We were thirty minutes from docking at the pier in Tarifa, and according to the GPS trackers we’d installed on both yachts, Demario was at least an hour behind us. He’d had to stop midway because he’d cut himself on a glass bottle―dumbass―and then had to have Angelica stitch him up.
We were fifty-two hours in, mere minutes from beating the record by over six hours. We hadn’t just defeated it. We’d literally blown it out of the water. Dax and I were full of smiles but trying to keep calm so we didn’t get cocky and screw it up at the last minute.
The satellite phone rang, causing us both to jump.
“Langley,” I said, fully expecting it to be Demario whining about his loss.
“Daw…Dawson,” Jada was sobbing.
“Jada,” I said, standing and handing off the wheel to Dax, who looked like he’d rather grab the phone than the wheel. “What’s wrong?”
Fear flew through me. Fear that they’d found out she was feeding Malone and me intel. That she was wearing a wire almost every time she met with them. Maybe they’d found the wire she’d learned to strap to herself whenever we needed it at the last minute.
“He tried to follow me into my room last night.”
“What? Why? What happened?” I demanded.
“He said…I needed to learn my place, and he was going to teach me.”
My heart was hammering.
“Jesus. Where are you now?”
“Still in my room. I blocked the door with the dresser,” she said, crying.
If I called Malone to go get her, it was over. We were done. We were so damn close. Once they exchanged the money for the guns and traced it back, we’d be able to get an arrest warrant.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I told them I refused to use your celebration party as our engagement party.” Her words were slurred, and I realized she wasn’t just crying. She’d taken the tranquilizers that were her drug of choice. “When Ken’Ichi said I would do as he told me, I threw my wine in his face.”
“Jesus…”
“He came after me, and I locked myself in my room. He rattled the handle and said if I didn’t open it, it would just be worse for me. I dragged the dresser over. Once he realized it was there, he laughed, asking what the dresser was really going to do when one of my bedroom walls was made of glass.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. The entire outside wall of her room was windows.
I’d have to call Malone. No way we could leave her there.
“Where is he now? Can you see him?”
She sobbed and then gathered herself. “He left. He said it was a good thing we had guests arriving and that we’d finish the discussion when I came out because I couldn’t stay in here forever.”
A small reprieve. We had some time.
“You have guests? Who?” I demanded.
“I don’t know them. New people.”
“And your dad? He’s still there?” I asked.
She laughed cynically. “Of course.”
“And he just handed you over to Ken’Ichi?” But I knew the truth even as I asked. Tsuyoshi Mori was tired of his daughter making scenes and flaunting her independence in his face. He was tired of her parties and her drama. He wanted a quiet, respectful daughter. One who played by an archaic set of rules.
“I told Dad if he didn’t let me out of the engagement, I’d tell the world what he was forcing me to do.” She sniffled with the barest trace of regret in her voice.
I stilled. “Jada…fuck.”
“I told them… I told them I had plans to get out from under them.”
My heart pounded back into action. “Goddamn it. You might as well have taunted them with the actual truth.”
“I’m tired, Dawson. So tired… I just want it all to be over,” she cried into the phone.
Fear welled up inside me. For her. For me. Anger at myself for not being there. For being the person who’d galvanized her into action to begin with and then left her on her own.
Dax was looking at me like I had five heads, and I suddenly realized everything I’d said, in the open, on a satellite phone with Jada on her unsecure cell that we were ninety-nine percent sure was tapped. We were so screwed. Screwed beyond belief.
I rewound our conversation. Nothing that could be guaranteed as a giveaway. A friend concerned about another friend being forced into a loveless marriage.
“I’ll figure something out,” I told her. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll call