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

by LJ Evans

  “Talk to me,” I said, falling to my knees in front of her, the sharp pain that jolted through me nothing compared to what I thought might be going on inside her.

  “He saved me, Dax… He pushed me aside and took the bullet that was intended for me. Why? Why would he do that? I was nothing but a disappointment to him,” her voice broke apart.

  Cillian appeared in the doorway. “Malone is here. Rana says he wants to talk to Jada.”

  “No. He can wait,” I told him. Cruz Malone and the FBI had basically abandoned Jada to this. He hadn’t shown up when she needed him most after she’d risked her life to help him with his case against her father. He didn’t have any of my respect, even if he was someone Dawson trusted.

  “I don’t think he will,” Cillian said.

  I stood up and pushed his chest, growling, “What the hell do I pay you for then? You let Jada get taken. You can’t keep one man out of my apartment. What the hell do you do?”

  His face looked as if I’d slapped him, shock that was quickly hidden. It took my anger and flushed it away, making me feel like an ass as soon as the words settled between us.

  “I’m sorry,” I uttered.

  “You shouldn’t be. You’re right to feel this way.”

  He turned and walked out.

  I turned back to Jada, who’d lain down on the bed. I joined her, curling myself around her. I let her cry while I rubbed her back and tried to soothe her, to just be there, letting her know there was someone next to her who loved her and would be there no matter what. Through thick and thin. Through bloodshed as well as happiness. I was hers.

  Eventually, her body went still in mine, her breath evening out, sleep taking her. I was still wide awake, reliving all the horrible moments of the last twenty-four hours. The horror of seeing Ito-san’s knife at her throat as they left Vanya’s cottage. The fear I felt in giving chase to her father’s plane. The despair and utter desolation I’d felt seeing her covered in blood on the ground in the Matsudas’ garden. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to sleep again.

  There was another gentle tap on the door that I cursed quietly. Rana appeared this time. She eased over to the bed.

  “It’s Ito-san. She’s here. She says she needs to see Jada.”

  “No.”

  “She’s unarmed, handed everything over without us even asking for it. She says she has to give Jada something the Oyabun insisted she have if anything happened to him. That it can’t wait.”

  “Just have her give it to you.”

  Jada was brought back into the real world from the whispers, and I sent a glare in Rana’s direction.

  Rana at least had the grace to look chagrinned before she said, “She says she’ll only give it to Jada.”

  “Who will only give me what?” Jada asked. Her voice was hoarse from crying, her eyes puffy. I hated it. I hated every last minute of the grief she’d experienced in the course of the last two weeks.

  “No one. Go back to sleep,” I grunted.

  She pushed herself out of my arms, sitting up and turning to face Rana. She returned to the poised Jada that I both loved and feared because she was the Jada who often withdrew from me, sending me from her life with a snide comment and a jab to the heart.

  “What’s going on?”

  Rana repeated what she’d said about Ito-san, and Jada stood. She wobbled, and I flung out a hand to stabilize her. She didn’t push me away, and I took it as a positive sign that she wouldn’t send me packing. Not yet.

  “Let her in,” Jada said.

  “Jada,” I warned.

  She turned to face me.

  “You weren’t there…” she croaked. “I…I owe her this.”

  “You don’t owe her anything.”

  She shook her head. “I do.”

  And then she turned and walked out of the bedroom. I followed, knowing it was what I would always do for the rest of my life. I couldn’t not follow her. If it made me less of a man in the eyes of others, then I wanted to be the lesser man. I wanted to be the one who was there when she needed me.

  The front door opened, and Cillian walked in with Ito-san at gunpoint. She was still in her blood-covered suit, but she’d washed her hands. There was a smear of blood on her neck and chin from where she’d been laying on Mori’s chest.

  Jada went to the couch, and we all joined her. Ito-san didn’t sit. She stood as if she was still on guard. She looked around at all of us, eyes landing on Cillian’s gun, and said, “I’m going to reach into my jacket. It’s not a weapon. It’s a USB drive.”

  “Slow and steady,” Cillian said.

  She nodded and ever so slowly opened her suit jacket, reached into a pocket, and pulled out a small external drive. She handed it to Jada.

  “This is everything you need to take it all down.”

  Jada’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “They were all circling like buzzards, even before you went to the FBI. Yamasaki-san had learned that your father had killed his brother―the one who shot Élodie Armaud―and had been plotting his own revenge. Yano-san was determined to bring the Kyōdaina into the twenty-first century and compete against the Russians with their cybercrimes. And after Ken’Ichi died and Hiroto Matsuda refused to get revenge, Ichika Matsuda started recruiting the aunties to take over everything, thinking she could do it as well as any of the men. She was poisoning her husband while running the West Coast for him. Oyabun…” her voice croaked, and she trailed off. It took her several long seconds to gather herself together again. “Oyabun knew it was coming apart at the seams, and he refused to let any of them have it. So, he compiled enough data to take them all down.”

  Her father had been working against himself. It was as unbelievable as it was completely believable. A man like him would rather see everything he’d built disappear than hand it over to someone he didn’t feel was worthy of it.

  “Your mother and grandmother will have protection. Their money is safe. Your money is safe. I was to ask if you wanted protection”—she looked around the room—“but I am thinking you won’t.”

  “I don’t want my father’s money,” Jada said, voice trembling with the tears she was trying to hold in, but her body didn’t reflect it. Her chin was raised, shoulders back, and pride flowed from her.

  Ito-san shrugged. “It is there whether you use it or not.” She waved to the drive. “Everything you need to know is on it.”

