Page 68 of Crossed By the Stars
Dax stilled, then he slowly reached out to grab my hand. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“I lost it, fainting and then coming back around screaming. I was hysterical. He had his minion drag me to my bedroom. I was still sobbing whenOtosanfollowed me into the room. I was babbling about ambulances and police, and he locked me in until I could calm down.”
“Mon petit bijou…”
I shook my head. “Don’t you dare pity me. Don’t you dare!”
He took the tray and set it on the floor before turning back and tugging me into him, and I let him hold me. “I don’t pity you,chérie. But I can be sorry that you had to see that.”
“It wasObaasanwho eventually came to get me out. She explained that my father was a very powerful man in a very dark world, but that I must forget what I saw. That I could never talk to anyone, most especially the police, about it. That I couldn’t talk to my teachers or even my friends.”
“You could have told me,” he said quietly.
“You’d already moved on,” I responded, the ache of that loss still with me even all these years later.
His arms tightened around me, his chin resting on the top of my head. “I never moved on. I tried desperately to bury thoughts of you because I thought that was what I had to do, but I never forgot. I missed you.”
I didn’t respond because my heart was in my throat, clogging it with a wealth of emotions that I normally hated to feel. Sorrow. Heartache. Love.
It was Dax who spoke again. “I left you, and your world crumbled, so you reached out to anyone who’d look at you for even a few moments.”
It was the truth, but it sounded harsh when it was spoken out loud. The remorse in his voice was almost a scream through the quiet room.
“I wouldn’t change any of it,” I said quietly. “I found Violet. I found Dawson. And now we have this amazing company we’ve made that brings healthy skincare and natural antimicrobials to the world. Our products may not be curing cancer, but we’re preventing it because we aren’t using chemicals that, ten years from now, will be linked to the disease.”
He chuckled. “Now you sound like Violet—or maybe Business Jada.”
“Business Jada?” I pushed away and glared at him.
“So many different versions of you,mon bijou. And I love every one of them.”
His hand stroked my cheek.
“Not Druggy Jada, or Sex Addict Jada, or Unhinged Jada.”
“I love all the versions of you because I can see, underneath them, the stargazer struggling to find her way back to the surface. I see the bravery it took to not give up completely. The strength it took to join forces with Dawson and the FBI.”
I waved my hand. “That was just another way for me to strike at my father. It wasn’t that I really cared about the right or wrong of what he was doing.”
“I think you like telling yourself that, but you were brought up to believe in honor, and then your father tried to destroy it. You fought back, knowing it could end your life. It was brave.”
“It was stupid. And now I’m still paying for it. Dawson and Violet and you are paying for it.”
He didn’t deny it, but after a long moment, he said, “I think you did more damage than you thought. He’s fighting for his kingdom. You brought him to his knees.”
“More like I made him bend his head. He’s a long way from his knees. And you know what they say about angering the serpent. It will always strike back.”
Dax didn’t say anything for so long I wondered if he’d fallen asleep, but then he took the bracelet from my hand and clasped it around my wrist.
“All the more reason to wear this,” he said quietly.
I wanted to laugh bitterly because Dax truly didn’t know my father at all if he thought a GPS tracker would prevent him from getting to me. Nothing would. He always got what he wanted…which had me back to wondering if it was him that was coming after me through Kaida. If he always got what he wanted, and he wanted me safe, then I should be. Only he could put out the hit on me and make it stick…right?
But I couldn’t seem to make the thoughts linger tonight.
My stomach was full, the medicine was loosening the tightness in my muscles, and Dax’s arms were warm and comforting around me. It lulled me back into a dreamless sleep, the first in many, many days where there was nothing but empty skies.
Dax
