Page 97 of Crossed By the Stars
We all stared at the shut door, unable to process the multiple bombs the woman had dropped before leaving.
It was Rana who moved first, extending her hand. “I’ll take it to Malone.”
I covered Jada’s hand holding the USB drive with my own and said, “No.”
Jada looked up at me with surprise in her eyes.
“Your father died for that information. You shouldn’t give the original to anyone. Copies, sure. But the original should go somewhere safe.”
I took a moment to explain to Jada everything she’d missed when Rana had joined Cillian and me in the Escalade in front of Mori Enterprises. About the FBI and Yano hacking into everyone’s systems. I didn’t give a shit that Rana was standing right there as I told Jada we didn’t know who we could trust. TheKyodaina—or what was left of it—had always had people in high places. Plus, if Yano had hacked into it all before, who said he wouldn’t again? The information could disappear entirely if she let go of the one thing she had against them all. I wasn’t sure if Ito-san had other copies, but I didn’t want Jada to risk the one she had.
Cillian nodded. “He’s right.”
Rana rubbed her temples. “He is.”
Jada seemed to assess Rana for a long time, in a way that reminded me of the father she’d just lost. “I don’t want you here if you’re working for the FBI.”
“I’m not. Not anymore,” Rana said vehemently.
“How will I ever know that for sure?”
“I guess you won’t. All I can guarantee is that I won’t fail you again.” Her words were a pledge that seemed to ring true?only time would really tell?but it seemed to satisfy Jada, for the moment.
We sat down at the table and made a plan for sharing the data on the drive, backing it up, and where to hide it in case we ever needed it again. An insurance policy. And once Rana and Cillian left the room, Jada and I made another plan—one that only we knew about.
Then, I turned off the lights, took her hand in mine, and pulled her back toward the bedroom. She came willingly, curling up into me, a hand to my chest, head resting on my bicep, and staring into my face in the moonlit room. I hadn’t shut the blinds, and the rare clear night in the city sent white shimmers through the space, turning Jada’s hair into a dazzling display, like diamonds laid out against the sky.
“I have to go to Japan,” she said. “ToKaasan. For the funeral.”
I nodded.
“Will you come with me?” she asked.
I caught my breath and ran a finger along her jaw. “Where you go, I go.”
She closed her eyes, dark lashes hitting swollen cheeks. When she lifted them back up, I could see tears glittered there once more. “When I thought I was going to die…I had only one regret.”
“Only one?” I tried to tease, but my voice broke with emotions, fear hitting me at her words about death.
She put her hands on my cheeks, leaning in and placing a gentle kiss on my lips before backing up and staring into my face again.
“I love you,” she said, and my heart leaped, pounding in my chest as hard as it had earlier in the garden with her covered in blood, but for a completely different reason. For joy instead of sorrow. Jada continued before I could collect myself enough to respond. “If I didn’t get the chance to say that…I would have wandered the lost lands of the in-between worlds forever. I love you, Dax Armaud. More than I should because…you deserve better than the life I’m dragging you into.”
I grunted my disapproval at her disparaging herself and her life. “Mon petit bijou, you continue to be the bravest, strongest, fiercest woman I’ve ever met. Being in your life, being loved by you, and being able to love you in return…there is no greater honor.”
She swallowed hard. “I may always have a target on my back. I…if something happened to you…because of me...”
“All the more reason to disappear to St. Micah. To retreat to a life where no one feels threatened by us.”
“I can’t leave Violet and our company,” she said, shaking her head.
“And I can’t leave Dawson and Armaud Racing. We’ll make it work.”
I leaned in and kissed her, gentle and soft, licking the seam of her perfect lips, and she opened for me, letting me explore the silky recesses at my own pace, letting the hurt, and fear, and sorrow get lost in the fires of desire and yearning. She pushed back, tongue surging with mine and teeth nipping frantically. The reckless pace that Jada had always preferred.
We battled it out, the tug for slow against the push for fast. I relented first because Jada had lost control of her whole world for twenty-four hours, and she needed this. She needed to know that she controlled something in her life, and in this moment, that could easily be me.
I was on my back with her straddling me before I could think much further on it. Her core aligned with mine in way too many clothes, our hands seeking skin, our lips continuing to devour each other. Heat surged through every vein, filling me until all I could sense was Jada. Her scent, her power, her aching longing. Her sadness that needed to be lost in something. We shed our clothes, our bodies joined, and the world disappeared until there was only her and I and the moonlight. The dark and light that would forever bemon bijou.
