Crossed by the Stars: A Second-chance, Slow-burn Romance

by LJ Evans

  “Yes!” I growled before my bodyguard could. I pulled a foot up to take a look at the injuries, to remove gravel from the wounds. My knee protested, and I hissed.

  Terrence noticed.

  “He’s hurt,” he said to Cillian.

  Cillian’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror.

  “I’m fine. Scrapes. Keep driving.”

  Cillian looked back at me before returning his eyes to the road.

  “You need clothes.”

  I did, but it could wait until we figured out where they were taking Jada.

  Cillian was driving at speeds that Dawson would have enjoyed as a speed junkie. He drove both our boats and his cars with the pace of a born racer. My stomach turned again. Dawson would be furious that I’d lost her, but it was nothing compared to the anger I felt toward myself and my team. I’d let her slip away. I’d let her silent pleas and a gun in my face stop me from fighting harder.

  I slammed my fist into the seat again, this time the one next to me.

  “We’re going to get her back,” Terrence said with a fierceness that should have comforted me but didn’t. Where was that fierceness when she’d needed it?

  We’d been driving up the freeway for at least thirty minutes before Cillian spoke again. “They’re landing in San Francisco.”

  It made no sense—unless he was putting her on a bigger plane to take her farther.

  Cillian dialed a number and spoke into the phone. “I need exfil at San Francisco International. Client Jada Mori. Landing within ten. Private jet tail number J-A dash M-O-3-8. Minimum of two combatants. Guns and knives on board. Additional security unknown.”

  He was silent and then grunted out, “Understood.”

  He hung up, looking back at me grimly. “They’re not sure if they’ll make it, but they’ll do their best. They’re taking a chopper to the airport.”

  I understood. It wasn’t like they were the military. They had red tape and a set amount of resources. But worse…I didn’t trust any of them now. Not Cillian. Not Terrence. Not any of the men in the SUV behind us or the ones left at Vanya’s.

  “Is it Reinard?” I asked, repeating my question from the day before.

  Cillian glanced at me in the mirror, and the look held none of the fierceness he’d had when I’d asked it the first time.

  “No!” Terrence exclaimed but then took in Cillian’s silence with wide eyes. “No way, Cillian. Reinard has too much at stake to be in Mori’s pocket. He cares too much about his company and his clients.”

  “Everybody has a price,” I said, closing my eyes and resting my head on the headrest.

  “Do you?” Terrence tossed back.

  I snorted. “I don’t need to have a fucking price.”

  “Then not everyone does, right? Reinard has as much money as you. He doesn’t need to be in anyone’s pocket.”

  I didn’t know the extent of Reinard’s finances, but I seriously doubted it ranked anywhere near my father’s or Tsuyoshi Mori’s. Maybe it was close to my personal income from Armaud Racing, but if you factored in the larger Armaud wealth, we ranked in the top twenty richest families on Earth. Reinard was definitely not on that list.

  Cillian listened to something in his earwig and then looked back. “We have a helicopter picking us up in King City,” Cillian said.

  It was still too long. She’d already be landed and gone before I was anywhere near her. My body was tight, every inch on alert and aching.

  The tension in the car increased as Cillian and Terrence both listened to whatever was going on in their heads. I stuck out my hand to Terrence. “Let me hear.”

  Terrence looked to Cillian who gave a curt nod. Terrence pulled the earwig out and handed it to me. I stuck it in mine without a second thought, the chatter coming across quiet but full of intensity.

  “Exfil Team One approaching J-A dash M-O-3-8. Plane has taxied from runway 1-L to a private terminal,” the man on the other end said.

  Heavy breathing was all that could be heard.

  “Plane passengers have already disembarked into a black sedan. No plate. Requesting approval to shoot out tires for exfil?”

  “Negative, Team One. No shots. Tag the SUV with a geolocator.”

  “Roger that, Base.”

