She shook her head no.
Michael saw one of the men get up and start coming towards them. “He’s coming over here,” he told her.
She met his eyes with desperation. “Do me a favor,” she pleaded under her breath. “Pretend you’re my boyfriend. Just play along with what I say.”
“No problem.”
They both looked up when he arrived, standing at the end of their table and staring down at them. “Hello Mina.”
“Hello Jae.”
“I heard you were back.”
“I’m only visiting.”
Jae looked at Michael and said something to her in Korean, and she answered back, prompting him to look again with narrowed eyes. Michael sat up straighter in his seat, returning the hostile look. Jae looked down at the bandage on Michael’s hand, and back to Mina, commenting on it.
She snapped something back at him, and Michael was surprised. He’d never seen her get angry, and he wondered what was going on. The young man made a final comment, turning to leave.
“Are you okay?” Michael asked.
“Yeah.” She shuddered. “He’s such a jerk.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that I embarrassed my parents.” She looked angry. “He heard a rumor that you were running from gangsters and that it made them look bad.”
Michael looked down. “It’s true.”
“No it’s not! I explained things to my parents. Well, a little–and they were glad to help. My brother too. You don’t understand. My ex took it really hard when I broke off the engagement. He’s just being cruel because he’s still angry with me.”
“Are you sure he’s not sad?” Michael asked, thinking that’s how he’d feel if he couldn’t see her again.
She laughed a quick bitter laugh. “I doubt it. All he ever cared about was how it would look to everyone.”
“What did you say to him just now?”
“I told him that you were twice as brave as he could ever be.”
Michael smiled happily, getting up to slide into the booth alongside her. “If he thinks I’m your boyfriend, we ought to make it look good.”
“Right.” She looked up at him with a smile, and he fell into her dark eyes. Emboldened, he slipped his arm around her casually. She leaned closer and shocked him with a sweet kiss on the lips. “That ought to do it,” she said.
Stunned, he sat speechless, afraid to move. Mina signaled to the waitress, and then it was time to go. They stepped outside into the cool night air and Michael stumbled a little.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“I’m–I’m just a little dizzy.” He wasn’t sure if it as being up on his feet or the surprise kiss, but he was feeling lightheaded.
She took his arm, “Let’s get you back to bed.”
~
Chapter Nineteen
CONFESSION
~
Michael didn’t sleep very well that night, staring at the ceiling as he thought about his growing feelings for Mina. She was confident and capable, a woman spending her life completely independent of anyone. She’d even gone against her family’s wishes to fight on the right side of the law, and had sworn an oath to punish people who broke the rules.
People exactly like him.
As much as he was drawn to her, Michael knew that he shouldn’t allow himself to entertain the idea that things might go further than friendship. Her ex-fiancé was right, he was a no-good criminal, and he’d brought the worst sort of people into her world. She didn’t even know the half of what he’d done in his past. The very fact that she had compromised her career and risked her life to help someone like him was inexplicable.
She was simply too good for him.
Michael got up early to shower and dress, thinking about his life. He’d been given a second chance, and in order to make a fresh start of it he needed to come clean. He decided to confess everything to her regardless of the consequences. Mina was a law and order type of girl, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t want anything more to do with him once she knew the truth, but he had to be honest for a change. He owed it to her.
A knock of the door startled him. “Yeah?”
“Are you up?”
He went over to open the door, finding her standing with a steaming mug in one hand and a plate of sesame seed cookies in the other. “Good morning,” she said with a smile. “You’re already up! Did you get a good night’s sleep?”
“Yeah,” he lied, trying to be polite.
She didn’t buy it, and stood scrutinizing him shrewdly. “How are you feeling today?”
“Better,” he replied.
“Ginger tea?” she offered the mug to him, coming through the door to set the plate down on the dresser.
“You don’t have to keep waiting on me,” he said.
“My grandmother insisted,” she replied.
He took it from her, managing to smile. “Please thank her for me.”
“I will. Now that you’re up on your feet, my mother wants you to join us for a family dinner tonight.”
He pressed his lips together. “Um, Mina. … We need to talk first.”
“Okay. It’s a nice day outside–Are you up for a walk?”
He nodded yes. “Sure.”
“Drink your tea and I’ll be right back.”
She returned a short while later, dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, her purse slung over her shoulder. He followed her down to the parking garage, surprised when she led him to her car.
“I thought you wanted to go for a walk,” he said.
“We will. I’m going to take you to my favorite place to go walking.”
“Where’s that?” he asked, sliding into the passenger seat.
“You’ll see,” she pulled her seatbelt across her body and snapped it into place, turning to look at him expectantly. “Buckle up.”
He smiled at her tone. “Yes Ma’am.”
It was a beautiful blue-sky day, and when they pulled out of the dark garage and into the bright sunshine Michael felt his spirits lift in spite of the pangs of conscience that were eating away at him. After a pleasant drive they pulled into a parking lot.
