CHAPTER ONE
Jada
EMPRESS
“You're angry but you don't know how to be that yet
It seems too much went wrong and all at once.”
Performed by Snow Patrol
Written by Lightbody / Wilson / Connolly / Quinn / Lee / McDaid
I wasn’t really watching as Rana cleared the penthouse. Instead, I was toeing off my heels and heading for the kitchen with my mind focused on the single glass of saké I allowed myself at night. The hint of fruit in my grandmother’s Juyondai had become one of my only addictions after years of having multitudes. Ten years ago―even five years ago―I would have denied any predilection for the alcohol. Not because it was Obaasan’s favorite but because it reminded me too much of all the things in my past I was trying to escape.
My thoughts and emotions were heavy, weighing me down. The darkness of my father’s world seemed to have followed me back from New York City without ever having seen him. Just being in my grandmother’s apartment had been enough for the memories I’d spent a decade trying to escape to flood back in.
I’d just finished pouring as Rana came down the metal and glass stairs and joined me. The kitchen felt more hotel restaurant than home with its white cupboards and enormous stainless-steel appliances, but seeing as I rarely ate there—and cooked even less—there wasn’t much point in redoing it, especially not when I had a company to run and a new factory expansion to plan that was keeping me busy.
Rana’s eyes landed on the expensive bottle in my hand.
“Want some?” I asked, knowing she’d say no. She never drank on the job.
She shook her head, sending the dark-brown waves she’d pulled back into a thick ponytail swaying about her tan face. Rana was stunningly beautiful and would have fit right in with the circle of trust-fund babies I used to hang out with. Maybe it was the luxury labels on her black leather jacket and low-heeled military boots that made her seem more a part of my world than the mere bodyguard she was. We weren’t friends. But in another life, we probably could have been.
“You’re clear,” she said, tucking her revolver in the waistband at her back where it disappeared under her jacket. “You’re in for the night, right?”
I nodded, sipping on the saké and fighting the urge to swallow it whole and pour myself another ten glasses. I had to get up at five in the morning if I wanted to meet my physical trainer before heading to the Force de la Violette offices at eight. I couldn’t afford a hangover.
Thoughts of the company I owned with my best friends, Violet and Dawson, pushed aside the heaviness inside my chest. I loved our company. I loved what we stood for and what we created. The chemical formulas living in Violet’s brain were the reason we had a business at all, but I was the reason our skincare and beauty products had become a worldwide sensation. I knew how to market to the masses, just like I knew how to cut the multi-million-dollar deals that made our partners feel like they’d won a marathon.
I was my father’s daughter, after all.
I cringed. I wanted to be nothing like him.
And just like that, the weight I’d pushed aside for all of two seconds settled back over me.
“Nyra’s in the lobby tonight, and Bobby’s in the building’s security room,” Rana said.
“Okay,” I said with a careless shrug.
In the two years Rana’s team had been with me, I hadn’t once needed to call them. They did their jobs, clearing the Mercedes, my apartment, and the offices at Violette, but it was all for naught. With as little action as they saw, I sometimes wondered if I should cancel their contract and save the small fortune I was paying them. But Dawson and Violet would probably have simultaneous heart attacks if I did.
Rana headed for the door, and I followed.
“If anything changes in your schedule―”
“I know the drill, Rana,” I told her.
She took me in, head to toe, stalling at the drink in my hand and the dark circles under my eyes. “Get some rest. You look like shit.”
I snorted, and she smiled before leaving.
I turned the three locks behind her and then headed across the marble floors filled with modern art and furniture. The vibrant tones made it look like a tapestry had thrown up on the space. I ignored the way it made my stomach turn just like I’d ignored my distaste of the kitchen. Instead, I let the wall of windows draw me in. They were what had sold me on the fully furnished apartment. Even on the grayest of days in San Francisco, light still poured through the glass that stretched the width and height of the two stories.
