by L G Rollins
Dapo’s head hung low and he remained silent.
“As for you,” the man spoke directly in Ju’s ear, yet it sounded as though he spoke from across a great ocean. “Nothing has happened to your Jasper or Mama yet,” the man said, his voice coming from what seemed like yards away. “But it will. It will.”
A blackness, thick and heavy, crept across the outer edges of Ju’s vision then inched in toward the center, gaining speed until it rushed in all at once and blocked out every ray of light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jasper leaned back against one of the massive pillars outside Ginevra’s. He looked up at the stone edifice. He’d never seen a building quite so elegant. Around him, loved ones of those trying out for the dance school shuffled about, spoke softly with each other, and waited. More than one set of eyes looked him up and down. It was his dark skin and dreadlocks he knew, but it didn’t hurt his pride to be reminded of how intimidating he looked when he wasn’t even trying.
The doors opened and several young women poured out. They rushed into the waiting arms of matrons and giggling friends. A few fathers and brothers were even present, it seemed. Jasper stood up straight and waited for Ju.
After nearly a dozen women walked out, the doors shut noiselessly. But there was no Ju. Jasper tapped a finger against his thigh as he looked all around. He didn’t see her anywhere. Had she found the note already? He didn’t expect her to find it so soon. She’d been so distracted that morning—he assumed she had been preoccupied with her dance audition—it hadn’t been hard to slip it into her pocket. Though, he didn’t think she’d find the small thing until she retired for bed tonight.
But suppose she’d already found it? Suppose she’d read it and was still bent on pushing him away?
He let out a grunt, making a young girl standing next to him jump. It was pointless to wait here—Ju wouldn’t blend into a group such as this. If he didn’t see her, she wasn’t here. Perhaps the note had been a mistake. He’d been trying his hand at planning ahead. He should have known it was a stupid idea. He’d taken Mr. Zhi’s suggestion that he needed to stop and think first to heart. But he probably was going to prove wholly incompetent in the area.
Though family and friends had been asked to wait outside the building, Jasper pulled a door open and hurried in. The foyer was next to empty. Ju wasn’t here either. Had she been asked to stay and speak with the judges?
Jasper moved toward the center of the foyer, his head on a swivel. He didn’t like this. Even if she had found his note, and found it not to her liking, it wasn’t like Ju to run away from a situation. He’d more expect her to stomp directly up to him, crane her neck back so as to eye him fully, and tell him exactly what she thought. She wouldn’t just disappear on him, right?
His skin crawled and his stomach twisted, both warning signs of certain danger.
The few clumps of dancers still around avoided him, speaking softly to each other but not bothering to hide their stares. Jasper called out to the nearest group.
“In which room were the auditions held?”
Two of the young women shrunk behind a third, pushing her forward. “Um, the auditions are over, uh, sir.”
“I know they’re over. Where were they held?”
She pointed down a white hallway. “There. The judges are just coming out now.”
A man and two women were walking toward the foyer, their heads pressed together in deep conversation.
Jasper strode over to them in four long strides. “Where’s Zhi ju?”
Their conversation died mid-sentence.
“Pardon me, sir,” the man said. He had a streak of white hair near his forehead and crows-feet spread out from his eyes. “All family and friends have been asked to wait outside. She’s probably out there now, looking for you.”
Jasper shook his head, fear rising in his chest. “She’s not out there. Blast.”
The man started to say something else, but Jasper turned his back on the judges. There—a side door swinging halfway open. Whoever passed through it last hadn’t bothered to latch it closed again.
Jasper hurried toward it, pushing it open with a bang. The side alley was empty. No one and no trace of Ju could be seen. Jasper ran a hand down his face. Where would she have gone?
The answer was simple and terrifying. She wouldn’t have gone. She wouldn’t have left Ginevra’s without him, not willingly, not of her own volition. He spun in a circle, trying to find any hint as to the direction he should go now.
A blink of white caught his eye. Jasper stopped and stooped low. A handkerchief. He picked it up. It was uncharacteristically white for being in an alley way. He placed it up to his nose.
Gagging, he pulled it back sharply. Chloroform. Cursing, Jasper ground the fabric deep into a closed fist. If Ambassador Leng hurt one hair on Ju’s head he’d make sure Leng faced the devil, even if it meant taking the blackguard there himself.
***
“We’ll hold his feet to the fire,” Jasper said as he paced the rug in Brox’s study. “We’ll take him before a judge, today. With what we’ve found in his chambers we’ve got more than enough to put him away, even without Wixcomb.”
Brox sat at his desk, fingers steepled. “I’ve spoken to nearly every judge in London over the past week since you got those papers. They all say the same thing. The proof is hard to ignore, but no one cares. He is an ambassador. Mrs. and Miss Zhi are only two immigrants with no social standing or family ties whatsoever.”
“So they won’t stand up to Leng because they think Ju and her mother are nobodies?”
Brox leaned back. “It’s cold, but true. These men struggle sometimes to see past differences to how we’re all human.”
Tressa had finally found an end to her extensive expletives lexicon and was now standing near the cold fireplace, arms crossed. “I’m sorry, Jasper. But I just don’t see a way out of this one.”
