image the world thought was beautiful and ended up being more gorgeous still. But no one had ever shaken the image of lilac eyes and shimmer of platinum from my heart.
And when Violet smiled like this…I almost couldn’t stand it.
“It must be in his genes,” Violet teased. “Truck thinks his Coast Guard uniform is good enough for anything that requires dressing up.”
Jada chuckled. “Well, at least Dawson’s job doesn’t―”
“Truck looks good in his uniform,” I cut Jada off with a frown. She rolled her eyes, turning around and scrolling through her phone.
We both let the conversation drop, but I could hear Vi’s questions in my head. Thankfully, Jada distracted her by showing Violet pictures from the Leo DiCaprio version of The Great Gatsby and returning the talk to their outfits and Yuriko’s custom designs.
My stomach twisted again, and stupid rushed through my brain once more. I couldn’t believe I’d allowed myself to be talked into Violet coming with us. She was a distraction I couldn’t afford right now.
Too many people and too many lives depended on this entire thing going flawlessly from start to finish. And if, somehow, Violet got tangled up in it, I wasn’t sure I’d ever forgive myself.
“Are you planning Dax’s costume as well?” I asked.
“No. I don’t ever have to worry about his style. Besides, Yuriko already has all his measurements,” she said, flipping her phone over and over. “I invited him to dinner at the penthouse tonight.”
Jada’s voice was neutral, but Dax was the one person who could truly get under her skin. The fact she was arranging dinner at her grandmother’s was her way of keeping him to herself for the night. Otherwise, Dax would have been surrounded by people wanting his attention…or just wanting him period.
It was late afternoon by the time I made it through the city traffic to Jada’s grandmother’s building off 5th Avenue. Ito-san pulled in behind us in the SUV she usually chauffeured Jada around in. I let the ladies out, made sure the bags were taken up, and then told them I had to meet a friend at The Carlyle.
What I really did was valet the car, double back through the lobby, take ten different turns on the New York City streets, including passing through a restaurant into an alley, before I ended up at the Central Park bench where Malone was waiting for me.
This time, he was in a suit with a tablet in front of him. I leaned on the back of the bench, staring in the opposite direction and taking in the fall colors lighting up the place. The trees knew it was autumn even if the weather didn’t. The sunshine was holding in a way we needed for our ocean voyage, but it was also causing New Yorkers to fill the park in droves, enjoying the warmth before the rain set in.
“Don’t know when they removed the package from your trunk. We didn’t get any of it on film,” Malone said under his breath, frustration evident. The fact that the Kyōdaina‘s men seemed to continue to slip by, even when we knew where to look, wasn’t exactly a testament to the Bureau.
“They're delivering the cash on Sunday, but we’re a long way away from tying it to Tsuyoshi Mori. At most, it’ll look like one of his subsidiaries was involved, and he’ll be able to write it off with an apology and a grimace. I doubt we’d even be able to get it to stick to Ken’Ichi.”
“We’ll follow the folks making the drop. Hopefully, it’ll lead us to a bigger fish we can put pressure on.”
“They gave Jada a date for the wedding,” I said. “She’ll have more access to Ken’Ichi as it gets closer, but I’d rather us be done with the whole thing well before then so she can walk away.”
“She’s unstable. I listened to the tape from that last party in Spain. We’re lucky she didn’t blow everything,” Malone grunted in disapproval.
It was the truth. The further we got into this, and the closer we got to the arranged marriage, the more Jada used alcohol and tranquilizers to forget it all. She was crumbling apart, and it was my fault. If I hadn’t recruited her, she’d just be another heiress partying around the world without a care about how Daddy made his money. They may not have even forced the marriage on her. This was as much a way to ensure she couldn’t go on the stand against her husband as