Page 93 of Crossed By the Stars
“So defiant. So strong. You must not stay. Too…too m-many enemies.”
Kaida collapsed on the other side of my father, her eyes as full of tears as mine. She loved him. Maybe even more than me.
“Oyabun, help is coming.”
He shook his head, eyes glassy. “Take Jada-tan. You m-must both go!”
Kaida shook her head just like I had, a surprising moment of disobedience from the ever-faithful servant.
The men around us were suddenly drawing guns, and my heart pounded, making it even more difficult to hear anything but the pulsing in my veins. But the guns were not pointed at us. Instead, they were pointed to a group that had emerged from the side yard and was coming down the path.
Cillian, Rana, and several others dressed all in black moved forward in a circular formation with their guns out. In their midst was Dax with his own gun—a gun I was pretty sure he’d never used before. My stomach turned, and my tears turned into sobs. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t lose Dax at the same time as I lost the father who’d saved me, who’d somehow loved me enough to trade my life for his even when he’d never once said the words to me.
Dax’s eyes grew grimmer as he saw me covered in blood that wasn’t mine, hands on my father’s chest. Kaida drew her knife as Dax knelt near me. She leaned over my father, protecting him, sharp edge nearing Dax’s chest.
“Stay back,” she hissed.
“I’m not here for him,” he told her, trying to reassure her by tugging at my arm.
I pulled away from him, shaking my head.
“My father,” I croaked.
Dax looked from me to the man whose chest I was holding, brows furrowing in confusion. I hated my father, and yet there I was, suddenly desperate to save him. I had so many questions for him. So many things to say that I’d never been able to.
My father coughed, blood streaming from his mouth, and my heart wrenched with sadness and loss that I’d never expected to feel at his death.
Otosan’seyes landed on Dax. “Take her…m-make her go.”
“Mon bijou, he’s right. We need to go,” he said, eyeing the men all pointing guns at each other as they surrounded us.
I shook my head.
My father grabbed Dax’s arm even though doing so made him gasp with pain. “Tell your father…h-he died. The man who killed Élodie. He died.”
Dax’s eyes grew wide.
Otosan’shand fell. “I m-mourned her loss… I took his life, his money, his organization and crushed it… H-he paid for what he t-took.”
My tears wouldn’t stop.
My father’s eyes closed.
“Oyabun!” Kaida cried, falling onto his chest, dislodging my hands. Her sobs were as loud as the ones coming from the pagoda where Ichika was still wailing, loud enough that I could hear them clearly through the cotton cloud taking over my head.
I looked down at my father as the breath seemed to leave his body, the limbs going still. He was gone. The blood pouring from the wound that was dead center in his chest would have been nearly impossible to survive, but I’d suddenly wanted it more than anything I’d wanted from him in a very long time. I’d wanted him to live. To tell me the secrets he’d kept from me. From all of us.
Dax put his arm around my waist, lifting me as he stood. “We have to go,” he mumbled in my ear. My chest hurt. My body hurt. My lungs were having difficulty breathing.
Cillian, who’d been standing over us, reached down to tug at Kaida. “You need to come,” he said.
She shook her head. “I will not leave him.”
“It’s your funeral,” Cillian said with a shrug.
“Kaida…Ito-san…you shouldn’t stay,” I said gently, reaching down to touch her shoulder. AsOtosan’spersonal guard, she would not be trusted by whoever filled my father’s shoes. She would be a loose end that needed to be tied.
“I will not leave him,” she sobbed. She dropped the knife and pulled two guns from her jacket. She pointed them in both directions. “I will make sure he is taken by those we trust.”
