Fire and Ice

by Anne Stuart

  She didn’t even blink.

  “If Taka can get out of this place, so can I,” he continued. “I’m even better at picking locks.” Of course there was no doubt that the silent treatment was extremely annoying. He was just able to ignore it, not let it irritate him into showing any emotion. Emotion was what led him into this mess with her in the first place, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

  “I’ll give it a couple of hours. If Taka doesn’t make it out, they’ll come for us—no need to keep us hanging around if they’ve got what they wanted.” He glanced up at the bare lightbulb overhead. “I’m going to sleep for a little while. If anything happens you can wake me.”

  To his astonishment he heard a noise coming from her direction. She didn’t have the stubbornness he expected—he thought she’d hold out longer than that. It wasn’t speech actually, just a derisive snort.

  He lifted his head, but she still wouldn’t look at him. “You know, it’s your fault we’re here. If you hadn’t gone racing off like that, I wouldn’t have had to follow. We’d both be safe back in that hotel room. Or at least you would—I would have been trying to figure out what was going on.”

  Silence. “It’s nice being able to hear myself think for a change, without interruptions. The question I’m trying to figure out is what they’ve done with my grandfather, and whether or not he knows how far things have gone. Hell, whether or not he’s still alive. But I know he is—he’s been my only family, aside from Taka, for most of my life. I’d know if something had happened to him. I’d feel it inside.” That sounded a little too sentimental, but it didn’t matter since she was ignoring him.

  “You know, if I have to choose between keeping you alive and saving my grandfather that I’ll go for my grandfather. You’ll be on your own. I expect if Hitomi decides to torture you, you can always talk him to death. Unless Azuki gets out of the hospital and decides to go for revenge. He knows he can’t kill me, but he won’t think twice about blowing your head off. Sorry, didn’t mean to remind you.”

  That was exactly what he’d meant to do, but she still didn’t react. She leaned forward to rest her face on her drawn-up knees and she looked very young. Very sexy.

  Snap out of it, Reno! he told himself. You’ve just managed to rid her of any romantic notions. Don’t blow it by thinking with your dick again.

  The funny thing was, it wasn’t his dick that was giving him trouble. Yeah, for some crazy reason he still wanted to screw her when he should be concentrating on other things. But even more, he wanted her lying on the narrow cot with him, her body crammed up against his, her arms around him, her face against his shoulder, her heart beating against his.

  Hell, it was worth a try. “There’s room on the cot if you want to be more comfortable.”

  He got another derisive snort out of her, a small triumph. As long as she was fighting back, he was doing fine. Now he just had to figure a way to get out of there and find his grandfather. Before Hitomi realized that getting rid of all of them would be the smartest and easiest thing to do.

  He knew what was stopping Hitomi-san. There were enough members of the kobun who had, if not enough loyalty, at least respect and admiration for his grandfather, and they wouldn’t let Hitomi dishonor him. But that would only slow Hitomi’s hand for so long. And the respect shown Ojiisan wouldn’t necessarily translate to his hot-headed grandson and a gaijin interloper.

  He could wait for Taka to come back. Nothing had ever been able to stop Taka when he set his mind to it, and Reno had no doubt that he’d eventually show up and save the day. It would be the smartest thing he could do; making a move on his own would endanger Jilly and force him to interact with her. If he just stayed stretched out on the cot, forgetting what had happened on there just a short while ago, he’d end up as free as a bird.

  He glanced over at her, wondering if she was crying. She wasn’t. Her face had an almost eerie calm, an expression that was making him very uneasy. He wasn’t foolish enough to think she was taking his instant repudiation well. He was just hoping the silent treatment was her only way of making him pay.

  But he had the gloomy feeling that she had something far worse in mind.

  17

  The floor was surprisingly comfortable. In fact, she might even have preferred a bed of nails, but none appeared to be handy. She could always beat her head against the wall until she was bloody and unconscious, but she’d developed a certain fondness for the silk clothing that rat bastard had brought her, and she didn’t want to ruin them. She was going to take them back to L.A. with her, have them professionally cleaned, and wear them without a second thought.

