Crossed by the Stars: A Second-chance, Slow-burn Romance

by LJ Evans

  “Hell, she’s lucky to be alive,” he said quietly. He watched me for a moment as the anger left him and sadness appeared—such strange emotions from a man who was normally cheerful and calm. “This is why I’ve always told you to stay away, Dax. The Moris will never bring anything but pain and loss to those in their lives. The darkness of their world doesn’t know how to end in any other way but violence.”

  He was right. But what was I to do with the feelings I had whenever she entered the room? The desire to protect her from everything not only in her father’s world but in any world she chose to live in? How could I explain to him that I felt like half of a man every time I turned away from her instead of standing by her side?

  I simply told the truth. “I love her.”

  Papa’s eyes widened.

  “It’s impossible. You know that!”

  “I do. Obviously. Hence the bags under my eyes and the exhaustion.”

  He watched me for a long moment, fighting emotions I’d never seen my father fight before. “You want to be with her anyway. Regardless of what I’ve told you?”

  “She isn’t going to be tied to him anymore.”

  “She will always be at his beck and call. Always. He will never let her escape.” His anger flew through him again, dark and insidious, like a tumor slowly eating away inside him. This was not my father.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I demanded, sitting up, leaning toward him.

  He rubbed his forehead. “He is the reason your aunt Élodie was killed.”

  I felt like he’d hit me, and my body shoved back into the chair, air disappearing from my body and making my lungs scream.

  “Tell me,” I demanded.

  And he had.

  The bitter, cold history of our families that could never be changed.

  I’d ripped open a scar inside my father that day, caused pain and anguish I never wanted to be the reason for again. So, instead of finally giving in to the feelings I had for her, I’d repeated my actions from our teen years. I’d disappeared from Jada’s life and sought out a different woman to try and wash away my feelings. I’d lost myself in the skin of the nearest female I could find―Benita.

  Only, two years hadn’t cleansed me of anything. Every emotion I felt for Jada was still right there, barely concealed below the surface. Unfortunately, tonight, my father’s words had proven true. Tsuyoshi Mori had called, and Jada had gone to him. Even worse, he’d spoken about my aunt as if she were still alive. As if me reminding him of her was nothing more than seeing your friend’s child have the same smile as them. I’d felt my father’s fury inside me at the casualness of it. The complete disregard for what he’d done.

  The only thing I could do was to continue to deny the energy and attraction buzzing between Jada and me, even if it drove me to the edge of sanity. Even if it meant I never found what my parents or Dawson and Violet had. Even if it left me feeling like half of a goddamn man torn between two worlds.

  Jada

  TRYING TO BE GOOD

  “Wonderland is far away but there's others, they say

  Anyone could change if they wanted to.”

  Performed by MØ

  Written by Bhattacharyya / Orsted

  I’d slept like shit again, and it was obvious as I looked at myself in the mirror. I dabbed furiously at the dark circles under my eyes in an attempt to hide them. The threatening note, Dax appearing on my doorstep, and the exchange with my father after two years of nothing had me tossing and turning. When I did sleep, it was full of tortured dreams that featured Dax, his tongue, and a constant replay of the earth-shattering orgasm he’d wrenched from me one time in our lives. A single, solitary event that had embedded itself in my soul.

  I shook my head, trying to shake away the memories. I needed to get laid. I needed to get lost in something before the void deep inside consumed me. It wasn’t a good mental state to be in, and I knew it. In the past, these feelings would have led to week-long parties hosted in whichever of my father’s homes was closest. Alcohol, drugs, and sex keeping my demons at bay. People coming and going. Music turned up loud and never stopping. A rhythm that would hide the emptiness.

  I refused to let that be my life anymore. Instead, I’d fill the emptiness with work and the laundry list of things needing to be done at Force de la Violette.

  I gave up on the makeup. If I added more, I’d look like a mannequin who’d undergone some ritualized hazing. I climbed into my pink stilettos, picked up my bag, and headed down the glass staircase.