The view the windows provided of the city and the ocean beyond it settled me. Or maybe it was the simple fact that I lived in a place where my father never lingered. Hiroto Matsuda was Otōsan’s regional boss on the Pacific Coast, and he always had the Kyōdaina’s business well in hand. It didn’t require my father to put in an appearance to keep the organization in check like he had to in other parts of the world.
I dragged myself from the windows and glided up the staircase to the second floor and my bedroom. It was tucked at the back of a massive loft with only a brightly patterned comforter standing out against the starkness of the space and the gray shadows of the nighttime skyline.
I finished the glass of saké and set it on the nightstand before falling onto the bed. I pulled my phone from my pocket and sent a text that was as far from my norm as the apartment was from my taste.
ME: I’m home.
When was the last time my grandmother had ever cared about me arriving somewhere? I couldn’t recall. So, I quickly sent a second message to hide the ridiculousness of my first.
ME: Did you kiss the trainer yet?
OBAASAN: Too young, Jada-tan, too young. But watching him does make the therapy sessions go faster.
ME: Young means stamina.
OBAASAN: Stamina is no replacement for experience.
I laughed quietly to myself.
OBAASAN: It was good to see you. I’ve missed you.
The words hurt, striking at the little girl in me that had been shoved away. I’d been so alone as a child that I hadn’t even understood what it meant to miss someone until I was a teenager. Until a boy with beautiful eyes and a smile that curled my toes had entered my world. A boy who’d taught me the pain that yearning for someone could bring.
The absence of my family in my life had never hung on me before, so I wasn’t exactly sure what had urged me to get on a plane to see Obaasan after her surgery. In truth, going to New York had been a risk. My father could have easily seen it as a declaration of war—or a declaration that I was ready to accept his terms of subservience. But for some reason, the thought of Obaasan’s tiny frame alone in her bed after major surgery had torn at my conscience. I’d gone, knowing that neither Kaasan nor Otōsan would make the effort to be there. They’d hired nurses and washed their hands of the whole unpleasantness of my grandmother needing to be fixed, like anything broken in my father’s world was ignored.
I grimaced at my melancholy thoughts. I shouldn’t have gone. Spending several weeks in the apartment where my childhood had been ripped away hadn’t been healthy or wise.
I pulled myself up from the bed and shed my clothes on the way to the giant bathtub in the only part of the penthouse I actually loved. The bathroom’s green and black color scheme mixed with copper felt earthy and expensive. It exuded an aura of calm I needed.
As I filled the tub, I added one of Force de la Violette’s newest bath bomb scents: lime and honey with the slightest hint of the sea. It reminded me of the heat and decadence of the Florida Keys. Maybe I just needed a vacation―a safe indulgence―but I couldn’t take one until Violet and Dawson got back. They deserved their extended honeymoon, sailing around the South Pacific, after everything they’d done for me…for our business. I wanted this for them.
I looked in the mirror and saw what Rana had seen. I looked more than tired. My pale skin wasn’t glowing, and the purple smudges beneath my dark lashes weren’t from twelve-hour-old makeup. Instead, it was like I’d been bruised by exhaustion. I let out the clip holding my black hair, and it swung about me. Straight and smooth. Thick. Shimmering with white highlights as if silver had been threaded through it. When I was a little girl, hating my black-and-white appearance, Obaasan had told me I’d been kissed with diamonds. These days, I wasn’t sure if it was diamonds or zirconian knock-offs.
I grabbed a bottled water from the hidden mini-fridge, turned on the soothing rhythm of piano music, and sank into the tub. I closed my eyes and let the scents take away the stress of my travel, the darkness of the world I’d visited, and the memories that were trailing after me.
The next thing I knew, I was waking in water that had turned chilly. Sleep had found me in the wrong place. I drained the tub, dried off with the soft towels that had been stacked by the housekeeper, and then slipped into the silk robe waiting for me on the hook. I grabbed the water bottle and started for the bedroom, hitting the music off as I went.
In the sudden quiet, I heard a click, like the locks on the front door.
“Rana? What did you forget?” I called out. She was the only member of the team who entered my apartment without calling.
Silence answered me.
“Rana?”