Michael read the sign aloud, “Huntington Library?”
“It’s an art museum too,” Mina explained. “But I like to come here for the botanical gardens.”
“Sounds good,” he said.
She parked and turned to look at him quizzically. “I thought you used to live down here. Haven’t you ever heard of this place?”
He looked guilty, thinking of all the drunken evenings he’d spent in dark nightclubs or at Max’s pool parties. Culture wasn’t a top priority for a crew of blackmailers, and he’d spent an entire summer in LA drowning in a haze of booze and sex. He shook his head, looking out the car window. “Nope.”
“Well, let’s go then!” He turned back to see her smiling as warm as the day that stretched out before them, and tried to forget all about his planned confession. There was something about just being with her that made him happy, and he toyed with the idea of keeping the truth about his past in the past.
He followed her to the gates where Mina bought him a ticket despite his protests. “My treat,” she insisted. “The rose gardens are in bloom this time of year,” she said, “and I haven’t been out to see them in so long.”
She led him inside, making a straight line through the vast grounds towards a section planted with row upon row of blooming bushes. The warm air was filled with sweet scent and the low hum of bees.
Michael looked around at the riot of colors. “I can see why you like it here,” he said.
She wandered down the rows breezily, stopping to smell the flowers and laugh at some of the silly names. “Here’s one for you,” she said, cupping a bright yellow bloom in her hand. “Didn’t you say you had the Midas Touch?”
He cringed, remembering his foolish boasting on the game-boards. “Not anymore,” he frowned. “I’m done with day trading. Wall Street Wiza
rd is finished.”
“Maybe not,” she said, “You can always learn from your mistakes.”
“I hope so.” He kept moving down the row. “Whiskey Mac?” he asked, bending to smell a gold and amber bloom. “It doesn’t smell like whiskey at all.”
She laughed, pointing out another one. “Try this one,” she bent the stem of a rose whose petals had pale pink edges bleeding into a coral center.
He took a big whiff, finding it was surprisingly strong, sweet and spicy. “Wow… That’s nice.”
“It’s my favorite,” she told him. “It’s called Papillon–That means butterfly in French. The bush must be at least thirty years old by now.”
“How long have you been coming here?” Michael asked.
“I try to stop by whenever I’m in town.” She smiled. “I think I was six the first time I was here.”
“Did your mother take you?” he asked.
“No. We came here on a school field trip. I got separated from the group. I loved the rose garden so much that I wandered off and got left behind.” She laughed a little at the thought.
“Were you scared?” he asked.
“Not until after they found me. All I remember was sitting down next to this rose to wait. When my teacher showed up she was hysterical. I couldn’t understand why she was so upset.”
“I’d be upset if I lost you.”
She looked up to meet his eyes over the blooms. “I think she was more worried about facing my parents.”
Michael was reminded of the family dinner she had planned, and he remembered what he must do. “Um … Mina?”
“Yeah?”
“What did you tell your parents about what happened? About me?”
“I told my father that you ran into trouble with a former business associate.”
“A business associate.”
She shrugged. “I had to tell him something.”
Michael groaned. “He must think I’m some kind of thug!”
“No, I said that someone thought you owed him money, and they were using your sister to try and get you to pay up.”
“I suppose that’s close enough,” he said, his face darkening.
“Don’t worry about it,” she tried to reassure him.
“What about this?” he held up his hand.
“I told him that you got mixed up with the wrong kind of people, but that it’s all behind you now.” She started walking, but after a few steps she turned to ask him, “It is behind you, right?”
“Yes.” He nodded, swallowing hard. “But Mina … there’s something I need to tell you.”
“What?”
“Can we sit down?” he asked.
“Sure,” she replied, leading him to a nearby bench.
They took a seat, and Michael took a deep breath, starting at the beginning. “When me and my sister were just little kids the professor used to test us–he’d watch us all the time, waiting for something to show up.”
“Waiting for what?” she asked.
“He was looking for signs of genius, because of some drugs he’d given our mother. He expected us to be special, and he was right about Layla. He was so proud of her, so happy when he discovered what she could do.”
“What kind of kid were you?”
He thought for a minute, finally answering. “Scared. I was worried most of the time.”
“About what?”
“Of not being enough, I suppose. Teddy was disappointed that I didn’t have any special talents,” his voice was bitter, “I was never as good as my sister.” His voice trailed off and his face darkened with sorrow. The grief he’d stuffed in the back of his mind started bubbling up to the surface, hitting him all at once.
“That’s not true,” she said.
He took another deep breath, and Mina could see that he was working up to something. She sat in silence for a few moments, giving him a moment to collect his thoughts. When he gathered up his courage he started back in, “Mina, there are things you don’t know about me … things I’ve done.”
“Like what?”
“You know how the professor sold Layla to the senator for money?”
“Yes,” she nodded slowly, urging him on.
“He needed money because when we were growing up we–she–supported him.”
“Layla?”
“Yes. He depended on her for everything. From the time she was just a little kid.”