  Quiet, a loud hiss of compressed air, and then, “Locator landed successfully. Handing off to Exfil Team Two en route to intercept via land. Exfil Team One out.”

  Silence filled the car and the airwaves as the first team signed off, and we waited for the second team to engage.

  “Base, Exfil Team Two. Black sedan bearing geolocator alpha fifteen has been spotted heading north on the 101 toward San Francisco. Intercept or follow?”

  “Follow, Exfil Team Two. Client is to be retrieved unharmed.”

  “Roger that, Base.”

  I pulled the earwig out and handed it back to Terrence. There was nothing I could do at this point. There was nothing anyone could do without causing Ito-san to crash the vehicle that was headed back into the city. At least they were on the ground. At least I had a chance to get her back.

  I sent a silent thanks to the universe that he hadn’t hurt her yet, followed by prayers that she would remain unharmed until we could get to her. My chest heaved at the thought of the alternative.

  “I need to be in the city. Now,” I told them.

  Cillian nodded. “We’re nearing King City.”

  When we got to the hotel where the chopper had landed, we left the SUV behind. Only Cillian, Terrence, and I boarded. The team in the SUV behind us took over the one Cillian had been driving. They’d continue to the city by land while we finished the journey in the air.

  Once we were in the sky, Cillian leaned in and shouted, “He took her to the Mori Enterprises building. Confirmed sighting of her entering the building with Mori and Ito. She’s in a kimono.”

  My eyes widened. “What?”

  Cillian and I both knew the truth. No way Jada would put on a kimono by choice. Growing up, I’d never seen her in one, not even at any of the formal events we’d attended as teens. She’d always worn Western clothing. What the hell was he playing at? What did he expect of her?

  My confusion was echoed in Cillian’s eyes.

  We landed on the roof of my building in the city and headed down the stairs to my apartment. Cillian still had a base set up in the unit above me, and the men from both exfil teams were joining him there.

  “You’re limping,” Cillian said as we made our way down the hall.

  My knee was crying out for mercy.

  “Ito-san cracked it pretty good with her foot.”

  “Let me see it,” he said.

  Inside the apartment, it was impossible to raise the cuff of my jeans, and I yanked them off, knowing full well that I didn’t have anything else on underneath them. Cillian just took it in stride. We both stared at the knee that was purple and swollen.

  “I’ll get ice,” he said, “but you should probably have it examined.”

  I ignored him, walking into the closet, throwing on the first clothes that I could find.

  When I came back out, he held out an ice pack that I didn’t take.

  “Take me to Mori Enterprises,” I said.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “If you don’t take me, I’ll go on my own.”

  “She wouldn’t want you to put yourself in danger,” Cillian said.

  “I can’t stay here. I need to see her, to see them. I need to understand what the hell is going on.”

  “We know she’s alive.”

  “And expected to kill herself. The kimono…” My worst fears were pushing into my brain, filling the space with the ritualized suicide idea that the threat had demanded. “If he forces her to choose between her friends…between me…and herself, she will always choose us. She will do anything to save the ones she loves.”

  My voice cracked on the word love. She hadn’t said it back. The words h
ad stopped at the edge of her lips, but I’d felt it in the pounding of her pulse against my fingertips. I’d felt it in every caress and touch, in the looks she sent my way. If he told her that the only way to keep Dawson, Violet, and me safe was to take her own life…she would do it. She might search for any possible way out first, because―like she kept insisting―she didn’t have a death wish. But in the end, if it was required, she’d use the knife just like they instructed her to. My body was being torn apart. Anguish I’d never felt before screamed through me. More than the pulsing ache in my knee. More than the scrapes on my feet now hidden away by socks and shoes.

  I grabbed the ice pack from his hand but headed for the door. I didn’t have anything with me. No cell phone. No keys. My wallet was at the cottage. But I had my name and my legs and a way to get through the city.

  Cillian followed. He shoved me against the wall, a muscled arm to my chest that I struggled against, but he was the size of three of me.