When there was still no reply, my skin broke out in goosebumps that had nothing to do with the chill of the tub water lingering on me. A smell wafted through the air. Almost imperceptible. Dissipating so fast I couldn’t dissect it.
My eyes roamed the room.
A piece of paper laid on the bed.
I eased over to it, stomach falling, heart kicking up pace.
It was parchment, thick and waxy. Old. Maybe even ancient. The Japanese characters on the surface were so dense they were almost engraved into the surface, and the drawing was graphic…bloody. The frantic beat of my heart stalled as I read the words written in my father’s language.
報復はそんなに長く待つ義務です。あなたの持ち時間は終わりです。
Retribution is a duty that only waits so long. Your time is up.
I inhaled sharply, holding the air until my lungs burned as if I hadn’t breathed in a decade. The words whirled through my brain on repeat. Was Otōsan truly angry with me for visiting Obaasan? For helping her?
How had his minion gotten into my apartment to deliver the message?
My stomach turned, the single glass of saké wanting to come back out.
They’d been in my home.
While I was asleep in the bath.
More shivers coasted over my skin as the reality hit me. I was lucky to be alive.
I flew down the stairs to the front door.
Every lock was undone.
The door was slightly ajar.
For the first time ever, I pushed the panic button and waited for Rana’s team to storm the penthouse.
CHAPTER TWO
Dax
OPEN YOUR EYES
“Get up, get out, get away from these liars,
'Cause they don't get your soul or your fire.”
Performed by Snow Patrol
Written by Lightbody / Quinn / Connolly / Wilson / Simpson
I’d barely lifted my eyes to the morning sun attempting to filter through the fog outside my window when my phone jangled out Dawson’s ringtone. He’d changed it to “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea as a joke years ago, and I’d been too lazy to change it back.
I rubbed my eyes, pushed a hand through the thick chaos my dark-brown hair became in the mornings, and sat up. The sheet fell away, revealing my tan skin in all its naked glory. Clothes bound me at night, making it impossible to sleep. It had been that way since I was a little kid, startling the nannies and causing my normally cheerful parents to worry until a psychologist explained it wasn’t that uncommon.
The song stopped and started all over again. If I was hoping Dawson would just leave a message, I was out of luck.
“You’re on your honeymoon. Stop calling,” I groused as I answered it.
Dawson and Violet had been gone a month and would be gone another four or five weeks before returning to the Bay Area. They’d escaped the world in a way I didn’t think either of them had ever done before, which was why I’d gladly offered one of my family’s yachts for their extended trip around the Pacific Islands. Dawson had his own yacht, an exclusive Armaud Racing one we’d designed and built together, but it wasn’t made for long-term vacations. In fact, we’d stretched the ship’s capacity when we’d won the Conquistar de la Atlántica cup in it two years ago, speeding across the Atlantic from New York to Spain and back in less than five days.
“Morning to you too, asshole,” Dawson grumbled back.
“Seriously. Aren’t you supposed to be lost in your wife’s skin at this time of the day? Or do I need to worry about you losing your touch now that there’s a ring on her finger?”
“Vi’s actually the reason I’m calling. I promised her I would,” he said with a hint of hesitation to his voice, and my stomach fell.
The few times Dawson had lost his confident swagger with me had never been good. Like the day I’d found out he’d been lying to me while working undercover for the FBI to try and bring down the entire Kyōdaina crime syndicate, using our yachts. Or when he spoke about a certain raven-haired beauty, knowing how it stabbed at me. It spoke volumes that I wasn’t sure which I would rather have at the moment: more lies or thoughts of Jada Mori to taunt me.
“Bordel de merde, just tell me what’s going on,” I groused when I couldn’t handle his silence any longer.
“Did I interrupt something this morning? Or are you in another dry spell? Because I swear, I haven’t heard you this grouchy since―”
“Dawson! Just tell me.”
He sighed. “We need you to go check on Jada.”
Just hearing her name out loud caused my body to stiffen. Chest. Lungs. Dick. Images of black silk haloed around my hips and large eyes full of lust filled my brain. Perfect, bow-shaped lips lilting upward in triumph haunted me. It was the hardest image of her to get out of my head this early in the morning when I had nothing on but a sheet.
