by Clark, T. C.
“Where are you going?”
“To do what needs to be done,” Yuuto said ominously.
Four
Chapter 4
* * *
“So you need me to create an extra identity?” Kara asked as she packed up her things. She watched Yuuto from the corner of her eye as he whispered something to his brother. What the hell were they plotting? Could she really leave Rhea with them?
“Yes, there is a doctor I know who I want on-hand in case anything happens,” Yuuto explained.
“If we get this doctor, it will conflict with the everybody’s dead story we are trying to create.”
“I don’t care, Kara. If Rhea insists on being involved, I need someone there in case she gets hurt.”
Kara saw Rhea walk up. She was standing outside the entryway of the door. She was too far back to be seen by Yuuto or Haruaki. It was time to see what Yuuto said when he thought Rhea wasn’t around. Kara needed to know this change in attitude wasn’t only skin deep.
“So now that you believe the baby is yours, she is your responsibility?” Kara scoffed.
“Even before he believed the baby was his, he chose her,” Haruaki explained. He’d taken a seat on her bed and was devouring another one of her apples. How long had it been since he’d eaten? He was on his fourth one.
“Shut up, Haruaki!” Yuuto warned.
“It is true, you need to tell Rhea so all of this anger can be avoided. I’m sick of this shit. You split the family with your decision, and you are acting like it wasn’t a big deal.”
“What is he talking about?” Kara asked. Rhea leaned in closer. She clearly didn’t know what was going on, either.
“Our father found out who Yuuto was dating and he was beyond anger. The same agent that had successfully forced our family out of the States was not going to be with his son. He put people on monitoring her. We knew the moment she found out she was pregnant. My father sent our brother to take care of the mess. Yuuto killed him and made it clear that he would do the same to anyone else who would come after Rhea. He did this before he knew for sure the baby was his. My father will never let this go. If Yuuto wants to keep his family safe, then he will have to take out our father and the rest of his brothers.”
“You’re going to kill your dad?” Kara whispered. Rhea had told her bits and pieces about Yuuto’s past, but she’d never imagined his life would come to this.
“I don’t have a choice. It’s my family or him. I love Rhea. I know she is the right choice for me. She will be a good mother to our child. If I have to sacrifice my life to ensure that happens, then so be it.”
Kara couldn’t deny the sincerity in Yuuto’s eyes. Whatever he was, he would do what needed to be done to protect her sister. In return, she would help him in whatever way possible. She turned to look at Haruaki. What was his role in this?
“And why are you here then?” Kara asked her voice laced with suspicion.
“Because in the split I chose Yuuto’s side. I’m tired of people fearing me and my name. There is no love in that family, only violence and fear. I’ve killed more people than a man of my age should, and I have lost my soul to my past. It’s time for a new leader to reign over the Tanaka clan.”
“I’m not taking over for dad. I just want to keep Rhea and our child safe.”
“We shall see, big brother.”
“All that matters is this moment. The future will take care of itself. Will you make me the extra identity or not?” Yuuto asked.
“Yes. Are you sure you are going to get this Aidan guy to come with you?” If Rhea wasn’t involved in this mess she couldn’t be sure she would be here. What kind of normal person would want to get involved in this mess?
“I’m not going. I’m sending Haruaki in my place, and Haruaki can be very persuasive.”
“He’s trying to say that I excel at kidnapping. He’s not wrong,” Haruaki said blandly.
“I want to be clear with both of you. Rhea is my blood. I may not be a killer, but if anything happens to her, I will dedicate the rest of my life to destroying you, and I am methodical and obsessive. Trust me, if you thought Rhea was bad, you’ve never seen what a talented hacker can do,” Kara said sincerely. She wasn’t joking. She wasn’t like Rhea, but she could be just as dangerous. She knew exactly how to hit an organization to do the most damage.
“I understand, Kara I won’t let anything happen to Rhea. She is my top priority. As long as I’m alive, she will be protected.”
“And I wish no harm to Rhea. I am not my father, and I want Yuuto to win this fight so I can gain my freedom. I know that means I have to protect his woman with my life, and I will honor that choice.” Haruaki looked at Yuuto as he said the fateful words. As far as Kara could tell, both brothers were intent on doing right by Rhea.
The brothers stood and bowed to her. Before she could say anything else, they were gone. Rhea must have left before their exit because they hadn’t noticed her listening. She wondered what was going through her sister’s head.
For now, she would have to trust in the brothers’ words. She was pretty sure she could depend on Frank to look out for Rhea. They were as close as former partners could be, and she knew Rhea had helped Frank out several times before. He owed her this much.
She hated leaving her sister with other people. Yeah, she knew what Rhea did for a living, but knowing about it and seeing it in action were two very different things. Rhea could die in Cuba. She shook her head. If their dad could see them right now, he’d be taking off his belt.
Kara took a deep breath and cleared her mind. She needed to focus on her part of the job. She had to convince her friend to help her, and then she needed to figure out a way to get them back out of the country. She would find a way to keep Rhea safe—she had to.
