the man slid a hand under his long black leather coat, and a state-of-the-art rocket launcher emerged. I’d never seen anything like it. It was compact, almost toy-like. The guy placed it into the trunk and pulled a gym bag from my car that wasn’t mine.
He stared at me, unmoving.
“Check with your boss,” he said.
I gritted my teeth, barely keeping myself from growling out that Ken’Ichi wasn’t my boss. I hit redial on the number Ken’Ichi had called from, and before I could say anything, he said, “Hosa-san will pick it up.”
Fucking hell, why hadn’t he just had Saito-san pick it up to begin with? But I knew the truth, even as I was asking myself the question. In all likelihood, I was being filmed so they could use it as blackmail if I decided to bail, or if―as they might suspect―I was the one who’d placed the listening device at the villa.
“Where?” I started to ask, but Ken’Ichi had already hung up.
I nodded to the delivery guy, and he retreated to the truck.
I got back into the Aston Martin and drove off. I wanted to drive up to Jada’s place and hand the goddamn thing off to Saito-san. I wanted to take a picture and send it to Malone. But I couldn’t risk any of it. I was ninety-nine percent sure my car was being tracked and filmed, and if I made any move the Kyōdaina didn’t want, it would cause years of work to blow up in my face. The only thing I could do was park the car back at Mandy and Leena’s and hope to God I wasn’t bringing hell to their door.
Violet
DON’T BLAME ME
“Echoes, love your name inside my mind,
Halo, hiding my obsession.”
Performed by Taylor Swift
Written by Swift / Martin / Schuster
The crowd at Rusty’s was loud and rambunctious as Jada and I downed our third shot. We were tucked into a corner booth where we could see the dance floor, the bar, and the door but still had a semblance of privacy.
I scanned the room filled with wood and Coast Guard paraphernalia, wondering why I’d ever been jealous when Dawson had come here. It was just a dive bar, like any other dive bar I’d been in since turning twenty-one with Raisa dragging me out of the lab. I wished Raisa were here. She and Jada would get along well. Two smart, high-spirited, and wealthy women tied by family constraints they were both trying to shake.
The melancholy settling over me was surely the alcohol talking. Every time my body attempted to process ethanol, I ended up on the sappy side. But tonight, I had an extra reason. The scene with Silas that afternoon was adding fuel to the fire—not so much because of him, but for the unwanted feelings it brought roaring back to life.
I’d stood by while he’d loaded his luggage in the car, trying not to show the weight lifting from my shoulders by the fact he was actually going back to Palo Alto. I’d been lost in my head, and it had allowed him to take me by surprise. Before I’d realized it, he’d whipped me into his arms for a kiss.
A kiss I hadn’t felt. A kiss that had left no mark. Because I’d already been branded years before I’d met him.
I’d tried to hide the fact over the last couple of years, keeping the indentation on my heart left by unrequited love carefully covered. In truth, I was pissed it was still there. Pissed that a day didn’t seem to go by without me thinking of Dawson.
When I’d pushed away from Silas, he’d apologized. I should have been angry, but the guilt I felt for letting our relationship get so serious had me placing a hand on his cheek and saying, “I promise you. It isn’t going to be long before you’re thanking me.”
He shook his head but backed away. As he’d gotten in the car, he said, “I hope you come to your senses and return before it’s too late.”
And then he’d driven away.
Now, I was halfway to drunk, and it had little to do with him and more to do with the way my body had bubbled and boiled when Dawson had gone apeshit over the thought of Silas hurting me.
I was ridiculous.
Jada poured us another shot from the pitcher of cosmos.
We tapped the glasses together and downed them. While I was clearly losing my battle with sobriety, Jada seemed normal. No slur. No hazy vision.