There were other images of her I had burned into my brain. Black lace over blue so pale it was almost white. Purple leather and silver sequins. Red tulle. Eyes with liner tipped at the edges to enhance the gentle curves and lush lashes. Hair piled on top of her head, glimmering with highlights and showcasing her slender neck…skin I wanted to caress with fingers and tongue.
It was a daily battle to keep her at the recesses of my brain, and now Dawson had brought her to the forefront.
“Dax?” Dawson’s voice brought me back.
The knot in my chest eased only enough for me to speak in a voice that didn’t sound like mine. It was much deeper, more guttural, as if I were a phone sex operator. “I’m here.”
“You know I wouldn’t ask…” Dawson trailed off.
“Unless it was urgent,” I finished for him. “What happened?”
“We don’t know. She’s just gone all silent-but-strong on us, putting up that damn shield she hides behind. If we send Raisa or Jersey, she’ll fool them with her cool customer act.”
“What makes you think she won’t fool me?” I said, pretending for all of twenty seconds that it was true. That Jada Mori could get something past me when we both knew she couldn’t. I read every single emotion she tried to keep hidden behind her deep brown eyes that matched mine. We were similar in so many ways. Unfortunately, it was our differences that mattered most, and those kept an electric trip wire dragged down the space between us, ready to go off at any moment.
Dawson scoffed, “Come on. Give me some credit. We both know better.”
I didn’t reply.
“You’ll be in San Francisco for the boat show, right?” he asked.
The latest version of our yacht would be unveiled today and would stay on display during the five-day event. This new model was a thing of beauty. Art instead of mere transportation. I’d carefully chosen the platinum metallic paint accented with red, white, and blue stripes to represent the flags of the United States and France―our homelands. When we’d first seen the boat completed, it had almost brought me to tears, and Dawson had been equally choked up. He hated missing the reveal to the public, but his love for a certain purple-haired genius was stronger than his love of our yachts.
My chest tightened back up—this time with longing. I wanted that…to love someone so much that the world faded away. My parents had it. My best friend had it with Violet. I craved it like a tree craved water. The only problem was, I wanted it with someone I could never have.
“I arrived in San Francisco yesterday,” I told him.
“Jada just got back from her grandmother’s. You might be able to catch her at the penthouse this morning before she goes into the Violette offices.”
“She was in New York?” It was more shock than a question that rolled through my voice. She was rarely in the city these days, and going to her grandmother’s place on 5th Avenue had been forbidden. So, why had she broken the tenuous agreement?
I shook my head. I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t know.
“Her grandmother had hip surgery,” Dawson offered, his tone conciliatory. “She might just be acting weird because she’s knee-deep in something she wants to surprise Violet with, but Vi won’t relax until we know for sure.”
“Fine,” I said, feeling anything but.
Dawson breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. “Thanks, Dax. I owe you…”
“You already owe me. I think our scales are pretty much tipped with you needing to give me your firstborn child in order to balance them out.”
“Good luck with that. Violet would poison you first.” His voice had a smile to it. “And if she didn’t succeed, I still have my Glock.”
“Get back to making your firstborn and leave the real world to us imbeciles stuck in it,” I teased back.
I was rewarded with a soft laugh.
I hung up after promising he’d hear back from me soon, and then I sat there, fighting waves of emotions.
“Putain,” I said softly and then dragged my ass into the shower.
Twenty minutes later, I was in the back of an unmarked SUV with my bodyguard and driver, Cillian, at the wheel. The Irish man was one of the largest men I’d ever met—even bigger than Dawson and his brother, Truck, who were both almost Hulk-like. But one look at Cillian’s face with scars barely hidden below his caramel-colored beard that matched the shaved inches on his head, and most people stayed away. He was pretty much the only security I needed these days, but we still had a full team standing by everywhere I went just in case.
Cillian pulled up outside the building where Jada lived across the hall from Dawson and Violet, and I was out on the curb before he could even turn the engine off.
