God, the look in his eyes as he’d stared her down. It was the complete opposite of the way his gaze had burned for her in Japan…
“You are very attractive to me, but I do not think you realize this…” No had said to her once while they were eating dinner together during their last night in Singapore. Then he’d stroked her with his eyes, touching her with them in a way he never did in public.
He’d been right. Lilli hadn’t been aware of her own attractiveness. Not until he told her. Not until he made her believe.
Don’t think about No, she told herself before redoubling her efforts to do the job she was being paid to do.
By the time she ran down to the curb in front of the hospital to meet Ruby’s bus, Lilli was beyond exhausted. They had another fitting appointment today, plus Dr. Tatum, Ruby’s psychologist, had agreed to see Ruby afterwards, just in case… feelings arose. Then Lilli had to drive her niece home and come back to the hospital for another shift. She’d been signing up for as many doubles as she could get, just so they could afford their apartment in Fremont, the only district with a dual-immersion Japanese middle school program.
But at least Lilli’s job was a straight cross-town shot from Ruby’s school. One bus and Ruby was delivered to the front of the Children’s Hospital.
Except today, she wasn’t.
Lilli waited until every single person had gotten off. And no Ruby.
Cursing under her breath, Lilli texted, “How far away are you?” to Ruby’s phone.
“No fitting today. Meeting with friend.” Ruby’s immediate answer came back.
Meeting with friend? What friend? The last time Lilli checked, her niece didn’t have any friends. She was too sullen, too angry, and too handicapped to attract any company during lunch at her new school—just one of the many things Ruby had complained about since Lilli “dragged” her here.
“Ruby, I’m using my entire shift break to take you these appointments. You need to get on a bus and get down here.”
“No I don’t. You’re not my mother.”
Lilli worked hard to ignore the barrage of angry curse words flooding her head. She took a few deep breaths before typing, “True. But I am the person in control of your screen access, so if you ever want to watch anything again, you need to get down here immediately...”
No answer. And of course, her niece never arrived.
Feeling utterly defeated, Lilli somehow managed to survive her second shift and eventually trudged home to their apartment building in Fremont. The Lake View Apartments might not have any views of either Green or East Lakes, but the building advertised itself as a “terraced balcony complex”—which was why their ground floor unit had been the least expensive option she could find in the area. Not cheap, mind you, but just about affordable on her nurse’s salary.
Ruby, Lilli wasn’t surprised to find, hadn’t opted to wait up for her. Or even so much as leave a light on in their unit.
Don’t lose your shit, Lilli. Don’t lose your shit. She’s only thirteen and she’s going through a lot. She needs understanding, not screaming, Lilli told herself as she trudged toward Ruby’s room.
It was late, but Lilli had to at least check that her niece was actually asleep and not hunkered down in her bed doing whatever it is pissed off teen girls did at night on their smart phones.
With a sigh, Lilli quietly opened the door to Ruby’s darkened room, really hoping her niece was sound asleep. Because if she wasn’t, Lilli knew she’d be obligated to talk to Ruby about what had happened. Which would most certainly lead to one of Ruby’s patented meltdowns. And that was the last thing Lilli wanted to deal with after pulling a double shift on what had quite possibly been the shittiest day she’d had in a long while.
Lilli paused at the door of the dark room, realizing she was dangerously close to losing perspective. Something she couldn’t afford to do, no matter what. Because Ruby was her niece. And she’d been through a lot. And at the end of the day, Lilli and Ruby were the only people either of them had left.
She just wished Ruby could see even a little past all her pain and misery to realize she was pushing away someone who loved her and only wanted the best for her—
Just then, Lilli’s worries took a back seat. Something wasn’t right. From where she stood on the threshold of Ruby’s room, Lilli noticed the ominous silence that occurs when a room is supposed to be occupied but is, in fact, empty. Lilli knew without having to see inside the room that Ruby was gone.
What the…?
