Page 88 of Crossed By the Stars
She shrugged. “Eye for an eye, right?”
I stared at her as rage I rarely let govern my life filled me. I was angry that she’d left Jada. Angry that the FBI was using her again. Angry that Rana was accusing my family of being as bad as theKyodainaitself.
“You can’t mean my aunt?” I said, eyes narrowing. “How do you even know about that?”
Cillian looked between us, brows furrowed.
“It’s public record,” Rana continued. “She was killed at Mori’s testing grounds, right? Your father had to be furious about that. Even thirty years later, I bet he’s still pissed. Losing a twin to Mori had to have left a pretty deep scar.”
Cillian grunted his disbelief.
“Fuck you,” I snarled. “We aren’t theKyodaina. We don’t kill or steal or betray the people we love.”
We glared at each other.
Cillian’s eyes narrowed at Rana, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “Let me get this straight. You’re FBI, but you left your primary source to gather additional intel on your own, and you have no proof to offer us—for any of this.”
Rana didn’t even bat an eye. She just lifted her chin higher in a move that reminded me of the woman I loved who I’d left in her father’s office unprotected. “Pretty much sums it up. I’m up shit creek once Malone surfaces. I’ll likely lose my job. But I do know that Yano hacked not only mine but Reinard’s systems. That’s how Mori found you today. You had a GPS tracker on her, right?”
Cillian and I shared a look.
“How do we know you didn’t just follow us?” Terrence asked, speaking my thoughts from before aloud.
“You don’t.” She glared at him as if she wasn’t happy to have him speak at all. She reached for the backpack at her feet, and all the guns in the car clicked in her direction. She didn’t seem to care. “I’m just pulling out my laptop.”
She opened it, typed in a long sequence of letters and numbers to log in, and then opened up an app. “Look for yourself.”
She handed the laptop to Cillian.
He scrolled through several pages, getting paler than I’d ever seen the man.
“They had complete access?” he asked quietly. “To all of this?”
Rana nodded.
“Fuck,” my bodyguard said, sounding rattled when I’d rarely seen him that way before today.
He handed the computer back.
“What has any of this to do with thechakaiat the Matsudas?” I asked.
“We’ve suspected for a while now that Ichika Matsuda controls one of the factions fighting for power,” Rana said. “She’s harnessed a group of wives and daughters of theKyodaina,and they’ve been taking out male counterparts right and left. Mori thinks Hiroto has Alzheimer’s, but we think Ichika has been poisoning him.”
Cillian and I exchanged another confused look. Rana just continued.
“Then, there’s Osamu Yamasaki, Mori’s senior advisor. He and his brother had their own little criminal organization before Mori folded it into his. Yamasaki’s brother died in the process, by the way. We believe he’s lost faith in Mori—or maybe was just playing a decades-long game of revenge. He definitely wasn’t happy Mori was letting Ichika take over for her husband?Alzheimer’s or not. Yamasaki flew in this morning. He and his wife will be at the Matsudas today with everyone else.”
“He’s using Jada as bait,” Cillian said, “hoping to lure one or all of the faction leaders out into the open.”
Rana nodded.
I sat there stunned, stomach falling, heart pounding. So many feelings were reeling through me, but fear was the one that emerged the strongest. Jada was walking into a gunfight in a kimono with no one at her back besides Kaida and her knife.
Cillian put his hand to his ear.
“The invitation says thechakaiis taking place at the Matsudas at two.”
“Is the FBI sending backup?” I asked Rana.