“I’ll text you when I’m ready,” I leaned back in to tell him.
I straightened up, and the sights and sounds of the city hit me, horns and car engines muffled slightly by the hint of fog that still laid over the streets. The sun battling through made the day dreamlike. The wind was chilly, bringing in the salt and fish smells of the bay. I wasn’t a fan of San Francisco any more than I was a fan of Paris. As I got older, the quiet of my family’s villas in Italy and on St. Micah in the Caribbean appealed to me more.
I tugged at the cuffs of my light-blue suit jacket tailored to move with me like a second skin. I’d partnered it with a gray Merino-wool T-shirt and expensive suede sneakers. A careful mix of formal and casual that Papa would approve of as I would be showing his vision of day-casual to the world at the same time as I was unveiling Armaud Racing’s new boat. Two birds, one stone.
I left the street behind to enter the lobby where the man at the desk nodded to me with a smile. He knew me well. Knew me enough to just buzz open the doors of the private elevator leading to the top floor and the four suites that resided there. Jada’s was the largest of them, and it was the only one with two levels.
When the elevator opened, I was surprised to find two bodyguards at Jada’s front door—a man and a woman team I’d seen before, usually in passing as they picked Jada up or waited for her outside a restaurant. Normally, they looked serious but not unfriendly. Today, their glower was sour and surly, which raised the warning bells Dawson’s phone call had already started jangling.
“She’s not seeing anyone,” the man said.
The bells grew louder. Jada rarely turned down visitors. She was a social creature by nature, a being who shined fierce and bright when she had an audience. Usually, the more the merrier. Even though she’d slowed down some since the debacle in New London―since being shot and almost dying―she was still a queen at heart. A queen who needed a court.
“I’m not leaving until I see her, so buzz her and let her know I’m here,” I said casually but firmly. Then, I leaned on the wall opposite them, took out my phone, and thumbed through a social media account I didn’t really care about—one I hadn’t been on in weeks, if not months. My personal assistant, Cara, kept it alive on my behalf.
The door opened, and from under my lashes, I saw the female bodyguard duck inside. She wasn’t gone long before she came back and held the door open, saying, “She’s in the office.”
“Thank you.” I slid past the duo and headed down the hall to the space Jada called an office but looked nothing like her. Even the bright colors strewn about couldn’t soften the cold and uninviting place. It was all ice while Jada was all fire.
Just as I went to grab the doorknob, Jada’s primary bodyguard came out. Rana was a striking Indian woman who, according to Cillian, wasn’t to be underestimated. He’d seen her take down a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound weightlifter while barely breaking a sweat.
“Rana,” I acknowledged her.
She was frowning and as grim as the two at the door. “Dax.”
She swayed down the hall, tapping a pen against a notebook. Nervous energy for someone who was normally calm and unruffled.
The bells kept getting louder.
When I stepped into the room, all thought and breath left me. I’d tried to prepare myself to see her, but Jada knocked me for a loop like she had every single time we’d ever been in a room together. Today, she looked exactly the high-powered businesswoman she’d turned herself into. A slim, gray A-line skirt nestled across her hips, and a bright blue silk top outlined her breasts. Her legs were amplified by stilettos―her signature item―that brought her slight frame almost to my shoulder.
The outfit accentuated every small, firm curve and tempted me to bite them. To taste the fruit I’d barely nibbled at. To crush those bright-pink lips against my mouth and make her mine in a way she hadn’t really ever been, regardless of the handful of kisses we’d shared or the one and only time we’d found ourselves naked in a bed together.
Like me, she was flawlessly put together. It was required of us when cameras turned in our direction the moment we left our homes. The paparazzi giddily watched, waiting to catch us at our worst instead of our best.
But the longer I stared at Jada, the more I also saw the truth. Beyond the perfectly pressed outfit and carefully done makeup, she was exhausted. Her lush, dark lashes were unable to hide the tired that screamed from her soul.
