Page 11 of Crossed By the Stars
“Being Dawson’s friend, you mean.”
It hurt. That she thought I would only do this because of Dawson’s request for me to check in on her. Jada and I had been friends for much longer. I’d sat at her side and snickered with her through the charity events we’d been dragged to years before Dawson had entered our world. And yet, she was also right, because I wouldn’t have shown up at her penthouse that morning if Dawson hadn’t called me. I’d evaded interaction with Jada as much as possible over the last few years.
“I’m coming,” I repeated, determination filling me. Cillian didn’t like it any more than Jada did. He and I exchanged a look. I rubbed the corner of my right eye—a signal we’d agreed on long ago. A signal that said,hang back but follow. He still didn’t like it but gave me the return signal—a tug at the left sleeve of his jacket.
When I turned back around, Ito-san was already leading the way out of the restaurant with Jada and Rana on her heels. It took several long strides through the tables to catch up as the flickering lights turned the guests' faces into mirage-like images, fading in and out just like the conversations in the room. I could only hope pictures of this wouldn’t make it to social media. ThatPapawouldn’t see me scurrying after the Moris and their bodyguards.
When we emerged from the restaurant, the chilly air hit me in the face. The fog had rolled back in, turning the November night even darker. The streetlights were vainly trying to push through the haze settling down on top of the sidewalks.
Ito-san didn’t even hesitate as she marched through clouds and the bustle of people headed toward the bars and restaurants this part of the city was famous for. She stopped at a black sedan, opening the rear door. Jada slid in, and when Rana went to follow, Ito-san stepped between her and the opening. “No. You must wait here, with me.”
I ignored them both, pushing past them to join Jada into the dark recesses of the vehicle, hoping that I could save us both from whatever new hell her father promised us.
Jada
LIVE TO SURVIVE
“You cling to lies and call it truth.
It's so deep in your nature,
You dragged me down that hole with you.”
Performed by MØ
Written by Ailin / Orsted / Lewis / Sivertsen
The streetlights behind my father’s headturnedhis face into shadows. I hadn’t seen him in two years, and those years had not been kind. He’d always had an agelessness to him, skin almost wrinkle-free, shoulders broad and powerful. Now, even in the darkness, I could see the new lines that creased his brow and surrounded his lips. There was more white in his hair than ever before. His lifestyle?his world?seemed to have crashed into him at full intensity, finally leaving a mark.
“Otosan,” I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. Showing fear was never received well in his presence. Emotions of any kind were not respected, but being afraid was its own kind of sin.
“Musume,” he acknowledged with a slight tilt of his head. The word “daughter” was uttered as further depersonalization of our relationship. I no longer even had a name.
As a little girl who’d amused him by wielding the sword behind his desk and fighting pretend dragons, I’d beenJada-tan. I’d lost the-tanwhen he’d found my naked body entwined with our very attractive male chauffeur at fifteen. I’d wanted my father to find us like that?entangled in the backseat?but I’d been unprepared for the loss I’d felt when he’d withdrawn further instead of storming into my world more. Now that I’d betrayed him by becoming an informant for Dawson and the FBI, I was even less. I wasn’t sure what it would take for me to go frommusumeto nothing. To someone who no longer had the right to breathe.
He looked behind me to where Dax had joined me. I hadn’t wanted Dax there. I didn’t want him anywhere near my father, and yet I’d allowed him to come. It was strange, the dichotomy of emotions Dax had filled me with since showing up in my penthouse that morning. I wanted to escape into his pretty, clean world as much as I wanted to show him the complete and utter dirtiness of mine. It was the same beg and push I’d once thrown toOtosan, the one that had ended with this—the word daughter spoken like a curse word.
“You broke your word again,” he said in Japanese, a way to shield his message from Dax. What he didn’t know was that Dax could speak Japanese with some semblance of accuracy. I knew because I’d been the one to teach it to him. It had been a joke at first, merely a way to spend our stolen moments while we escaped the events our parents attended on opposite sides of ballrooms.
“I haven’t,” I told my father with a shake of my head. “Unless you really think making sureObaasanwas okay counts as breaking my word.”
“I would have overlooked that if it hadn’t come with a new listening device planted in her apartment,” he said.
My surprise must have registered with him as being authentic, because his nostrils flared as if he’d been certain it had been me. No, he’d been hoping. It would have been easier if there was only one mole in his organization. One traitor.
“If there was one, I had nothing to do with it.” I backed up my surprised look with the words to match it.
His eyes?the ones I’d inherited?round and wide with dark lashes, narrowed at me. “It would be a strangely timed coincidence,Musume,” he responded.
“Or it was there before, and you only found it because you don’t trust me.”
“A mistrust you’ve earned.”
I had. I couldn’t deny it. There’d been so many reasons I’d agreed to help Dawson and the FBI, but the main one had been the need to strike back at him, to hurt the man who’d all but abandoned me to be raised by a grandmother who came and went and a staff who reported my every action to him.
“Why would I do that?” I asked. “You promised my friends and I would be safe. That’s all I care about. I wouldn’t risk them.”
My heart was pounding furiously, and my skin felt heated and tight as if I might faint, just like I had that fateful day in the study atObaasan’s. The day my entire world had crumbled one step further.