  Ito-san started for the door, and Jada called after her.

  “Kaida…”

  Ito-san stopped and turned back.

  “I’m sorry. You…you loved him.”

  Ito-san’s eyes glimmered. “He was more than my Oyabun. He was my Otōsan, too.”

  Jada inhaled sharply. “What?”

  “My mother was his mistress long before you were born.”

  “You-you’re my sister?” Jada breathed out.

  “No. I was the Oyabun’s child. I was nothing to you.”

  And she left.

  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. The Kyōdaina—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 on
e 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. “To Kaasan. 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 be mon bijou.

  Jada

  FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU AGAIN

  “We've been together but it seems like forever

  But I'm falling in love with you again.”

  Written & Performed by Imelda May

  The temple smelled heavily of incense. Even the food that had been prepared and left in the rooms next door was unable to hide the scent. I’d been unable to eat or even relax because I was stuck in a room full of men who’d plotted against my father as we waited for his body to turn to ash. The advisors and regional heads who’d tried to undermine Otōsan―plus their families―all stood around, chatting and smiling as if they hadn’t been the cause of his death while they ate the food we’d had prepared for them. It made my stomach turn even more than the incense.

  Kaida’s dark and gloomy face appeared amongst them, sharing my feelings on the matter perfectly. She looked decidedly unKaida-like, not only because of the emotions she was exhibiting but because of her outfit. It was the only time I’d ever seen her in a dress, but it fit her muscular frame as if it had been made for her, the black stockings showing off legs much longer than mine. Her eyes flashed with hatred at everyone in the room, but especially Osamu Yamasaki as he preened like he was the new emperor.

  Isamu Yano was conspicuously missing, not only because the authorities were looking for him in conjunction with Otōsan’s death and the hack into the FBI but because the Kyōdaina was searching for him as well. After the debacle in San Francisco, he’d disappeared into the garden, and that had been the last anyone had seen of him. He’d left Akari’s body on the tatami mattress with her throat slit and her kaiken in her hand. I would never know if he’d taken her life or if she’d been so distraught that she’d done it herself, ever the subservient daughter.

  My only true pleasure was the family in the room with me. Family that was not my mother or grandmother who were off smiling at the enemy. Instead, it was Dawson and Violet who stood at my side and Dax who was at my back. Dax held me tight with his arm curled around my waist. Whenever I’d thought I couldn’t take any more over the last few days, I’d simply leaned into him, and he’d caught me before I fell.

  Today, Dax was silent in a way that was completely opposite of his normally gregarious and charming nature. When my father’s men had first started filing in for the wake at the house, he’d been worried that one of them would say or do something to me or Dawson. But they had no reason to. In many ways, the actions that had started with Dawson and the FBI had allowed them to take over from my father. To increase their power. And they were completely in the dark about the secrets my father had given me to share with the authorities.

  Regardless, Cillian, Rana, and the team were on high alert. Nearby at all times.

  I was still unsure where Rana’s loyalty rested, but she’d gone to work for Reinard, fixed their system, and been with me ever since that day at the Matsudas. Her loyalty seemed to have been bred from failure and guilt. I wasn’t sure it was healthy, but then, who was I to judge what others did to forgive themselves? I had my own battles to wage with regret.

  When it came time to sift through my father’s ashes and place his bones in the urn, I had to bite my tongue and cheek in order to prevent myself from screaming at the men to keep their grubby, disloyal hands to themselves. But then, I remembered that I too had betrayed him. Kaida was the only one who hadn’t, and I made sure she had a place of honor in the line.

  After my father’s bones were sealed in the urn, and the men turned away, I let myself enjoy the fact that it would soon be their bones being passed around, even if it was only figuratively. They would all be going to jail. Malone had held off executing any arrests until after the funeral, making sure the case he—and
a host of other international agencies—built was strong and irrefutable. The Kyōdaina would soon be a crumbling relic that had started and ended with Otōsan’s life.

  “She’s leaving.” Dawson’s voice brought my eyes from the men in suits to the figure slipping into the shadows.

  I caught Kaida just before she vanished.

  “Ito-san,” I called, and she turned to me with surprise. As my chauffeur and bodyguard, I’d never used the honorific. I’d used her first name as a way of showing my disregard for her, my father, and my culture. By returning to the more formal address, I was hoping she’d see that I did respect her and what she’d done for all of us.

  She inclined her head, and I returned it.

  “Are you…are you okay?” I asked, really wanting to know if she was safe but not knowing how to ask it. “Do you need anything? Money?”

  Her fingers steepled together, the motion so much my father’s that it hit me like a punch to the stomach. I realized how many times she’d done it in the years she’d taken care of me without me ever recognizing it as the same habit.

  “Oyabun provided for me,” she said.

  If he’d provided for the daughter who’d betrayed him, I should have known he’d provide for the one who’d served him until the very last moment. No one but my team knew who she was. My half sister. His daughter. Kaasan and Obaasan were in the dark. The men trying to take over his world could never know. It would be even more dangerous for her if they found out, because she was much more likely to fill his shoes than I ever was. Not that the leaders of the Kyōdaina would ever let a woman be in charge, as was evident by the silence that surrounded Ichika and Hina today. They’d stayed two steps behind their husbands at all times with their heads down.

  “What will you do now?” I asked her quietly.

  “Find Yano,” she said.

  Revenge. Retribution. Things I didn’t want in my world anymore.

  “You deserve your own life,” I said quietly to her, and her eyes widened in surprise. “He’s gone. Nothing that happens now can change that.”