Lilli flicked on the light. Only to find Ruby’s bed empty, still made up from this morning and completely undisturbed.
“Okay, okay…” Lilli thought, heart racing. Ruby wasn’t here. Maybe she was still at her anonymous friend’s house—
Again, her thoughts cut off, because she just couldn’t believe Ruby had managed to make a friend—especially one who’d actually invite her over. Ruby wasn’t exactly a typical kid, even amongst her school’s small half-black, half-Asian population. Her thick Japanese accent set her apart, and she didn’t really fit in with the majority of native Japanese students because they typically came from two-parent households.
“I’m fleek,” she’d complained to Lilli just last week.
And it had taken five confusing minutes of back and forth between them before Lilli understood Ruby thought she was a freak at school.
So no, it wasn’t going well there. Or at home.
But had Ruby been so miserable she’d decided to run away?
No, Lilli assured herself. First of all, where would she have run to? She had no friends, and she depended on Lilli to help her with her prosthesis, and feed her, and get her to school. But just in case she might be wrong…
Lilli went over to the small set of IKEA drawers she’d bought for her niece, only to have her heart stop when she realized the top drawer was empty. And the next one. And the one after that.
Oh God. All four drawers were completely empty of Ruby’s things.
She had run away.
Sprinting back into the living room where she’d tossed her purse, Lilli snatched her phone out, all the while cursing herself for not coming home earlier. She had to call the police. She had to—
Lilli stopped short when she saw the item she’d failed to notice when she first arrived at the apartment. An 85-inch Naka LED 4K television now stood in their living room.
And on it was a post-it note with an address scrawled across it in handwriting she recognized as Ruby’s.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Where the hell is my niece? Tell me! Tell me right now.”
No forced himself to remain where he was. Pretended to peruse the red lace leaf maple in the tea garden of his ultra-modern Lake Washington house, in order to disguise what he was really doing. Bracing himself to look at her again.
It turned out that reminding himself of her betrayal did nothing to prevent his seemingly automatic response to her. He carefully buttoned his jacket over the growing bulge inside his trousers before turning to face the duplicitous little nurse.
She looked even smaller tonight beside Dallas Montana, the big man No had hired to oversee the house.
Mr. Montana, an American with a thick New Jersey accent, had a big cross tattoo—with an Italian and Korean flag wrapped around it—spanning his throat and clavicle. The rest of his neck was tattooed with black barbed wire and birds. No had hired him to drive, oversee the house’s state-of-the-art security system, and perform other tasks that weren’t typically listed in most “security guard” job descriptions—like breaking into someone’s apartment to deliver a large TV in lieu of a written message. At the moment, Mr. Montana was tightly clutching the nurse’s arm with a thick, meaty hand.
And No could see the nurse was furious. Her chest heaved up and down with indignation as she attempted to wrench her arm free from Mr. Montana’s meaty grip.
“Let me go!”
No found himself tilting his head a bit to the side, the old instinct to wa
tch her taking over as if it had never left. He realized then that he’d never before seen her angry. And he had to admit she was beautiful when angry. Her anime eyes, usually so wide and gentle with fake concern, were now blazing with wrath.
“Where is Ruby? What the hell did you do with my niece?”
“Caught her trying to jump over the electric gate,” Mr. Montana informed No, his face grim. “Had to turn the fence off to go out there to drag her down. Crazy chick coulda gotten herself ‘cuted. Don’t know why she didn’t just ask real nice to be let in over the ‘com system.”
“Because I was attempting to rescue my niece!” Lilli shouted back at him. “I wasn’t interested in broadcasting my arrival to the people who abducted her.”
“Well, I think any hope you had of a stealth entrance is long gone, sweets,” Mr. Montana answered, letting her go with a gentle push toward No. “I’m heading back to my perimeter sweep, unless you need me for anything else, boss.”