* * *
Rhea walked back to the kitchen in a haze of confusion. She hadn’t expected to hear that. But then, one didn’t know what to expect when they were eavesdropping. Yuuto had chosen to protect her even when he’d thought the baby wasn’t his. What the fuck?
She wouldn’t lie to herself. That news changed how she viewed him. How could it not? Emotions she’d thought she’d successfully killed resurfaced with a vengeance. She hated how much those words lightened her heart, but she couldn’t stop the smile on her face.
The one thing that bothered her most with Yuuto’s reaction to her pregnancy was the idea that her instincts had been wrong. She didn’t trust easily, and usually, she could detect someone’s character within moments of meeting them. Her dad used to call that her bullshit meter and her meter was off the charts.
Although Yuuto’s mind was still affected by the past, he was still the man she’d chosen. He was still the guy she loved. She needed him to tell her what his plan was after this. He couldn’t go after his dad alone. She’d researched that man, and she knew for a fact that he was well protected, and he would be prepared for Yuuto.
Yuuto was willing to lay down his life for her, but that’s not what she wanted. She saw a future with all three of them. She had to figure out a way to protect Yuuto after all of this was over. He was too emotionally involved to go after his father strategically, and as nice as Haruaki’s words were, she didn’t trust him.
He could be helping them in order to get Yuuto to drop his guard. She was happy Yuuto was sending him on an errand. She would be able to make a plan with Frank just in case Haruaki turned out to be more like his father.
Frank stopped by the kitchen on his way to the car. “My guy says he can get us on a boat tonight. But we have to go now. It leaves the coast in three hours, and according to Google Maps, it’s supposed to take us four hours to get to the location.”
“Thank you for helping me, Frank. I know you understand the risk involved in a mission like this.”
“Think nothing of it. You’ve had my back on more than one occasion, and this is the first time you’ve ever asked for my help. There was no way I wasn’t going to show up. Do you think you can trust your
baby’s daddy?” Frank said with a smirk.
“First off, never call him my baby’s daddy in that tone again, and yes, I do. I’m more worried about his brother. I don’t know if we can trust him, but he knows too much about all of this for us to leave him behind.”
“Well, if that kid does anything stupid, I’ll take him out. We should focus on Jorge. He controls everything in Cuba. Once we are there, shit’s going to get real very fast. The Linguist chose a hell of a protector.”
“He’s probably sleeping with him. That’s how he gets protection. He chooses men that are powerful and secretly seduces them. If he’s there, he is in complete control of Jorge. We have to be very careful here,” Rhea explained. The Linguist always worked the same way.
“I just want to ask you one more time. Are you sure you should be going to a place like this?”
“I don’t want to go, Frank. I’m not stupid. I know just how dangerous this is. But we don’t have a choice. This has to be done, and you need me to do it. We will just have to be vigilant and move quickly. We are going to have to be brutal. The bombs I’m making…it’s going to get messy,” Rhea admitted. She hated the idea of hurting anyone but her target. But she had to minimize the risk to the team, and that meant her bombs would have to be effective.
“You’re sure you can trust your guy to get us into Cuba safely?” she asked quietly.
“About as sure as you are that we can trust Haruaki. The guy owes me, but I’m still going to be careful when we get on board. If I notice anything out of place, I’ll let you and Yuuto know. I’m still going to have a talk with Kara, in case we don’t show up where we are supposed to be. We need to have a plan in place in case anyone decides to betray us.”
“Go and get your man. It’s time for us to hit the road.” Frank patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. He didn’t know how to comfort someone, but he always tried with her. She loved that he made the effort.
He was still frowning when he walked away, and she knew he was still worried about their plan. She knew it wasn’t the best way to start off a mission. When they were with the CIA, they had teams of people working with them to gather research and run statistical data. This mission was a world away from what he was used to, but this is what the real world looked like.
She sighed as a wave of nausea crept over her. This trip was going to be difficult. Luckily, she had some promethazine cream her pharmacy had compounded for her. Rhea could only hope that would settle her stomach. Between Yuuto and Frank worrying so much, she would have to pretend to be fine.
The boat ride shouldn’t be that bad, she thought. She just needed to find a way to sleep through most of it. How bad could it be?
* * *
Rhea was most definitely one hundred percent in Hell. She examined her memories closely to find another word that came close to describing her time on this boat and found nothing. It was hot, cramped, and smelly all at the same time.
They still had hours to go before they made land, and if Yuuto asked her one more time if she was okay, she would slit his throat. In the back of her mind, she knew she was overreacting, but right now, at this moment, she didn’t give a shit about that.
At least her morning sickness had faded somewhat. Although that could be because she had nothing else left to heave. She was empty. Yuuto had alternated between worrying and planning. He was doing his best to keep up a calm front, but a person’s eyes couldn’t lie.
Frank had taken the room at the front of the boat with the crew. He’d done that intentionally to learn more about the situation in Cuba. There was no better intel gathered than that from a local. She was glad that both of her partners had their heads in the game, while she struggled to keep hers out of a toilet.
“How do you feel?” Yuuto asked from the doorway. He’d checked on her twice now in the same hour. She didn’t have access to a mirror, but she must look like hell. He handed her another cup of tea.