  Rana was waiting for me on the ugliest couch in existence. Maybe I’d go shopping after work. Maybe I’d finally start replacing the things that weren’t mine with things that were.

  “Good morning,” she said, waving her iPad at me. “I’d like to go through the increased security protocols with you.”

  “I trust you,” I told her more because I wanted to trust her than because I actually did. I wanted to believe she could keep me safe, but I also knew the truth. No matter how good Rana was at her job, the Kyōdaina were better. They always got their mark.

  “At a minimum, you need to revisit the hand signals that I gave you originally. You saw how beneficial it was to Cillian and Dax last night. If something had gone wrong in the car with your father, you could have put your hand on the window, palm out, and I would have known to come in and get you.”

  She handed me a piece of paper with a list of motions and meanings that I’d have to memorize and practice in order for them to look natural. I slid the paper into my bag. “I’ll look them over.”

  “Jada―”

  “I promise. I will look at them. I’m not blowing you off.”

  She stared at me for a long moment before giving me a curt nod.

  “You’re going straight to the Violette offices this morning?” she asked.

  “I want to make a stop in Japantown to get a new teapot for Obaasan. When I texted her last night, she said the nurse had broken hers,” I replied.

  My grandmother had seemed more upset than I’d ever known her to be. Although she wouldn’t admit it, I was sure it was because the kyusu had been a wedding gift from my grandfather.

  As we left the apartment, Nyra and Bobby joined us, leaving another man I didn’t know to stand guard at the apartment. The four of us journeyed to the underground garage in a staggered formation with them checking around each corner before allowing me to move again. It felt ridiculous. Over-the-top. It made me feel guilty that they could be collateral damage in a war between me, my father, and whoever was coming after me.

  Once in the car and on the way to the tea shop, I texted Violet. I knew I needed to tell them about the threats. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything happened to her or Dawson because of me, but I also didn’t want to bring this to their feet if I wasn’t sure Dawson was also being targeted. The note left for me had felt personal, written in Japanese on ancient paper with a kaiken drawn on it. Dawson wouldn’t have understood any of it. This revenge was coming for the ultimate betrayer…and that was me.

  ME: I’m sorry I worried you, Baioretto. You didn’t need to sic Armaud on me.

  The nickname I’d used for Violet―the Japanese word for the color―lodged in my chest. I missed her. She’d only been gone a month, but it felt like my world had changed yet again in those few weeks. The mile markers along the road of my life were all painful ones. The sweet moments in between them were obscured by the larger tragedies.

  Violet was one of those beautiful moments. After I’d found out about my father’s true nature, I’d done everything I could to tarnish the Mori name and had been kicked out of every New York high school Otōsan would allow me to attend in the process. I’d been shuffled off to New London, Connecticut and enrolled in an online school. That was where I’d met Violet. She’d looked at my life and only seen the glamour of it—traveling around the world, shuffling between chauffeurs and penthouses, and wearing a wardrobe full of clothes t
hat screamed runway. I’d looked at her and seen everything I’d once been. Innocent and idealistic. Driven to please my family. Our friendship was an unexpected dichotomy of light and dark, but Violet was the reason I’d graduated at all. I hadn’t wanted to let her down in our study sessions. I’d wanted to live up to the look in her eye.

  We’d almost arrived at the tea shop in Japantown by the time Violet texted back.

  BAIORETTO: How “sic” did it get?

  I snorted.

  ME: Get your mind out of the gutter, my friend. Not all of us are on our honeymoon, spending our days lost in skin.

  BAIORETTO: You’re making me worry even more now. Since when do you NOT have getting down and dirty with a hot guy on your mind?

  ME: Do you classify Armaud as hot then? Whatever will Dawson think when I tell him?

  BAIORETTO: Dawson knows his position in my life is completely secure.

  ME: Go “secure” your husband, and stop worrying about me.

  BAIORETTO: I will always worry about you. And Dawson and I don’t play that way.

  I laughed, my chest easing slightly.

  Bobby parked in a red zone, and Nyra climbed out of the car first, clearing the shop before giving Rana the all-clear to take me inside. The smell hit me like a balm to the soul. Tea and incense. It filled me with memories. Peaceful moments with Obaasan.