There was a knock at the door and then it opened. “Begging your pardon, sir, madam,” a servant bowed to Brox and then Tressa in turn. “But a man just dropped this off. Seemed rather important.”
“Bring it here,” Brox said, tapping his desk.
“If you please, sir.” The servant bowed again, his eyes shifting uncomfortably. “It is for Mr. Wimple.”
Jasper stood up straighter. Heaven help him if Mrs. Hedgecock was bothering him again. Not waiting for the servant to bring it to him, Jasper walked up to him directly and snatched the letter from his grasp.
The servant bowed yet again and then hurried from the room, shutting the door noiselessly behind him.
Jasper ripped the letter open, his gaze jumping across the page.
The young woman in exchange for the BLUE formula. Midnight. Wei shu’s dancing school.
Jasper swore and tossed the letter over to Brox. Tressa leaned over her husband and they both read silently. Jasper turned and looked out the window. How had he let this happen? He knew Leng would try something sooner or later. He should have insisted on accompanying Ju into the auditions, hang the school’s disapproval.
Jasper pounded a fist against the wall. He would get her back. He wouldn’t stop until he’d succeeded. And if he died along the way, even that wouldn’t slow him down.
“You can’t do it.” Tressa’s voice was softer than he would have expected. “You can’t give him the formula.”
Jasper collapsed into a nearby chair, the weight of his dreadlocks bouncing against his back. “I’m not leaving her in his hands.”
“I know,” Tressa said, her tone firmer. “But if you give him the formula he will have the ability to murder countless other people without it ever being traced back to him.”
“I don’t care! He has Ju.” Jasper would kill countless other people himself if it meant saving her.
“Once you calm down a bit,” Tressa spoke on, “you’ll agree. He is one of the worst men imaginable and we won’t be accountable for giving him a new weapon.”
“We have to do something.” As
much as he fought it, he knew Tressa was right. They couldn’t, no matter what, give Leng the BLUE formula. He would cause untold suffering with it. One did not hand a madman a powerful weapon and expect anything less.
“He wouldn’t return Ju to us, regardless.” Brox spoke for the first time. “No doubt he intends to hold her until you deliver the formula then kill you both to cover his tracks.”
Jasper’s hand encircled the armrest and he squeezed it in his fist. “Because we’re both nobodies and that means we don’t matter.”
Brox sighed loudly. “It means there’s little chance your deaths will be seriously investigated.”
Jasper leaned his head back. Gads, but Brox was right. It all came back down to that solitary fact: no one would care. No one with the power to stop Leng, anyways.
“Send a message to the Hopkins, Wei shu, Mrs. Zhi, even Dapo if you can find him,” Jasper said, standing up, his boots striking the floor with a bang. “Get them all here as fast as possible.”
“What do you intend to do?” Tressa asked.
“I don’t know.” He wasn’t sure how they would find Ju, how they would get her back, or how they would make any of the authorities care enough to force Leng to face up to what he had done. “But I do know we’re not going to sit around doing nothing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Ju’s head hurt, but she had to keep fighting. She had to get away.
Ju willed her leg to kick. This time, it moved. The motion was jerky and poorly aimed, but she had certainly felt it move. She tried her arm next. It, too, responded.
The force of her throwing her arm outward caused her to roll. Then she was falling.
Something hard and flat collided against her full body, forcing her eyes open. She was laying down, atop a wooden floor. Ju groaned and rolled onto her back.
Where was she?
When had she gotten here?
She searched the room with her eyes, but there seemed to be no one around. The room was dimly lit, but at least it was lit with sunlight. One wall had two windows, and though they were boarded over, rays of light came through the many, wide gaps. There was a settee directly next to her; that must have been what she rolled off of. A yard or two away there was a faded rug. But that was all the furniture in the small room. Best of all, though, on the wall opposite the windows, there was a door.
Ju rolled back onto her stomach and pushed against the floor with her hands. Pulsing, pounding pain beat against her head. She shut her eyes, forced her legs beneath her, and stood.
With another groan, she opened her eyes. The room seemed to sway beneath her, tipping first one way and then the other. Ju stumbled toward the door. She smacked into it with a flat hand, stopping herself before her full body hit it too.
She needed to get to Mama and Jasper. The man who’d taken her had said something would happen to them. The memory of his words, hot against her neck, made her want to throw up. Though, that could also be a reaction to the drug. And the way he’d threatened Dapo. Oh, Dapo. Ju leaned her forehead against the door. Why hadn’t he gone to her when Leng first took Shuang?
Ju had to get to Mama and Jasper, had to warn them. Dapo was in trouble and couldn’t be trusted. Ambassador Leng was coming and he wouldn’t stop this time. He wasn’t going to back down until they stopped him for good.
Ju reached for the doorknob. It felt cold against her palm. She shivered hard. What was it that man had knocked her out with? Whatever it was, she could still feel the effects in her limbs, making them heavy and cumbersome. After nearly two decades of dancing, large, poorly controlled movements were not something Ju was used to. Luckily, pushing through pain was.