  He’d known. The whole goddamn time he’d known that she had a crush on him. How could Summer have told him? For that matter, how could Summer have known? It had been embarrassing enough to admit it to herself—she was hardly going to confess her adolescent fantasy to her wise older sister. All she’d done was drop in the occasional question now and then—that shouldn’t have been enough to tip Summer off. And she had taken the photos off the disk in Summer’s digital camera last time she came to visit. Most of them were of Japan and California and her beautiful husband. But there were a few, just a few, of Reno. And what was the harm in uploading them into her computer, as well?

  Why would they tell him? It wasn’t like she was going to be anywhere around him. And it was going to be over and done with as soon as she found a decent-enough lover to carry through with the job. All right, maybe she’d come running to Japan with the subconscious hope of seeing Reno once more, after that initial look two years ago. But really, it was just a remnant of her odd, old/young life.

  So she’d walked right into it, with Reno knowing all the time that she had a sophomoric passion for him. He must have been laughing at her wasted attempts at pretending he annoyed her.

  No, that wasn’t true. He really did annoy her. He was a smart-aleck pain in the butt, with the emotional availability of a soap dish. And if she had supernatural powers, she’d vaporize him as he lay stretched out on the cot, his long legs dangling over the edge.

  So her ridiculous crush on him was gone, wasn’t it? Had vanished the first time he knocked her out. Or it was definitely gone when he pushed her out of the car on the snowy mountain. Maybe not till he tricked her into the capsule hotel and put his hands on her with insulting ease.

  Or maybe she’d held out until she’d actually had sex with him. That was enough to get her over him, wasn’t it? His ice-cold rejection the next morning?

  And yet she’d made love with him on that very cot, only a matter of hours ago, all the while knowing he was a son of a bitch.

  Okay, but now she really hated him. No hesitation, no caveats, no doubts. There was no coming back from his final, insulting rejection.

  She closed her eyes, envisioning a solid chunk of the ceiling suddenly coming loose and landing square on the cot, squashing him like a bug. It was a lovely thought. Or maybe running him down with a car, so that he stood there, watching her coming and knowing that there was no way he could escape her murderous wrath.

  No, she just needed to let go. She’d been used, shamed, insulted, abandoned. And, all right, so she’d had a crush on him. That was over and done with, and wasn’t coming back. She knew him too well, knew the way his mind worked. His casual cruelty was a dead giveaway. He had no reason to be so vicious—he could have gotten rid of her just as efficiently without hurting her. And suddenly she knew why.

  She pushed herself to her feet, using the wall to brace herself. Reno would have heard her move, but he remained stretched out on the cot with deceptive laziness. He turned his head as she approached, his cool expression wary.

  “Are you planning to beat me to death with a purse?” he asked, looking up at her.

  It was tempting, but she’d abandoned her makeshift weapon. “Why are you afraid of me?” she said, her voice perfectly calm.

  “I’m not afraid of anything or anyone.”

  “Of course you are. Every ti
me you get close to me you turn around and say something vicious. What do you think I’m going to do, cling so tightly that you can’t get free? Do you hate all the women you sleep with?”

  He watched her, his eyes wary. “You’re not a woman I sleep with,” he said. “You’re not someone out for a good time with no strings attached, and that’s the only thing I’m interested in. The problem is,” he said, rising on his elbows to look at her out of his wicked eyes, “you’re just too tempting. If I’d just kept my hands off you in the first place, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But if you’ll remember, you asked me. Hell, you demanded. And I’ve never been the kind of man to resist an offer like that.”

  “And last night?”

  “I was bored.”

  A knife, she pictured dreamily, stabbing straight into his heart. “It’s a great deal too bad that I shot the man who was about to kill you. I should have let him do it and saved myself a great deal of trauma.”

