cracked through the warehouse hard enough to silence everyone instantly. Because this was ridiculous. Impossible even!

Jasmine would never orchestrate attacks against me. She wouldn’t build an empire against me. She wouldn’t turn herself into some underworld ghost called the Godmother.

She loved me. Didn’t she?

I stared harder at the sketch. Then suddenly crumpled it violently in my fist.

“Clean this up,” I ordered coldly.

The tortured man started sobbing immediately. “Please… I told you everything I know—”

I walked out before he finished. Matthew followed closely behind me into the hallway outside.

“You see it too,” he said quietly.

I lit a cigarette without answering.

“Nikolai.”

“She’s not the Godmother.”

Matthew exhaled slowly. “Then why does the sketch look like her?”

“Because the bastard is concussed.”

“He sounded certain.”

I took a drag from the cigarette hard enough to burn my throat.

“She had every opportunity to kill me already,” I said flatly. “Every opportunity to destroy me.”

Matthew stayed silent. Because he knew I was trying to convince myself more than him.

I looked down at the ruined sketch still clenched in my hand. Blonde hair, dark eyes.

Jasmine’s face. No. No fucking way.

I needed to stop thinking. I needed noise. I needed distraction. So I called Francesca.

She arrived in seconds. Her nails were already dragging down my chest while she kissed my neck slowly, deliberately. She always knew how to touch me like she was trying to remind me of who she was to me.

But tonight, nothing worked. Because every time I closed my eyes, I saw Jasmine. Or Elena. Or whatever the hell she truly was.

“You’re distracted,” Francesca murmured against my skin.

I didn’t answer.

She pulled my pants down gently, then my boxers, revealing my not so hard cock. “Thinking about her?”

Still no answer.

Francesca sighed softly. “It’s not even hard, Nikolai. So of course you’re thinking about her.” Then she grunted, “You know, most women would feel insulted.”

“You’re still here.”

That made her laugh quietly.

“Barely.”

She leaned down to kiss me again when my phone started vibrating against the nightstand.

I ignored it. The phone continued ringing.

Francesca looked annoyed already. “Answer it.”

I grabbed the phone irritably. It was an unknown number. I almost declined it. But something made me pause.

So finally, I answered.

“Yeah?”

There was silence. Then finally,

“Nikolai.”

Everything inside me stopped.

Jasmine.

My grip tightened around the phone instantly.

“Where are you?”

Her voice sounded different. Cold. There was no softness in her voice, no… warmth. 

“Meet me where we first met,” she said quietly. “Seven PM.”

“Jasmine—”

Then the line disconnected. I stared at the phone. Francesca was already watching me carefully now.

“That sounded serious.”

I stood immediately, reaching for my shirt.

“Nikolai.”

“Get your things.”

Her expression hardened instantly. “Excuse me?”

“Go home, Francesca.”

She was angry. “Let me guess… it’s something that has to do with her.”

I buttoned my shirt calmly. “Yes.”

She laughed bitterly under her breath before climbing off the bed.

“You’ll regret this woman.”

Maybe. But it didn’t matter. Because right now all I could think about was her voice. That wasn’t my Jasmine. 

I left the estate and was at the underground pit by seven PM. It was alive, and stabled of sweat, money and violence. The same disgusting atmosphere where everything between us started.

I walked through the crowd slowly, my eyes scanning every corner while my men stayed hidden nearby. And then, I saw her.

She was standing near the edge of the ring. Black dress, dark eyes, beautiful enough to ruin men. Relief hit me harder than expected. I almost forgot everything else for a second.

I moved toward her slowly. She didn’t smile nor soften up. Something about that immediately felt wrong. But still, I kept walking closer.

“Jasmine.”

Her jaw tightened slightly at the name. Now we stood only inches apart. Close enough to touch, close enough to kiss. 

And for a brief moment, I saw it. The blonde hair from the sketch in my mind. The resemblance slammed into me all over again.

My stomach tightened. Then suddenly, I felt pain below. I looked down sharply only to see a knife buried deep in my stomach.

Jasmine held the handle firmly. Her cold, furious eyes never left mine.

“You shouldn’t have messed with my father,” she said quietly.

The shock hit harder than the pain. Around us the noise of the pit suddenly sounded distant.

I stared at her, then at the knife. And finally, at the woman I loved standing in front of me like a stranger.

In that moment, I knew. The sketch was right. The Godmother had always been her.

Jasmine ripped the blade free brutally before stepping backward, and blood soaked through my shirt immediately.

People nearby started screaming. Chaos erupted around us. But she simply looked at me one final time, her expression unreadable.

Then she turned and walked away. Leaving me standing there bleeding into the floor of the place where I first kissed her.