I hadn’t seen her this worn out in several years. Since she’d given up the all-night parties, alcohol, and drugs the members of our social circle were known for. Since she’d become Violet and Dawson’s business partner and had an actual cause to plow her energy into. If her security team hadn’t been wound up, I might have thought she’d gone on a bender, but it was clear there was more going on than just a relapse into old ways.
“Armaud, what did I do to bring you to my doorstep?” she asked, voice light, all tease. It called to me, sinking into my veins. But behind the mocking, I could hear what she wasn’t saying: I was there at a bad time.
“You have plans today?” I asked.
She snorted. “I have plans every day. I was due at the Violette offices two hours ago.”
She leaned so that her butt was against the desk. She neatly crossed one leg over the other, drawing my eyes up the length of them to where the skirt ended. What I wouldn’t give to drag my hands under it. To tuck her up against me. To take her on that desk.
It was ridiculous the thoughts that flew through me whenever I saw her. I enjoyed making love to women. Slow and sensual, fierce and strong, but rarely fast. I relished taking my time, turning minutes into hours, and prolonging the pleasure for both of us. Sex was a euphoric release to be controlled and savored. Except, my body didn’t agree when it came to Jada Mori. Never had one woman consumed me the way she always had. Never.
CHAPTER THREE
Jada
PAPER LOVE
“Oh, I know that boy's gonna rip me up.
'Cause he ain't that nice, he won't do right,
He'll leave a nasty cut.”
Performed by Allie X
Written by Mclaughlin / Hughes / Pimental
Dax Armaud was sin personified standing in front of me. He looked like he’d stepped out of an ad for Éclair, his father’s company, which was probably the point if I knew Dax at all. His dark hair was done up, looking slightly mussed, and a thin, barely-there beard coated his chin and cheeks. Just enough bristle to know it would be rough between my thighs, which sent silent thrills through my body. When I met his eyes, they glimmered at me―a message of desire blended with a warning to stay away.
He was at least a foot taller than me when I was barefoot, and even in my heels, he was still a tower of lean strength. He had muscles, deeply cut ones, but they didn’t add bulk to his frame the way it did some men. Instead, it added to the cover-model feel that his apparel usually screamed, like the blue-and-gray suit he had on today did.
“Why are you running late?” Dax asked. The deep timbre of his voice washed over me, raising goosebumps different from the ones that had littered my body ever since finding the note on my bed the night before.
Rana and her team had taken it as a personal affront that someone had sneaked in on their watch and gone unseen on the security cameras. I’d taken it as a personal affront to the money I’d been spending for them to keep me safe. But I also knew the truth. If my father and the Kyōdaina were coming after me, nothing would stand in their way—especially not three or four bodyguards. Otōsan’s minions would simply kill them and leave a bloody trail behind as a message to others.
“I had some things come up. Again, what are you doing here?” I asked.
He closed the distance between us until his sneakers were mere inches from my stilettos—a mix of apparel that shouldn’t have worked and yet seemed oddly to fit in a way Dax and I would never be able to. Before I could react, his finger hit my chin, drawing my eyes up to his. He searched them, looking for something. Answers or the truth―I wasn’t sure which. Either way, he wouldn’t get them from me, even though the physical contact was almost enough to break me. I wanted desperately to lean into someone, to be held while words were murmured in my ear about how it was all going to be okay.
But that was not my life. Hadn’t been my life in a very long time. Even Obaasan hadn’t been able to help me shoulder my world since the day I’d opened the study in her 5th Avenue apartment to find a man screaming over his lost pinkie, blood dripping onto the desk and the floor.
“I thought you could accompany me to the boat show,” Dax said, but he was really saying something else. There was worry in his eyes. I closed mine, pushed his hand away, and slid away from him, putting the desk between us.
“Violet and Dawson called you,” I said. It wasn’t a question. It was the only reason he’d be here. He would never come willingly. He’d come because they’d asked him to check in on me. I shouldn’t have called Violet this morning. I’d known my fear would leach into the conversation, but I’d, selfishly, needed to hear something good. And Vi’s voice, full of happiness and love, was just that. A salve to my soul.