  “You’d be dead, Ji-chan.”

  “Then neither of us would have to worry, would we?”

  “What do you want from me?” he asked. “Because I can tell you right now, whatever it is, I can’t give it.”

  She was silent, looking down at him. His long body was stretched out on the cot, and his white shirt was unbuttoned. She could see the scrapes and bruises marring his smooth, golden skin, and she hoped each one of them was painful.

  “I was going to say I want an apology, but come to think of it, even that’s not good enough. I want you to keep away from me. We’re related by marriage, but if we make an effort, we won’t have to be in the same room with each other once we get out of here.”

  The slow smile that crossed his face was both ironic and fatalistic. “I don’t know if we’re getting out of here, Ji-chan. But I promise you, if we survive, you’ll never have to see me again. Does that satisfy you?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice cool. “Now, get the hell off the cot and let me sleep. I was here first—I claim rights to it.”

  His soft laugh was as irritatingly seductive as always. Why didn’t he have a light, breathy voice? Why was his voice, whether he spoke English or Japanese, so distressingly deep and warm? Asshole.

  He rose, and she backed away to make sure he wouldn’t brush against her. The instinctive retreat seemed to amuse him even more, and she wondered what would happen if she kicked him.

  She knew what would happen. He’d already warned her—if she hit him again, he’d hit her back. If she kicked him, he’d put his hands on her, and then all hell would break loose. Because he wouldn’t hurt her, no matter how much he threatened. He’d put his hands on her, and then she’d be lost again.

  “Thank you,” she said in a clipped voice, moving around him to stretch out on the cot. It was sheer will that kept her there, trying to look relaxed.

  It was warm. Warm from his body. It was like a virtual embrace, his heat to the cot to her body. Goddamn it. And if she closed her eyes, it was even worse.

  And then he was standing over the cot, and she froze, waiting for him to touch her. Why the hell had she demanded the cot? Was she asking for trouble? Was she wanting him to start this all over again?

  “Here,” he said, yanking something from under her feet. It was the thin blanket they’d left, and he covered her with it, careful not to let his hand touch her. It smelled like sex, it smelled of almond soap and Reno, and she wanted to throw it back at him.

  But that would be letting him know she was still vulnerable. And she wasn’t. She was going to lie here and go to sleep and wait for her brother-in-law to rescue her.

  He heard the noise before she did. She’d been drifting off into an uncomfortable sleep when Reno moved, immediately on full alert.

  “What’s happening?” she said sleepily, as she heard the noise outside the door.

  “I think they decided not to wait,” Reno said in a grim voice. He grabbed her hand and hauled her out of the bed, and she didn’t protest. “Stay behind me,” he said.

  The door slammed open and four young yakuza pushed in the room, and Jilly had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. These were like yakuza-boy, not the exquisitely polite Hitomi-san. These were trouble.

  It took her a minute to even begin to understand the conversation. It was in Japanese, and the intruders spoke with a strange accent, rolling their R’s, using phrases Jilly hadn’t learned in her intensive study. Reno was answering them the same way, even with the rolling of the R’s. And then the words began to make sense.

  The leader, a slightly older gangster with a high shellacked pompadour and sour expression, was the spokesman. “We’re taking her,” he said. “Hitomi-san has decided she has no use. Your grandfather has barricaded himself in his rooms, and she will be of no help in getting to him. We have orders to kill her, show her body to the oyabun to prove we will stop at nothing, and then dispose of her body.”

  “That would be a mistake,” Reno said, his voice calm and almost bored—as if he were discussing different ways to cook fish. “The Americans get very upset if their people meet with trouble in Japan, and this one is a young, pretty girl from a good family. Her face and name will be in newspapers all over the world, and the authorities will not let her disappearance go unnoticed. They will search until they find her.”

  “We know how to dispose of a body, Shinodasan,” one of the younger men said with a sneer.

