novelxo Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE–SHAMEFUL SISTER
“Easier?” Jasmine scoffed bitterly, wrenching her arm from Elena’s grasp as she took an unsteady step backward. “You mean easier to take advantage of me again? To worm your way into my life through lies and deception?”
“Jasmine, please,” Elena pleaded, her voice rising in pitch with despair. “It’s not like that, you know it’s not! I never wanted to hurt you – you’re the only person in this world who truly matters to me!”
Tears streamed down her cheeks in rivulets as Elena reached for her sister once more. “Can’t you see? I’m doing this FOR us! One last score, then we can put all my shadiness in the past for good.”
But Jasmine remained utterly unmoved, her heart shattering into pieces at the realization that Elena was simply incapable of changing. That her default mode would always be to lie, manipulate, and pursue wealth through illegal means no matter who was caught in the crossfire.
Including her own flesh and blood sister.
“Save it,” Jasmine bit out in a low, anguished tone. “I don’t want to hear any more of your twisted justifications. Not again.”
Elena’s face crumpled as if she’d been slapped, shock and hurt rendering her momentarily speechless.
“Jas…Jasmine, please,” she begged in a trembling whisper. “Y–You’re all I have in this world. Please don’t shut me out, don’t turn your back on me like this. I’ll walk away from the job right now, I swear,”
But Jasmine was already shaking her head numbly, the profound well of her trust and affection for Elenal decimated beyond repair. She could no longer look at her sister without feeling that same sickening lurch of betrayal and violation all over again.
“No…” she breathed out in a voice devoid of inflection, “I can’t do this again, Elena. I can’t go through having my heart shattered and my trust destroyed by the person I love most in this world.”
She exhaled a shuddering breath, tears streaking down her cheeks as she finally raised hollow eyes to Elena’s devastated face.
“We’re done,” Jasmine stated in a monotone. “I want you out of my apartment first thing in the morning. Go back to your life of scams and crimes if that’s what you’re destined for. But you’re not taking me down with you this time.”
Elena visibly recoiled as if struck, anguish and panic etching her features in stark relief.
“No…Jasmine, listen to me!” She cried, grabbing her sister’s arm in a vice–grip. “You can’t do this, you can’t shut me out like this! Where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do without you?”
There was a wild, desperate gleam in Elena’s reddened eyes that caused a flicker of trepidation to spill through Jasmine’s anger. Almost a sense of…danger radiating from her sister in waves.
Swallowing hard, Jasmine met Elena’s feverish stare with a resolute one of her own as she wrenched free of her grasp.
“That’s not my problem anymore,” she stated in a toneless murmur. “Have a nice life, Elena. Maybe we’ll find each other again in another lifetime…if you manage to become a decent human being by then.”
With that, Jasmine turned and strode away without a backward glance. She exited the art gallery, shoulders squared and tears streaming unchecked down her face as the night air enveloped her. Behind her, Elena remained rooted in place, utterly lost as the world seemed to crumble into dust around her. Her chest heaved with gulping sobs that she struggled to muffle behind trembling hands.
In that moment of all–consuming anguish and panic, a low voice suddenly slithered through her turbulent thoughts like a snake whispering temptation.
Straightening, Elena hastily swiped at her tears as her expression contorted with cold resolution. If that was how Jasmine wanted to play this, then so be it.
She pulled out her phone and rapidly typed out a message, the dangerous glint never leaving her eyes: “You want to play hardball, sis? Fine, I’ve got all the ammo I need. Head to the Caldwell now and leave the front door unlocked, or dear old mom and dad’s dirty secrets go public too.”
Without another thought, Elena hit send and stalked off, mouth set in a grim line.
There e was nothing and no one she wouldn’t burn to the ground if it meant keeping her family in her life. Even if that family was the one person she loved most in this world.
Jasmine’s phone buzzed insistently in her jacket pocket as she hurried through the parking garage toward her car. Swiping at the tears streaking her cheeks, she pulled it out and glanced at the preview on the lock
screen.
Her heart stuttered in her chest as she read Elena’s message, the words searing into her consciousness like white–hot brands.
“You want to play hardball, sis? Fine, I’ve got all the ammo I need. Head to the Caldwell now and leave the front door unlocked, or dear old mom and dad’s dirty secrets go public too.”
Jasmine halted in her tracks, very nearly doubling over from the wave of horror and nausea that crashed. over her. Elena’s vicious threat reverberated through her mind on a sickening loop.
What
possible secrets of their parents could Elena have been referring to? More lies, more deception that Jasmine was blissfully unaware of?
Her mother’s revelation of giving up Elena at birth had been traumatic enough…what further turmoil might her unhinged sister be prepared to inflict?
As the shock gradually subsided, it was replaced by a slow–burning fury that ignited deep in Jasmine’s core and quickly consumed her fragile heartbreak. That impotent, powerless emotion was swiftly incinerated, molten anger screaming through her veins with vicious intensity.
With strides laced with grim determination, Jasmine headed for her car, thumbing out a responding text
to Elena:
“Just tell me where and when. I’ll take care of it.”
Her jaw was carved from steel as she pulled away from the gallery, tires peeling out with a shriek of tortured rubber. Gripping the wheel in a white–knuckled grip, Jasmine felt the final threads of her tattered trust in Elena disintegrate to ash
She couldn’t involve their parents in this fresh hell, that much was clear. Nor could she tip off the authorities without risking an even harsher blowback–not if Elena truly did possess some sort of damaging information that could splinter their family apart forever.
No, the only path forward that Jasmine could see was to take matters into her own hands. To somehow outmaneuver Elena at her own twisted game and put a stop to her toxicity once and for all.