บททั้งหมดของ Her Alpha’s Kryptonite: บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 20

Jasmine’s POV The enforcer grabbed my collar the second I pushed the apartment door open. He slammed me against the wall before I could even step inside. The impact drove the air from my lungs in one sharp rush. My back hit the peeling paint hard enough that pain exploded up my spine. His thick fingers twisted the fabric tight against my throat. I got both hands on his forearm, nails digging in, trying to pry enough space to breathe. My vision spotted at the edges. Zea was already moving from across the room, her face set in that fierce way she got before a fight, but she was too far. The small living room stretched between us like a canyon. “Time’s up, Trivett,” the enforcer growled, breathing hot and sour against my face. “Drax wants his money or he wants you. Guess which one he prefers.” I couldn’t answer. My lungs burned, my fingers slipped on his arm. The amulet pressed cold and hard between us. Then the front door came off its hinges. Not opened, it came off its frame. Th

Jasmine’s POV A letter from Apex Dynamics arrived in a plain white envelope with my name typed neatly across the front. It had no stamp and no postmark. It had been slipped under the apartment door sometime during the night. I noticed it when I stepped into the apartment after my morning shift at the clinic, my fingers were already stained with cleaning solution. I carried it to the kitchen table and tore it open under the single hanging bulb. The paper felt thick and expensive. The letterhead rose slightly under my thumb when I ran it across the top. I hadn’t submitted an application or attended an interview for another role. I just got an offer for a low-level administrative position starting the following week. My eyes moved down the page and stopped dead on the third paragraph. Full medical benefits. I held the letter under the kitchen light for twenty minutes. I tilted it at every angle, watching how the ink caught the bulb. I pressed my thumb across the raised letterhead a

Jasmine’s POV The next day, Tristan Winthrop introduced himself to me in the hallway with the flat professional courtesy smile of a man who had done this numerous times. I had just stepped out of the orientation room with the rest of the new hires when he appeared at the end of the corridor. The group parted without being told. He moved through them like the building itself made space, his eyes swept once across the small crowd before settling on me. “Jasmine Trivett,” he said. His voice carried the kind of quiet authority that didn’t need volume. “Tristan Winthrop. CEO.” He extended his hand. I took it. His fingers closed around mine exactly long enough to be sure this wasn’t some kind of dream. His face gave me the CEO, but when his grip settled, his entire body went rigid for one controlled half-second. His eyes dropped to our joined hands, then they snapped back to my face. I caught the look on his face before it disappeared. I released his hand quickly and stepped back,

Jesse’s POV I ran the background check on Jasmine Trivett quietly during a slow stretch in the mid-afternoon, when most of the staff were buried in meetings or staring at screens. I didn’t log it under any official request. Tristan hadn’t authorized it, and that told me everything I needed to know. He wasn’t thinking clearly about this woman. And my job, my entire purpose in this pack, was to think clearly about everything. The reports appeared line by line on my screen. Her record was clean on the surface, almost suspiciously so. No criminal record. Just the expected trail of someone barely surviving in Cresthaven’s underbelly. With long shifts scrubbing blood off floors at that grim underground clinic, nights slinging greasy food and dodging hands at the rogue diner on the east side. A pile of old student loans that had gone into collections and stayed there, the interest compounding like a slow death sentence. She had the kind of history that screamed desperate lady trying to st

Jasmine’s POV The next day, we coincidentally met in the elevator again, and my amulet went really hot against my sternum almost immediately. Not the usual warm buzz it gave off near strong supernatural presences. This was white-hot. The iron burned straight through the thin fabric of my blouse and into my skin like I was being branded with an iron straight from the fire. I had to bite the inside of my cheek hard to keep the pain from showing on my face while Tristan stood two feet away. The smell of his cologne filled the small space between us. He noticed, as his gaze dropped to the thin silver chain visible at my collar and his hand reached for it. I grabbed his wrist with both hands. My nails dug into his skin hard enough to leave deep red marks. The contact sent a sharp electric charge through my palm, like touching a live wire. I wrenched his arm away from my throat. The elevator resumed moving with a low mechanical hum. I shoved past him the moment the doors slid open. I ste