  When I’d turned thirteen, Obaasan had spent a year training me on the intricacies of the tea ceremony. At the time, I’d thought it was a way for me to impress my father. To get him to see me…acknowledge me. I’d gladly participated in her lessons. Obaasan had laughed gently at my mistakes as I’d made them, encouraging me to try again. The ceremony was full of intricate steps, a sort of dance performed by the hostess for her guests as a way of honoring them.

  After my fourteenth birthday, she’d deemed me ready for a trial with actual guests, and I’d waited excitedly for Kaasan and Otōsan to come to New York again so I could pay tribute to them. But the day of the ceremony, Otōsan hadn’t shown up, even though he’d been in the apartment. Instead, he’d met with a man, who I now knew to be his regional boss on the East Coast. Only Kaasan and Obaasan had come to watch, but theirs wasn’t the attention I’d been seeking. They weren’t the ones I’d idolized. I’d wanted my father to smile at me with pride, to touch my shoulder and look at me with respect the way others looked at him. It was barely a year later when I discovered the respect he had was built on fear.

  I stopped myself from going down the rabbit hole of those darker memories by focusing on the teapots in front of me. I explored the aisles while Rana shadowed me as if some villain was going to jump from the shelves. I tried to find a sense of balance and calm as my hands ran over a range of teapots from cast iron tetsubins to volcanic clay-formed kyusus.

  “Can I help you find something?” the woman behind the counter asked.

  I inclined my head in a gentle greeting that she returned.

  “My grandmother’s kyusus was broken. The nurse threw it out before we could send it to a kintsugi artist to repair. While I want to replace it, I’m not sure I truly can. It was…sentimental.”

  The woman took me in, seeing not only my designer clothes and expensive jewelry but also the bodyguard watching over me. She offered, “I have some very special ones behind the counter.”

  She led me to a display behind locked glass where every teapot was exquisitely crafted and engraved with varying symbols. I didn’t want to choose one that looked too similar to the teapot Ojīchan had given Obaasan, but I still wanted it to be special. A particular kyusus with a unique shape to its side handle and signs of hope drew my attention. The gold etchings on the clay were embedded as if they’d been part of the earth and sand all along.

  “That one.” I pointed, and she smiled.

  “My uncle made it,” she told me.

  “He’s very talented.”

  She nodded, and I arranged with her to wrap it and ship it to my grandmother, knowing the shopkeeper would put more care into how the present looked than I could ever do.

  After thanking the woman, Rana led me out of the store with her eyes darting along the street. We’d taken a few steps toward the SUV where Nyra waited, looking broody and unapproachable, when two women nearing the store caught my attention. My heart skipped a beat as I recognized them. I was unsure what to do, but they decided for me by calling out to me.

  Rana had placed herself between me and them before I could even take another breath. One hand was on her gun, the other was shoving me toward Nyra and the Cadillac. The women approaching hardly seemed worth her effort. They appeared harmless in their perfectly tailored suits with their carefully groomed black hair gleaming in the sunshine that had broken through the fog.

  “Mori-san,” Ichika Matsuda greeted me, all but ignoring the fact that Rana was standing between us. Ken’Ichi’s mother gave me a bow much lower than I deserved, so low it was almost insulting. As she rose to her full height, her eyes met mine over Rana’s shoulder with a calm I hadn’t expected.

  “It’s okay,” I said to my bodyguard, sending her a look that all but screamed back down and wishing I’d actually studied the list of signals she’d given me. Rana relented with a grunt, stepping to the side.

  “Matsuda-san,” I said, returning her bow with merely a slight one as I had no intention of acknowledging her mocking. Then, I inclined my head to her quiet daughter, two steps behind her. “Matsuda-san.”

  The last time I’d seen Akari Matsuda was the day her brother had shot me, and like some Pavlovian bell ringing, it triggered memories and emotions I didn’t want. The fear that had pervaded me that stormy night returned with every nerve ending going on high alert and my heartbeat becoming unsteady.