She twisted the knob. It wouldn’t budge. Blast it all. Although, now that her brainbox was clearing, it only made sense it would be locked. What kind of jack-a-napes kidnaps a woman and then leaves her untied in an unlocked room?
Ju turned and rested her back against the door and looked about the room. There wasn’t much she could work with. There was the settee, the old rug, the boarded over windows. What did one do with nothing but those?
Her head still swimming, Ju slowly let herself slide down the door until she was sitting. She focused on her breath as Wei shu had taught her during her earliest days of dance. First, she needed her body to clear itself of the drug so that she could think and act clearly.
How many times had Wei shu ground into her that the few minutes before the music started was the most important to a dance? Escaping now would require the same concentration and attention to her body and her surroundings that any complicated performance did. She would start the same way, too. She would start with being aware of her breath.
Ju let her arms fall to either side. Something inside her pocket crinkled. She pressed a hand against her hip and heard paper crinkling again. But who would have left her a message? Ambassador Leng?
She pulled out a small slip of paper. What was he going to do? Threaten her via the written word? Why not just send his man back in here to yell in her face?
Ju moved toward a stream of light to better read and flipped open the folded paper.
My loveliest Ju,
I know your experience with men who call you beautiful has been, by and large, a negative one.
Oh, this wasn’t from Leng. Ju drew her legs under her and sat more comfortably.
But, please hear me out. Since I have met you, you have become a dear friend—someone I love being with and love talking to. However, you have become far more than just a friend. You are the one I think of when I wake up and dream about when I sleep.
Though I’m sure you’ve heard that before, too.
Oh, sweetheart, I can’t think of a single thing to say that you haven’t heard, that hasn’t been fed to you as a means to earn your trust by someone who didn’t have your best interest at heart.
Therefore, let me say this.
I’m going to be here for you. I know words won’t work, so please trust my actions. I’ll be by your side every day you let me, for as long as you’ll have me. I told you I wasn’t one to think ahead or plan for a future, but you have changed that inside of me.
I want a future with you.
I realize asking you to just believe I want a future with you because I said as much would be pointless. But I have thought this through thoroughly and the only way of convincing you I can think up is to be there, by your side, until you feel you can trust me. So, that’s what I’ll do, no matter how long it takes.
Until that day, know I love you.
Jasper
Ju, hand against her mouth, read and then re-read the letter. He loved her? He was willing to wait as long as it took until she could trust him?
She thought back over their many conversations and times together. He was right. Most of the men who had ever given her a second look had not done so with honorable intentions. However, those men all had a few things in common. One was that they complimented her looks. But they also ignored her opinions and, without fail, discouraged her from speaking bluntly and openly. They treated her as a prize and not as a person.
Jasper also complimented her beauty, but in every other way he was totally different. He listened and valued her opinion. He insisted that he loved it when she was blunt and straightforward. She never once felt like an item of food on the sideboard when he looked at her.
Did that mean she trusted him?
Yes—Ju finally admitted to herself—she did trust him. More than that, she was ready to allow herself to act on that trust. He said he loved her and, if she were being totally honest with herself, she loved him, too.
Ju smiled to herself. She even loved that he so frequently got lost in thought.
She folded the paper and slipped it back into her pocket. Ready to trust him or not, the more immediate concern was that he was in danger. She was, too. Ju stood and moved over to one of the windows.
Nothing but barren farmland stretched out as far as she could see. There was no way to get Jasper a message.
No way to warn him about Dapo. She didn’t hate Dapo for what he’d done. Leng had taken Shuang. Who wouldn’t do all they could to get the one they loved back? But, oh, how she wished she could warn Jasper. If only she could figure out a way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Jasper rubbed a hand down his face. Wei shu was arguing with Brox. Mrs. Zhi was spouting off more Chinese than Jasper had heard ever since that fateful day when they’d first met just over a month ago, most of it directed at various members of Chinatown but some toward him, which, since he spoke absolutely no Chinese, was not helpful in the least.
Dapo was yelling. Changchang was disputing. Tressa was cursing.
Everywhere Jasper looked, the dining room was packed with people loudly stating their opinion about what should be done next. It was giving him a headache and it wasn’t getting Ju back home any faster.
“Will she be all right?”
Jasper’s head came up at the soft plea near his elbow. Tom stood next to him with wide, scared eyes. When had he showed up?
“Tom,” Jasper sputtered. “What are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to show you something.” His voice was soft and he kept glancing about himself at all the disagreeing adults.
Just because Jasper and everyone else in the room was terrified beyond compare, didn’t mean he wanted Tom to feel the same. “What did you want to show me?”
Tom reached into his pocket and pulled out a lump of red clay. “It’s a boat,” the boy said. “It’s not as good as your stuff. But . . .” He shrugged.
Jasper took the lump out of Tom’s palm. “It’s very good.”
Tom leaned in even closer. “Did someone really take Ju?”
His throat closed up tight and all Jasper could do was nod.
“And no one knows where she is?”
He shook his head, setting the ‘boat’ atop the dining room table at which he sat.