He’d spent the morning trying to create the perfect concoction to soothe her stomach. The promethazine had helped, but she couldn’t take too much of it. She accepted the cup with a grim smile. The last one had tasted like dirt with a hint of grass.
She sipped it and was pleasantly surprised when the taste of lemon and honey hit her tongue. “This is actually good,” she said.
“I’m glad. This was my last shot with teas. They don’t have much in their kitchen, and I had to clean everything twice before I was comfortable using it.” Yuuto sat down on the edge of the bed. He watched her finish the tea in silence. It was an easy, comfortable quiet.
He took her cup when she was done and placed it on the metal side table. Rhea relaxed back against the bed and took a deep breath. Hopefully, this special concoction would do the trick.
“How long before we get there?” she asked. She was proud of Yuuto when he didn’t roll his eyes. She’d asked him this same question five times. She knew it was annoying, but she couldn’t help it. She hated this boat. At least Yuuto was keeping her secluded.
Yuuto wanted to keep the rest of the crew away from her. He didn’t trust the group of men running the ship. She didn’t blame him. She’d briefly seen the disheveled crew when they’d been smuggled aboard. They definitely looked like a ban of menacing pirates. Luckily, she knew just what to do when threatened.
“We have at least four more hours. We have to enter Cuba at a specific port at a particular time. That means we will have to go out of the way to get there. It adds time but increases our chances for success. I want you to rest just in case anything goes wrong. Me and Frank talked. If anything goes wrong, we are going to jump overboard. I checked the map. Once we are close to the port, we will be approximately three to five miles from land. We may need to jump out and swim. Frank’s staying close to the crew to see if anything looks out of place.”
“You and Frank talked. I was sure I was going to have to act as a buffer for you two. You seemed to dislike Frank on sight.”
“I thought he had feelings for you. I didn’t like that. You two share a past, and that can be a dangerous thing. I wasn’t going to lose you after I finally had you again. I needed to be sure Frank wasn’t a threat to our relationship. To be clear, I’m not a fan of how messy he is when it comes to missions. He relies mostly on luck and instinct. But he is a good guy, and he does love you, but not in a way that would cost him his life.”
“Strong words, Yuuto. We will circle back to the cost him his life part. Frank has only ever loved one woman, and when she was killed…let’s just say she took his heart with her.”
“I know that now. I needed time to make it clear that you belong to me. I was thankful he was helping, but that didn’t change how I felt about his involvement in your life.”
“Really? Do you think I belong to you? This is the 21st century. Women don’t belong to anyone but themselves anymore.”
“Spoken like a woman who doesn’t understand a man’s mind. You are mine. I will lay down my life for you. I would kill to protect you. I can’t classify you as anything else but mine. Mine to protect, mine to love, mine to have. I wouldn’t do that for anyone else.”
“If all of that is true, then you belong to me as well.”
“I know that. It’s you who needs to realize the truth. We are in this together. I fucked up before, and I paid for it, believe me. But I am here now. I need you, and even if you don’t believe me, you need me, too.”
“Pass me my bag please,” Rhea whispered. She ignored the heavy beating of her heart. Her body was responding to the emotions in Yuuto’s eyes. She wanted him. Hell, she always wanted him. It was hard to ignore the heat that flowed through her veins whenever their eyes connected.
Yuuto handed her the bag and placed a hand on her thigh. She could tell from the bulge in the front of his pants that this talk was getting to him as well. She had to force herself to make her fingers work to undo the ties on her backpack.
They’d made love so many times, how did he still have the power to affect her so deeply? Ev
ery time he gave her that look, she would grow slick with need. It was like a special power only he possessed with her.
She’d been around many sexy men, and yet no one else made her feel like this. She exhaled and cleared her mind. She grabbed a manila folder and grabbed the picture from inside.
“This is the ultrasound. I got it last week. I’ve been looking at it to remind myself why this mission is so important.”
Yuuto looked at it oddly. The same way she did when the doctor handed her the grainy black and white picture. It took him a second to make out the form of the baby. It was so tiny inside of her womb.
The emotion on Yuuto’s face was hard to miss. It helped to lessen the pain from the first time she’d revealed this news to him. He shook his head. His shoulder was stiff with tension.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here. I should have put you somewhere safe. What is a man if he can’t protect his family? We are sneaking into a country to try to get on a base run by an insane drug lord. A drug lord who is housing an assassin who wants to sell a weapon that can control the world.”
“Yuuto, stop it. You need me here, and this isn’t something we can just walk away from. We know how the Linguist works, we can predict his movements. We will survive this.”
“If anything happens to you, that will be on me. This isn’t a movie. We don’t get a second chance at this,” he said to himself as if she hadn’t spoken at all.
“Hell, no. You don’t get to take responsibility for my actions. You have no one else that can do what I do. So stop this shit. My life is my own, and I’ve been in situations way worse than this. Don’t pretend like I’m here because I want to be. I need to be here for this to work.”
“I have to think about this.” Yuuto stood, still lost in thought. He looked at the picture once more, slipped it into his pocket, and walked to the door.