No bowed, thoroughly pleased with his decision to hire Dallas Montana, despite the fact that the large man took such great pride in his “Korean-Italian” neck tattoo, even going so far as to wear deep v-neck t-shirts under his suits so as to better show it off. But Mr. Montana had done good work for him here in Seattle, and No found himself not minding his rather unorthodox appearance so much.
It may also have been that his most recent home, the super tattoo-friendly city of Portland, had rubbed off on him. He’d moved there a year ago to team up with Go and launch their GoNoRobo start-up. And just last week, Go’s overly pierced wife, Nyla, had teased him about his decision to finally start wearing a hoodie underneath his suit. “Congrats, No, you’re officially an American techie.”
But right now, at this particular moment…No wasn’t at all interested in appearing more American. As he carefully studied Lilliana, he knew this moment was all about Japan.
“Hai,” he said to the security guard, though his eyes stayed fixed on Lilliana. “You may return to your post, Montana-san.”
He’d always watched her, but now Lilli watched him right back, her anger making her breathe hard, long after she’d recovered from the exertion of attempting to scale an electric fence (whoops!). She simply could not believe he’d do this. Kidnap her niece, and leave nothing but a note and one of his creepy spy TVs behind.
And to find him here, in this large glass-and-stone house overlooking Lake Washington. Standing beneath a large Japanese maple as if he’d never left Osaka. Looking down his nose at her with complete detachment; as coldly calm as she was wildly angry.
No still had not said word one to her, but Lilli had quite a few to say to him. Including, “What the hell, No? You kidnapped my niece!? Who the hell does that? Where is she? Where the fuck is Ruby!?!?”
No watched her ask her questions, his eyes as cold as a boy reflecting sunlight onto an anthill through a magnifying glass. But the only answer he gave her turned out to be to a question she hadn’t asked.
“You are no longer permitted to call me by that name. From now on, you may address me as Mr. Nakamura, like the rest of my American staff.”
Lilli blinked at him, her head so hot with rage, it felt like the top of it might blow right off in a volcano worthy explosion.
“You are out of your freaking mind if you think I’ll ever call you Mr. anything again! Where the hell is Ruby?” Lilli repeated. “Where the fuck is my niece!?”
No crooked his head at her, gaze cold, but somehow burning. “For some reason I expected you to pretend to be as you were when you deceived me in Japan. But even more so. Softer, and more caring. Yet you are very different now. Much more emotional.”
“That’s because I’m completely freaking out!” Lilli all but shrieked at him. “I don’t know why you decided to bring my innocent, thirteen-year-old niece into this, but—”
“You care about this girl,” he observed, cutting her off. “She is a weakness, and for some reason you have unwisely decided to make that fact clear to me.”
Lilli had no idea how to answer his observation, so she just asked again. “Where is she? Please. I’ll do whatever you want. Just leave her out of this.”
He stepped forward. As close as one could get without actually touching. “You will do whatever I want. Regardless.”
His words sounded more like a promise than a threat, and Lilli reared back, fear overpowering anger as she remembered the newspaper article about the suicide. And what she had suspected all along about Miyuki’s death. But then she got ahold of herself. Because this situation wasn’t about an assistant who’d crossed the wrong boss. It was about her niece, the only blood she had left.
“No, no…I won’t,” she whispered. “Especially not if you hurt her. She’s only a child.”
He held up a hand as if Lilli’s words were boring him. “Come,” he said.
Then without waiting for her answer, he moved toward the house. Probably assuming she’d follow. Which she did, because what other choice did she have?
He was fully clothed now. But as Lilli followed him into the house, up an open, modern staircase with red oak stairs, then to the left, down a long landing lined with books, she couldn’t help but remember what she’d seen on his back just over a year ago at the samurai mansion. In fact, it felt like the angry dragon tattoo with the bulging eyes was staring at her from beneath his tailored jacket.
No stopped at the first door on the landing and quietly opened it, just wide enough for Lilli to see inside…and there, in a room dimly lit by a single nightlight, was her niece.