  “Get the fuck off or find yourself a new job,” I growled.

  “Just so we’re clear. You are my priority. You,” Cillian barked back.

  “I won’t survive if something happens to her,” I grunted back. “So, if you want to protect me, you protect her.”

  “We’ll do everything we can to get her back, but you will always be first on my list to pull from the burning building.”

  “Then you can leave now. I’ll find someone else to replace you because I don’t want to be your fucking priority. I want her to be everyone’s.” I gritted my teeth. I shoved at his arm, and he let me go.

  “Fucking Romeo and Juliet,” Cillian grunted.

  “What?”

  “You’d both kill yourselves for the other, and all that would happen is you’d both end up dead. Don’t make that kind of mistake.”

  “If you see a way out of this with both of us living, you know that’s what I want.”

  “Then give me twenty minutes to meet with the team and come up with a plan. Sit down, ice your fucking knee, and let me do my job.”

  Was twenty minutes going to make a difference? How long did Jada have?

  “I’ll give you ten.”

  He banged open the door, looked at the two men standing outside it, and said, “If he leaves, shoot him.”

  Their eyes widened, and then the door slammed shut behind him.

  I sank down on the couch and put the ice pack on my knee, hissing at the cold and the pain. I was terrified that any delay would mean we’d be too late, but I also knew that having a plan was always better than bursting in with nothing but bravado and words.

  Jada’s eyes full of tears hit me, the vulnerability she’d let me see every day since bringing her home from the hospital. It was something she’d always kept to herself, hidden behind layers and layers of badass, don’t-give-a-shit attitude. The only sign that she’d ever been suffering was the way she’d abused her own body over the years as a means of escaping her life.

  If I’d stood up to my father at seventeen, would everything have been different? Would she have left her family behind then? We’d be completely different people. Who knew if I would have gone into business with Dawson. She might never have been sent to New London to finish high school online, and then she’d never have met Violet.

  I couldn’t undo our past. I couldn’t undo the things that had made us who we were, but I’d be damned if I would sit by and just quietly wait for her to walk into the other world by her own or anyone else’s hand.

  I stood up, ready to leave regardless of what Cillian had told the guards at the door. They wouldn’t shoot their client. The door crashed open, and Cillian was there, looking grim and ready for battle. He had on a bulletproof vest like the S.W.A.T. teams used and guns at each hip. He handed me a second vest. It was thinner, smaller.

  “Put it on under your shirt and jacket.”

  I didn’t hesitate. I stripped down, threw the cold heavy fabric over my chest, and then redressed. Everything was tighter, the clothes normally fitted to my frame by tailors pulling at the extra cushion.

  “Let’s go,” he grunted. “I’ll get you up to speed in the vehicle.”

  Jada

  KNOCK 123

  “That will be our secret call.

  You'll find me under your spell.”

  Written & Performed by Imelda May

  The blue kimono was nothing I would ever wear. Once upon a time, in a life that wasn’t mine, I’d let Obaasan show me how to wear the traditional dress. I’d hoped that my father would see me in it and be proud. I’d worn it for the chakai I’d held for both my parents—the one he hadn’t attended. Now, standing before him with the soft silk flowing about my ankles and the intricately embroidered obi tied about my waist, I felt like that teenage girl again. Except, this time, I knew the truth about him. That he was not a good and benevolent man. He was determined and powerful, but he would show no mercy.

  Except he had. He’d shown it to me and Dawson both.

  He looked up from his massive desk on the second-to-the-top floor of the Mori Enterprises building in San Francisco and took me in as if he’d never seen me before, a critical eye gazing over every aspect of me from my hair down to the loose sandals on my feet.

  I twisted the bracelet on my wrist because I had no phone to flip, my hands seeking a release from the tension brewing inside me. Unfortunately, it drew his eyes.

  “You can’t wear that,” he said.

  Jewelry was never worn at a formal tea ceremony, but I wondered if my father suspected what it really was because the design wasn’t anything I’d ever buy for myself.