  Locked in the safe room with Ken’Ichi, I’d been terrified he’d shoot Violet just to spite me, to get even with me for betraying him, my father, and the Kyōdaina. My body filled with the same fiery pain I’d felt when the bullet had seared through me while fighting with him over the gun. My hand traveled, involuntarily, to the scar on my stomach, and my ears echoed with Violet’s and Dawson’s urgent cries for me to stay with them.

  My palms turned sweaty as I saw, once again, the rain mixing with my blood as the EMTs wheeled me out to the ambulance. The black spots that had caused me to lose consciousness that day littered my eyes. I inhaled deeply, trying to rid myself of the memories before I gave away my panic to the women in front of me.

  A flicker of almost pity crossed Ichika’s face, and that did the trick of jerking me back to reality. I didn’t want or need her sympathy.

  Rana had somehow sensed my discomfort, and she shifted closer, ready to grab me and run if needed. But the threat wasn’t on the street in front of us. It was dead and buried with Ken’Ichi…or at least I had thought it was.

  Ichika looked from me to the building behind me. “I see you’ve found our favorite tea shop. Akari-tan is hosting a chakai for some dear friends in a few days. She is a tea ceremony master now.”

  Ken’Ichi’s sister blushed. If it was because she was embarrassed by the nickname or the fact that her mother was bragging about her, I wasn’t sure. What I did know was that mastering the chakai required years of practice and experience.

  “You must come,” Ichika said before I could respond. She had a smile I couldn’t read, and the invitation hanging between us raised the hair on the back of my neck. As the wife of my father’s West Coast boss, she was very aware that I was persona non grata at any activity where members of the Kyōdaina or their relatives would be. Even further, as the mother of the son I’d essentially been responsible for killing, I couldn’t imagine her wanting to be in the same room with me, let alone invite me to a ceremony that honored its guests as if they were royalty.

  Ichika seemed to sense my hesitancy and added on, “I think you would enjoy the group of women we’re gathering. I think you might find some kindred spirits there.”

  Akari was looking dow
n at the ground, her face still flushed, but I thought I read anger or frustration there. Maybe disappointment. She was unhappy her mother had invited me.

  I inclined my head. “Thank you, but I am not sure it would be wise.”

  Ichika waved her hand. “Don’t be as silly as the men in our lives. Shall we send the invitation to the Force de la Violette offices?”

  My spine tingled again, something my subconscious was trying to tell me.

  “Kaasan, do not insist,” Akari said with a hand to her mother’s arm.

  Her mother shot her a look, and Akari looked down at the cement again. Subservient. Obedient. Everything I was not. I’d long since given up trying to get approval from my father by being quiet. As much as I hated what I’d seen…hated what I’d done to myself because of it, I was relieved I hadn’t ended up like Akari. Thoughts of living her life only filled me with another round of panic.

  I needed to leave. Get away from them and the life that could have been mine.

  “It was nice to see you, but I’m due at the office for a meeting. Please take care,” I said, inclining my head again. Both women mirrored it, but I felt their eyes on me as I climbed into the car with Rana and Nyra shielding me once more.

  I felt their eyes long after they were out of sight, just as I heard Ichika’s words on repeat in my head.

  Don’t be as silly as the men in our lives.

  It was such a disrespectful notion from the wife of one of my father’s senior men. My skin was littered with goosebumps. One thing was certain, I had as little desire to attend Akari’s chakai as I had to be drawn into Otōsan’s world again.

  Dax

  I WANT YOU

  “What's wrong with me?

  I get distracted easily,

  And every song's about you.”

  Performed by MØ

  Written by Bhattacharyya / Aarons

  The mirror in the bathroom of my one-bedroom apartment didn’t lie. I looked like crap. Dark circles under my eyes matched the ones I’d seen under Jada’s the day before. I’d tossed and turned all night, unable to get Jada off of my mind. Unable to get the cold voice of Tsuyoshi Mori out of my head, saying I reminded him of my aunt. Unable to shed the guilt I felt over lying to my friend and partner.