“How?”
“We blackmailed people and stole their money. The professor used her to take us to meet with investment bankers, financial planners, stockbrokers. He’d say he wanted to set up a trust for us, but we were really there to collect insider trading information, passwords and codes.”
“Using Layla,” she said.
He nodded. “Yes. She’d get them into the right frame of mind, and Teddy would start questioning them.”
“What did you do?” she asked.
“When I was old enough I took notes. Then I started questioning them too. I learned about on-line trading and banking schemes to hide money.” He grimaced. “I got pretty good at it because I–I wanted Teddy to be proud of me too.”
“So you were brought up to be blackmailers?”
“Yes.”
“Wow,” was all she said.
“That’s not even the worst part,” he continued. “He forced her to do it. Layla didn’t like it, but if she didn’t co-operate he kept us apart.”
“From each other?”
“Yeah.” He looked out across the rose garden with faraway eyes. “Layla took it a lot better than I did. She even lasted a whole month one time. He took away her books and everything.”
“That’s terrible,” Mina said quietly.
He nodded. “I wasn’t as strong as her and he knew it. I’d get lonely and beg her to give in. From then on all he had to do was threaten to isolate me to make her co-operate.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes glistening with emotion.
He looked at her. “Don’t be. It was all my fault. If I could have been stronger I could have made him … I don’t know …”
“Michael, there was nothing you could have done. You were only children.”
“I made it worse. I made everything worse.”
“Listen,” Mina said. “What the professor did was sick. It was evil. It wasn’t your fault.” She didn’t know what else to say, so she reached over to put her hand on his.
He looked up at her with tortured eyes. “You don’t understand. After Cali got away from Teddy one of the men that worked for the professor took us away. That’s how we ended up down here. We started working for him, and he made Layla do even worse things than before.”
“Like what?” Mina asked.
He heaved a sigh. “Max blackmailed people too, but he used sex and drugs. He’d set businessmen up with girls and film them. He used Layla to make it extra easy to get them to do stuff and then get the money out of them.”
“What did you do?”
His voice colored with shame. “I went along with it. I told myself that they had it coming, that they deserved it for being cheaters. Max made me feel important, like I was part of the crew instead of just being used. I did his banking and he threw girls my way. I thought I was free, so and I looked the other way when Layla told me she wanted to stop.”
“Why didn’t she just leave?”
“She tried to, but he kept a close watch on her. I didn’t know…” his voice trailed off.
“Didn’t know what?” Mina asked.
He dropped his head and his voice got quiet, “I didn’t believe her when she said that Max threatened to hurt me if she didn’t do what he wanted. I was such an asshole.”
“So what happened?” she asked.
“Cali came for us. She’d found out about the professor and our parents being connected, and discovered that we were cousins. She took Layla away with her, and I found out the hard way exactly how important I really was to Max.”
Michael kept his head
down and kept talking, afraid to look at her until he got it out. He laid out the whole sordid tale in detail, starting with the brutal re-capture of Layla and ending with the deaths of Max and his men.
“So you see, I wanted to be just like Max, and I ended up being no better than Teddy.”
All of a sudden everything became crystal clear to Mina, “So that’s how you first came in contact with the senator.”
“Yes,” he nodded.
“And how you ended up with all of that money.”
“Yes.”
She was quiet for a minute, and he waited, expecting to be judged harshly. She finally spoke, “You’ve been through a lot more than I thought.” He looked up to see her regarding him with steady, calm eyes.
“Aren’t you shocked?”
She smiled. “After what I’ve seen your sister and Cali do, I don’t think anything could shock me.”
She stood up, holding her hand out to him, “C’mon, you still have to see the rest of the gardens.”
He was in a daze, and he kept a tight hold of her hand as they walked along in silence. It started to dawn on Michael that she wasn’t going to turn her back on him because of what he’d done. He looked down at her in wonder. She was still going to be his friend.
He looked up at the blue sky and back down at Mina’s glossy black hair shining in the sun. A butterfly flew past them, leading the way down a wide garden path. Michael’s heart was fluttering too, lifting off from the ground with the first faint stirrings of something he didn’t quite recognize.
It was hope.
Mina finally spoke, “The money you lost … it was all from blackmailing?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a good thing it’s gone then. It was dirty money after all.”
“I guess,” he said.
“So now you can make a fresh start.”
He threaded his fingers through hers. “Yes,” he agreed, his spirits soaring ever higher. “I suppose I can.”
~
Chapter Twenty
DEFENSE
~
They spent the rest of that idyllic afternoon strolling through the vast gardens. After the rose garden they meandered through a dry desert landscape, crunching along gravel pathways and admiring colorful desert blooms. Brilliant cactus flowers loomed over thorny pads like exotic birds, and real-life hummingbirds hovered and flashed their iridescent feathers at one another, jealously guarding the nectar rich flowers.
The Redcastle Redemption (The Athena Effect) Page 17