  After debating with myself the entire time we’d been on the plane, I’d decided to keep the bracelet on. It was Dax’s own words that had pushed me into it. He’d said that sometimes being brave meant letting others fight at your side, letting them take the risk with you. The anxiety of that decision still made my stomach swarm like bees were stinging it. This risk was larger than any I’d ever taken before, because I was endangering him…endangering Cillian and the other bodyguards. But I also knew the truth. Dax would come after me no matter what I did at this point. I’d have to trust that Cillian would do what he’d promised and keep Dax safe first.

  A selfish part of me still hoped and craved for the beautiful mirage Dax had painted me. The one where we escaped into endless oceans and palm trees blowing gently in an air heavy with the scents of the islands. A place where we could conduct our businesses far away from the taint of my father and the noise and grime of the city. I ached to have the bubble we’d created become permanent. The dream where I woke every day at Dax’s side suddenly seemed worth fighting for. Maybe because he wanted it almost more than I did. Maybe because I wanted to see him as happy as he’d seemed the last five days.

  “I’ll take it off before I go,” I said, but I was trying to figure out a way to latch it to my bra or hook it inside the kimono.

  Kaida appeared at the door without knocking, a statement of how far she’d risen in my father’s organization. How much he trusted her.

  “Wakagashira-san is here,” she said. The Wakagashira was my father’s lieutenant—the position that Ken’Ichi Matsuda had once filled. I had no idea who’d replaced him, because I hadn’t wanted to know and hadn’t been around to see it.

  My father gave a curt nod, but before Kaida could open the door, my cousin walked in. Even after my father had mentioned him several times in the last week, I was still surprised to see Isamu Yano. He was two years younger than me, and the last I’d heard, he was at Harvard. I hadn’t seen him since he was a teenager, and he’d grown taller and fuller since then. His black hair was slicked back, and his brown eyes glimmered behind a set of dark-rimmed glasses. His suit was as expensive as my father’s and fit his frame in a way that screamed it had been designed just for him.

  The two of us had never been close since the Yanos had wanted nothing to do with the Moris any more than the Armauds had. He glanced my way
as he entered, not nearly as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He took in the kimono with narrowed eyes and then inclined his head at me. “Mori-san.”

  I returned the greeting, “Yano-san. How was Harvard?”

  “Uneventful. Working for Oyabun is definitely more interesting,” he replied, and I snorted. That was one way of explaining it. Isamu’s lips turned upward but then went away as he turned to my father with the same inclined head greeting he’d given me. “Yamasaki-san flew in last night with his wife. She will be at the chakai today.”

  Osamu Yamasaki was my father’s chief advisor. He’d been guiding my father since I was a little girl and was someone my father trusted implicitly. If Otōsan was gathering the highest-ranked Kyōdaina members in San Francisco, it meant something big was happening. It seemed ridiculous to think a simple tea ceremony was going to help any of it.

  But the fact that Osamu’s wife, Hina, was going to be there was even more of a reason for me not to be the honored guest. Hina was considered my better, not only because of her age but because she was like the Princess of Wales of the Kyōdaina. She was the next in line behind my mother, whereas I was the disgraced daughter who’d betrayed the entire Kyōdaina family. Placing me in the first position at the chakai would be an insult to her and everyone there.

  My father had said I was the bait. The irritant. The catalyst for today’s events. This would definitely unhinge those who believed in the honor of the tea ceremony and the organization.

  “I want to know what’s going on,” I said. My best chance of getting out of this alive was to not go in blind. “Which one of them is coming after me?”

  Isamu looked from my father to me. Silence was the only answer I got.

  “Kaida will be with you,” Otōsan finally replied.

  I rolled my eyes. “No offense, but Kaida is as likely to have me sent to my death as anyone else there.”

  Kaida made a strangled noise from the doorway, but when I looked over, her face was a blank mask that she’d perfected by watching my father who was an expert at it.