  “They will look until they find her,” Reno said. “And if they don’t, they will keep looking. The police, who turn a blind eye to most things, will be on notice. You will make life much more complicated for Hitomi-san and the family.”

  “Hitomi-san’s orders are clear. If your grandfather is presented with the dead body of the gaijin he will realize he is defeated.” Two of the men started approaching, and Reno grabbed Jilly’s arm and pulled her tight behind him.

  “You can’t take her,” he said. “If you need a dead body you can take me instead.”

  “We could do that,” the spokesman said, raising his gun.

  “Matsumoto-san!” Hitomi’s voice was sharp as he appeared in the doorway. “What is taking you so long?”

  “He’s being difficult, trying to save the life of the girl by offering his own.” The tone of his voice expressed his opinion of such idiotic behavior.

  Hitomi looked at Reno, shaking his head. “You’ve spent too much time among gaijins, Hiromasa-san. You’re forgetting that for each one lost, there are a dozen to take their place.”

  “If you want to kill her, you have to go through me first.”

  “So romantic,” Hitomi said with a sigh. “It must be the tainted blood of your American mother. We can work out a compromise. Your grandfather has a small group guarding him, and we can’t break in. I’ve already lost seven men trying. I had planned to drop the body of the girl in front of the door with the assurance that you and his great-nephew would be the next, but I am flexible. You can take the girl and get him to open the door.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we discuss the future with your esteemed grandfather. His ways are old-fashioned and impractical. It’s a new world, and he’s keeping his men from earning the kind of money they deserve. It’s time for him to step down and a new order to take his place.”

  “And you will run that new order,” Reno said. “I don’t think my grandfather will agree.”

  “I don’t think your grandfather will have any choice, once he fully understands the situation. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Hiromasa-san. It’s up to you. This way you might have a choice of saving your gaijin girlfriend. Otherwise you’ll both be dead.”

  “I thought you were waiting to get your hands on Taka,” Reno said.

  Hitomi’s smile was chilling. “We have him, Hiromasa-san. My men found him outside the compound. He hasn’t been talking, but he’s not going to be able to come to your rescue. You’re on your own.”

  Reno’s body didn’t move, but she could feel the momenta
ry shiver that hit him. Was it defeat, despair? Disbelief?

  “Then it would appear we have no choice. I’ll get grandfather to open the door for you, if you let the girl go.”

  “Not until we are able to talk to your grandfather.”

  “And what makes you think I believe that you’ll let her go?”

  “We are all honorable men, are we not?” Hitomi said with an expansive gesture. “We do not kill for pleasure, but rather for the greater good. If we do not need the gaijin’s death, then she will go free.”

  And if Reno believed that, he was more gullible than he appeared to be.

  “Yes,” he said. “But let me explain the situation to her in private. You know she can be impulsive. I want to make sure she behaves herself. I wouldn’t want her shot accidentally.”

  “Nor would I,” Hitomi said with a small bow.

  Reno bowed back, and Jilly wanted to scream. They were talking about murder and betrayal and they were fucking bowing to each other?

  “I’ll give you five minutes,” Hitomi-san said. “If it takes any longer, we’ll shoot her, anyway.”

  The men left, leaving the door unlocked, and Reno turned to her, grabbing her arms and speaking in low, hurried English. “We’re in trouble. They’ve got Taka, and they want me to get my grandfather to open the door so they can talk to him. They claim you’re worthless to them, but even so, when I give the signal I need you to fall to the ground, roll into the nearest corner you can and pray.”

  “You want me to what?”

  “You heard me. I tried to get them to take you as bait,” he said, trying for his lazy smirk. “I thought they could rough you up and drop you outside his door and then Ojiisan would have to negotiate, but they insisted on taking me instead.”

  She looked at him for a long, endless moment. “Reno-chan,” she said gently in Japanese, “I understood almost every word you were saying.”

  He’d been cool, almost off-hand, but now he looked shattered. “Your Japanese isn’t that good.”