Page 92 of Disguised as Love

I didn’t know why I nodded, but I did. He smiled again, wide and gorgeous and stunning, and then he walked away, blending in with the night and chaos of the private airport. My heart seemed to rip in half as he left.

How could one person become so important to me in such a short time? How could I feel like I was suddenly half of a human just because he wasn’t there? It made no sense. It was a scientific problem that had no solution. Not even a working theory. It was a complete mystery.

I turned on my heel and went back inside the plane.

I couldn’t bear the looks my parents were shooting me, so I headed for the bedroom where they’d put Ilia. Ito-san was standing at one of the small windows, watching Cruz leave. For the first time since I’d met her, I wondered what their relationship had been. Had he used her like he’d used me, only to evoke emotions that neither of us wanted?

I glanced at Ilia who had a breathing tube in his mouth, eyes closed, hands still. His chest rose and fell to the beat of the machines, and the noise filled the compartment. The sounds should have masked my entry, but Ito-san heard me anyway.

“You don’t have to stay,” I told her quietly. “Ilia is our responsibility. We’ll make sure he gets the best care.”

“What will you do with him after? Even with surgery, the life he knew is over,” she said, and somehow, I didn’t think we were talking just about Ilia.

“Papa always takes care of the people who work for us. We don’t abandon them just because they get hurt,” I said, irritated that she would think we would just cast him aside.

She looked away from me.

“He won’t want your charity,” she said.

“It isn’t charity,” I said. “He saved Mama and me.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll stay. He has options. I want him to know it,” she insisted.

I frowned. “You don’t work for the FBI, then?”

Ito-san laughed. “No. I’ve worked for one criminal organization too many, and the Bureau is just a glorified version of them, hiding behind the word justice. I worked with Malone because it served my purpose.”

“And that purpose had you walking into a gunfight with us?” I asked.

She flicked me a look and then glanced away.

“That was so I could sleep at night with a clear conscience.”

I wasn’t sure I believed her, but I wasn’t sure it mattered either. I headed back for the door that led to the main cabin and my family, and I said the words I knew my father would say. “Whatever your reasons, we’re in your debt. You’ll always be welcome in our home. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

Her words halted me as I went to leave again.

“He loves you,” she said, and I turned back to see her looking out the window once more in the direction that Cruz had gone.

“What?”

“It doesn’t happen often in this crappy world…finding real, true, pure love. I’ve seen it twice before. My…my half sister and her friend both found it. Malone looks at you the way their husbands look at them. As if the sun rises and sets on you.” There was a wistfulness to her voice that didn’t fit the tough image she presented to the world.

“I don’t even know anything about Cruz Malone,” I said quietly. “He certainly doesn’t know the real me. He only knows what he’s read in some report.”

She laughed. It was sarcastic and dry. “You don’t need to know someone’s favorite color in order to find the person you were meant for. Souls seek out souls. They find each other again and again every time they are reborn. You can deny it and walk away, but you’ll live your entire life craving it. And when you die and come back, the dance will begin all over, seeking each other out amongst the nearly eight billion people on the planet. The odds are against you every time. Just remember that before you decide it isn’t worth fighting for when you’ve actually found one another.”

Her words caused a shiver to run up my spine, like Mama’s premonition that we weren’t going back to the palace. But also like Mama’s premonition, her words didn’t have to be true. We’d gone home. We’d survived.

I would survive this as well.

Cruz

AFTERMATH

“If we can make it through the storm,

And become who we were before,

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