In stark contrast to Lilli’s wildly beating heart, Ruby slept peacefully in a wide sleigh bed. The huge room with its rich red oak hardwood floors and Persian carpet, along with two modern, overstuffed accent chairs, hardly seemed appropriate for a teenage girl who’d only previously known a townhouse and a small apartment. But Ruby seemed right at home in all this opulence. In the dim light, Lilli could see her open suitcase on the chair closest to the bed, along with the shadow of Ruby’s temporary prosthetic draped over a mess of clothes. Lilli spotted a wet towel on the floor—so her niece must have gone through her usual night time routine: cleaning her body at night so her leg would be completely dry when she put on her prosthetic the next day.
Relief flooded Lilli’s heart, even as confusion took over. Because…why wasn’t Ruby in a corner, shaking and afraid? She thought about the petulant text message, and the note on the TV, scrawled in messy but not shaky handwriting.
“Did she…?” Lilli found herself asking No. “Did she come with you of her own accord? Like, she didn’t even put up a fight?”
Closing the door, No apparently decided it would be easier to tell her the full story. As it turned out, Ruby had, contrary to his and his hulky security guy’s intel, come home early, so she’d caught Dallas “delivering” No’s gift. However, she’d not only not called the police, she’d also asked Dallas if she could meet with the man who’d sent this present to her aunt. No had allowed it, on the condition that she pack a bag for her stay. But then his meetings with the Seattle Fishers management had gone over, and by the time he’d arrived home, Mrs. Santos, a housekeeper who apparently lived somewhere on the property in a guest house, had put Ruby up in a guestroom.
Lilli digested this, not wanting to believe what he was telling her. But even though he’d done a pretty shitty thing here, she also knew immediately that what he’d said was true. Ruby had decided to leave home with a complete stranger. A huge, tattooed stranger. Just so she could ask whoever was rich enough to gift them with a TV for an athletic leg.
Lilli closed her eyes against the truth of her niece’s stupidity, taking a moment before evenly responding, “Okay, I understand why she wanted to come here, but I still don’t understand why you would let her—and tell her to pack a bag. I nearly called the police. Was this some kind of scare tactic? Your idea of revenge?”
Now, and only now, did his eyes light with amusement.
“Come,” he said again, heading for the s
tairs.
And once again she followed. Knowing without him having to tell her that she really didn’t have a choice.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
No’s office matched the rest of the house. It was an impressive feat of stone and glass, with a fireplace that flared to life seemingly on command when they entered the room. Despite all the glass and monochrome furniture, the red oak floors, cream-colored Berber carpet, and total absence of a desk, the room seemed warm. Inviting even.
But Lilli didn’t feel either warm or welcome standing in the middle of Norio’s office. Neither of them sat on any of the couches after they came through the door. As if they were in mutual agreement that this office was a battlefield, not a social arena.
“Okay, why are you doing this?” Lilli asked as soon as he closed the door behind them. “What do you want from me?”
No didn’t respond. Instead he went over to a small bar area and returned with a bottle of whiskey, which he then handed her. His favorite brand, she remembered from the copious notes Miyuki had given her.
Miyuki…Lilli’s stomach dropped just thinking of his former assistant. And what had happened to her after she’d dared to cross No.
“Please,” she whispered, even as she fell into the old Japanese custom of the woman pouring the drink for the man, tilting the uncorked whiskey bottle with both hands and letting it stream into his slanted glass. “I know what I did was wrong. I shouldn’t have spied on you for your father. I didn’t know he was the one who sent me, but that doesn’t matter. It was a bad thing to do. A terrible thing to do. And that’s on me. I get it. But please leave Ruby out of this. She’s only a child, and she’s already been through so much. I’m all she has. So please don’t use her to get your revenge on me.”
His Revenge Baby: 50 Loving States, Washington Page 16