“Yes,” he said. Dax was almost always honest, even if he tried to soften the blows the truth usually dealt. He slid his hands into his pockets and rocked slightly, as if he was willing himself to stand still. I wasn’t sure if he was fighting the urge to run away or lunge toward me. The sexual tension that always dangled between us was thick this morning, forbidden yearning amplified by not having seen each other since our friends’ wedding.
“I’m fine. I told Violet I was tired from helping Obaasan.” I kept my voice smooth. Casual. Nothing to see here. Go away.
“Did you see anyone else in New York?” he asked.
“Yuriko, who is thrilled to be working for your father now. I’m really happy he picked up her clothing line.” I sat down, reached for my phone, and spun it around. Dax’s eyes on my hand made it still. The phone was an old tell—one he’d read many times before.
“You didn’t see your father, then?” he asked.
I scoffed, “Please.”
“Jada, you might as well come clean. What’s going on?” he asked.
I bristled. I was tired of men telling me what to do, telling me how to run my life. Dawson may have been an equal financial partner in Force de la Violette with Violet and me, but he never inserted himself into it. We ran it the way we wanted. No one told me where to go, or where to stand, or when to speak anymore. No one.
I picked up my laptop, a notebook, and several papers from my desk and shoved them fiercely into the beautiful bag Yuriko had designed just for me. It was leather, satin, and brocade mixed in a way fabric wasn’t supposed to be blended. As I pushed the stack of items inside it, several papers went flying across the desk.
Dax caught them, shuffling them together and then stilling.
As I realized what he held, my heart pounded loudly before stopping completely.
Dax couldn’t read Japanese. He was smart―brilliant in many ways―but the Japanese he knew was all oral. The problem was, the image on the parchment spoke volumes even if he didn’t understand the words. His eyes squinted as he took in the drawing of a kaiken stabbing into a slim wrist with blood oozing out from the cut.
“What’s this?” he asked, thick brows furrowing. In a sea of handsome features, Dax’s eyes were near the top. They were naturally lined, as if he’d been tattooed with permanent liner. It was sexy and beautiful all at the same time, but when he turned to meet my gaze, there was anger in those dark depths and not the lust that normally resided there when looking at me.
I reached across the desk to try and grab the note from him, but he pulled it away and took a step back.
“Jada. Did you get a warning? From the Kyōdaina? Because you went to see your grandmother?”
“No,” I lied perfectly.
He waved the paper at me. “Then what, pour l'amour de Dieu, is this?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, rolled my eyes, and said, “It’s a drawing, Armaud. Give it back.”
“Did you draw it?” Concern filled his voice for a different reason. A woman slitting her wrist. Kaikens had been used for ritualized suicides for centuries.
“I’m not that talented with a pen,” I told him. “I’m also not ready to commit suicide, but if you don’t hand it back to me, leave me alone, and tell the super twins to back off, I might be close to committing murder.”
He took out his phone and snapped a picture.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. I was around the desk and in his space before he could move farther away. I grabbed the paper, and he grabbed my wrist.
“Tell me what it says, or I’ll send it to someone who can.” The slow growl in his voice was appealing in all the ways it shouldn’t have been.
“You do not get to demand anything of me, Armaud. Not. One. Thing.” I raised my chin and fought against his grip.
He looked down at the hold he had on my wrist and let go as if I’d burned him. As if touching me were painful. Maybe it was. Just being close to him was enough to send my libido into a torturous overdrive, an ache of desire shooting through me. It didn’t help that my dry spell had been months long. Dax’s body had always promised me things… The memory of sweet kisses and the one time we’d even come close―the one time I’d come apart on his mouth―was enough to make my nipples tighten.
My body trembled as I turned away, both to hide my reaction and to give myself some much-needed space. I went back to the bag on my desk and slipped the paper in with the other items. When I looked back up, Dax was staring down at his phone again. There was no doubt he’d find out what it said. He had enough resources. Enough friends around the globe who spoke whatever the hell language he needed. I didn’t want him talking to Vi and Dawson about it. I didn’t want them to find out and come running back from their honeymoon in order to try and save me yet again. They’d saved me too many times already.
