Page 6 of Science Project

“Right …” Akio adjusted his glasses and opened his spiral notebook that held all his notes from this entire semester. “Mr. Woodward is letting us do the project on anything that we learned this semester. What do you want to do?”

Dad’s promise flickered into my mind. He had already made an appointment with a plastic surgeon for me, but if I proved to him that I could get information out of Akio and anyone else he told me to, then maybe he would reconsider.

Maybe he wouldn’t make me get any surgery.

So, I leaned closer to Akio and placed my hand on his knee underneath the table.

He tensed. “We-we can do the musculoskeletal system or endocrine or …”

I moved my hand up his thigh. “Or maybe the reproductive system?”

CHAPTER

FOUR

AKIO

“Get out, Akio,” Mom growled at me from outside of the car. She stood next to Dad with her arms crossed over her chest and her silky black dress blowing slightly in the fall breeze. “We don’t have all day.”

After grumbling to myself, I stepped out of the backseat and followed them into the restaurant. We were meeting Imani Abara and her family for dinner because Dad loved to try to set me up with a smart, rich girl.

“Yui,” the hostess said to Mom with a tense smile. “Right this way.”

She led us through the busy, upscale restaurant in the heart of Redwood and gestured to a table large enough to sit six people. Dad peeled off his coat as the hostess leaned into Mom to whisper something.

Instead of sitting down with Dad, Mom snapped her sharp claws around my upper arm and continued to push me toward the back. We stumbled through the kitchen, and the cooks scrambled out of the way to let her through.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’re going to do something for me.”

I dug my heels into the ground. “No.”

She pushed me out the door and shoved me onto the gravel. “You don’t get a choice.”

Before I could land on my hands and knees, I caught myself and took a few more strides forward to regain my balance. My gaze landed on a man who looked vaguely familiar, kneeling on the ground with his hands tied behind his back.

Mom held out a gun for me. “You’re going to kill him.”

“No.”

“Akio.”

“I’m not going to kill anyone,” I said again. “You already know this.”

Eye twitching—which meant that she was pissed the fuck off—Mom cleared her throat and nodded to the guards she used in the Redwood mob. “Release him.”

I didn’t know why the hell she continued to try to make me part of these games that I didn’t want to play. Every time that Dad tried to help, she was way too controlling to let him do anything for her. Or maybe she just wanted to protect him.

This bitch must’ve wanted me to die, didn’t she?

Once the man was untied, she tossed the gun at his feet.

“Kill my son, and I’ll set you free,” Yui said.

What the?—

With the gun at his knees, the guy stared between Mom and me for a few moments, as if he didn’t know what kind of game Mom was playing. But I did. She was doing this to get what she wanted from me.

---