Page 48 of The Queen's Denial

“Chi!” She slaps her hand directly in front of the phone camera and wiggles her fingers. It finally registers.

“Ahhh, you have a big fucking diamond on your finger!” I scream, and for the next two minutes, we are just two squealing girls speaking in our highest pitched voices about Mara’s upcoming nuptials.

“Oh my gosh, I am so fucking happy for you!” I say with a genuine, beaming smile. “I am so… God, Mara, no one deserves happiness more than you do.”

Her eyes soften and she gives me a gentle smile back. I can see the tears forming in her eyes. “Sorry,” she says, swiping the moisture away. “I’m always fucking crying these days.”

“You never have to be sorry. I want to see every happy tear, especially when all we ever usually have are sad ones.”

She laughs and sobs at the same time; a very unflattering sound. And I love it so much. I’m glad that I can be with someone, especially Mara, for a moment like this. That someone gets to have something that truly makes them happy in this life, instead of doing it for some strategy or someone else’s sake.

Chapter 23

Andy

It takes about two months after my brush with death, but considering my injuries, I’m back to my old self in record time, as I expected to be. I feel healed and well, and only take it easy on the weightlifting.

I don’t want to worry Chi, or even her father, with my thoughts. They’ve had a rough time too, with what happened when he got shot a few months ago, as well as everything that happened when the war ended. They both adapt to changing situations exceedingly well, but I wouldn’t bring anything to their attention unless it was very important. Plus, I’ve already told Akio of my concerns with his new men, and at the end of the day, these are his grounds and his family to protect.

I have a meeting off the grounds and feel like I’m being pulled every which way. But if Cas always kept this shit straight, so can I. I’ve been meeting with politicians and assorted dirty cops who want to make nice with Cas after the war. We have had most of the dirty cops who came after us initially dealt with. The ones that are still alive are the ones I can turn and use for our own purposes.

So now turning a bunch of dirty government officials has been added to my normal duties. That takes up a lot of my time, and I have less of it to spend worrying about the chance of having a possible mole.

I still wish Akio would vet his men more carefully but I am not sure how he would do so. Even though he is still recovering from having a mole in his ranks mere months ago, he still believes no one will penetrate his forces again. I understand that he puts a lot of faith in Cas and me after we saved his ass on multiple occasions, but there is only so much we can do after he has made his decisions.

It seems that he feels safer with more soldiers. He’s choosing quantity over quality. I have to disagree with this approach, as I’ve seen firsthand what can happen when there’s a traitor in your ranks. But discussing anything you disagree over with Akio Yan is a precarious undertaking that I don’t enjoy and rarely excel at.

I know that I have to talk to him, but I have other shit that needs my attention. Cas and Mara are super busy, and I don’t want to bother them with this shit anyway when they are finally finishing up fighting a battle for Mara’s inheritance. Everything has been relatively quiet, but I put in a call to Oxy to make 100% certain she’s really keeping an ear out for everything.

“Well, I did catch something the other day,” she starts, as if she has a huge nugget of juicy gossip but wants to play it cool. Which I know is exactly what she’s doing. Oxy likes to pretend she’s untouched by normal human inclinations such as gossiping, but she’s not.

“Spill it,” I say, trying to play the same disinterested game as she’s playing.

“Okay, well, you know these assholes Chi is meeting with?”

I hold back my urge to hiss at the thought and push out a simple, “Mmmhm?”

“So, one of them — that guy, Sota — was not happy when they left. Pissed, actually. I caught his father on one of the outdoor cameras, cursing the fuck out of Akio. Like, how sorry he was gonna be and shit like that.”

I consider the information judiciously. “Well, I do think there are a lot of people who don’t like Akio, Oxy.”

I can almost hear Oxy’s shrug over the phone. “Well, you asked for anyone who sounded suspicious. I thought it was pretty suspect, personally. Especially when he called Chi a cunt.”

I don’t hold my hiss back this time. “He what?”

“Ah, thought that might get your attention.” I imagine her leaning back in her chair, smoking a cigarette, drowning in smug satisfaction, as if I’ve admitted some critical secret she could use to her advantage if she were so inclined. “Wasn’t just him, either. His dad did, too. And from what I saw of the footage in the ballroom, the dad was supposed to be going back and teaching that little fuck a lesson. Instead, he started commiserating with him right after he left the mansion.”

Now I want to rip the heads off of these assholes, but I take a steady breath. I realize that getting this angry doesn’t often produce rational results. “Did you clear it with Akio before you started watching conversations in the ballroom?”

Oxy scoffs. “He knows he’s on camera all day, dude. He knows who he hired. This is just par for the course.”

I breathe out heavily. I have this feeling that Akio would kill me if he knew my tech guru was spying on him in his home, but I don’t bother saying anything about it. The truth is, Oxy is smart and capable and could probably save any of these guy’s asses in a heartbeat. Her services, however she chooses to render them, are extremely helpful.

“Fine,” I say, giving up worrying about it. Oxy’s going to do whatever she wants anyway; she always does. And she can. She has the assets to back herself up. “So, did they — or anyone, actually — say anything else?”

“Well, it got me curious, I will admit. You’d be surprised what people will divulge when they feel a sense of privacy, even if they know your house is full of recording devices that pick up every word they say. All those guys she met with were kind of huge assholes. One of them couldn’t stop talking about how much better he could make everything in the mansion. Then there was Mr. Romance, who waited until he was outside, but I still picked him up, telling his father how bad he wanted to nail her. And it wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill, ‘I want to fuck her so bad,’ kind of conversation. He used many very unflattering terms; let’s just say that. And there was this super weird kid who was so cute, talking about how beautiful she was and how nice she’d be to have as a wife, but his father was completely uninterested in everything he was saying. Just ‘yessing’ him to death and then finally telling him to shut up. It was kind of funny.”

I breathe out, considering what to do with this new knowledge. “Do you think any of it is a threat?”

---