I sighed.
“It says, ‘Retribution is a duty that will only wait so long,’” I said.
His eyes widened. “It is a threat.”
I shrugged, but my skin prickled again, not from the way Dax’s body made mine heat up but from the icy sensation of someone being in my home and leaving behind the note. A message claiming I only had a short time before something more serious came my way.
“Is that all it says?” he pushed.
“It essentially says, ‘Time’s up,’” I told him.
“Putain de bordel de merde.”
Holy fucking hell was right, but I didn’t say anything aloud. I couldn’t. If I did, I might break down completely, and I had plenty to do today.
“Rana is amping up your security?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Where was the note left?”
I sat down, swallowing. “Why does it matter?”
He read me—like always.
“Here?! They left it here? They were in your home?” He pushed a hand through his stylized hair, ruffling the stiff peaks, mussing it more and making it even sexier, as if it had been tousled in bed. “Fire her. I’ll have Cillian and his team take over.”
“I don’t need your concern or your team. Rana is as pissed as you are, and it sure as hell motivated her to cover our weak spots. They’re figuring it out. We’ll know who it was soon and take care of it.”
“Did you call the police?”
I laughed sarcastically. “No, Armaud. I didn’t. I won’t be calling the police. Isn’t that what got me into this mess to begin with? Working with the FBI?”
He was more upset than I’d expected. He was pacing, hands still running through his hair before stopping to open and close the clasp on his watch—a tell as old as my phone twirling.
“You should tell them—the FBI,” he said.
“And have them run to Dawson? No way,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. “If you tell them and ruin their honeymoon, I’ll hire a hitman to come after you myself.”
“They’re already worried. I have to call them.”
“So, call them, but if you mention this, that image on the warning will be you,” I said, forcing every word to be deadly and calm. I was my father’s daughter. I couldn’t escape it.
“I can’t lie to them. We promised each other only truth after…” he trailed off, looking up at the ceiling and then back to me.
“So, tell them the truth, which is that I’m exhausted. That’s what Vi heard in my voice. I’ll get more rest tonight.”
He scoffed, “Yeah, right. Good luck sleeping with that hanging over you.”
He waved a hand to the note I’d tucked away. I wasn’t sure I’d be sleeping again for months. Not until we found who’d sneaked into my place without leaving even a shadow on the security tapes. Not until I talked with my father and figured out who was coming after me when he’d promised no one would. I’d done one little thing. I’d gone back to Obaasan’s when she needed someone. That loyalty should have been rewarded even if it was in direct violation of our agreement.
“Come with me to the boat show. It’ll take your mind off of it, if nothing else,” he circled back to his original request.
“I have meetings today at Violette. With Violet gone and me in New York for the last three weeks, I need to put in an appearance. We left Joel in charge, which means everything could have been given away by now,” I told Dax, trying to lighten the tension in the air with a jab at our overly bubbly lab tech who’d grown into our operations manager. Joel was the gentlest, kindest man I knew, but he didn’t know how to say no.
“We don’t need to be at the boat show until four. We can stop by the office first.”
“Why are you pushing this?” I demanded, frustration leaking into my tone for the first time.
“Dawson and Violet will never forgive me if I let something happen to you.”
It hurt, stabbing at old wounds—the dark, secret part of my soul that longed for him to say he couldn’t forgive himself if something bad happened to me. Forget Dawson and Violet. I wanted him to need me safe because it would destroy him if I wasn’t. I could admit that much to myself, even if I couldn’t admit why I wanted those things from him. Why was Dax the only one to push those buttons deep inside me?
I knew he cared for me more than most of our so-called friends in the social circle we’d whirled around the globe with. But caring would never turn into something more. It would never be enough for him to forget I was Tsuyoshi Mori’s daughter and he was Étienne Armaud’s son. It would never be enough for us to lose ourselves to the refrain our bodies sang to one another, but I still couldn’t resist him.
I hated that, out of all the things in my world that had tried to undo me, he was the one that actually could.
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