But before I got out of the car, I had to ask, “Do all your plans usually just magically work out like that, Fae King?”
He gave me a wry smile. “Most of them until a certain little surfer girl came along.”
I couldn’t help but laugh…and lean forward across the center console to give my husband a grateful kiss. “Well, thank you for bestowing your magic upon my family, Your Grace.”
“You’re welcome,” he answered, his lips curving up over his perfect white teeth. I wondered if there’d ever come a time when that smile wouldn’t completely devastate me.
But then he grew serious. “Your father…you were right about what you said about him when we first met. He is a good man, and he was worth all the money you paid to protect him. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you cannot keep him for as long as any of you wanted.”
My heart cracked open at his words, and fresh tears filled my eyes. “Me too.”
If anything else had been lingering to make me doubt the decisions I’d made regarding this man, they dissipated as he looked back at me with such love and understanding in his gaze.
Suddenly, I couldn’t be more grateful to my dad for putting me in the position of having to pay off his betting debt.
No, I didn’t have my surf school, but I had Han. And I had to tell him, “You’re worth all the money I paid too.”
We laughed some more. And kissed some more.
“Maybe you should come to the party,” I said after my sister interrupted our makeout session with a “what’s taking so long” text. “Mika might hiss a little, but I’m going to miss you if you’re not there.”
“I feel the same way,” he let me know with a gentle look. “But our situation with Yaron and Kuang Jr. remains unresolved. And I’ve got a meeting scheduled with Chen.”
I understood, but we pressed a few more smooches into each other’s mouths before I finally forced myself to get out of the car.
I waved to Bui, who was parked a few spaces down and would be driving me home after the party.
“Finally!” my dad teased when I arrived to join him and his army buddies at the picnic tables. “I thought you’d stay kissing on your husband of yours until the party was over.”
“Hush, Terrence,” Mom chastised. “You remember young love.”
Bill shook his head at me. “Brad’s still disappointed he let you get away. He’s really going to be kicking himself when I tell him you went and got married.”
I laughed and reminded them, “Okay, this day is supposed to be about Dad!”
It was a lovely event. Perfect weather without a hint of rain. After the rest of their buddies left, Dad even asked—and by asked, I mean ordered—Bill to join him for a walk on the beach—something I don’t think he’d done with anybody in ages. Luckily, even though we were only permitted to stay for a couple of hours, no one came to unseat us when our time came and went.
After their walk, Bill cornered me again for a conversation while I was taking all the party trash to one of the bins. “So your Dad told me to leave you alone about it, but as your would-have-been dad, if I hadn’t lost that coin toss and my son hadn’t then proceeded to be so stupid, I’ve gotta ask, you really happy with this guy?”
“Yeah, I’m really happy,” I promised him.
“Good, good…”
Music floated over to us, and Bill and I turned to see Albie teaching my mom how to do the “Old Town Road” TikTok dance.
She was game but kept adding traditional Filipino folk dance moves between the ones her grandson was teaching her.
“No, Grandma, not like that. Like this!” Albie insisted, trying to get her to stop, even as he laughed.
I laughed, too. But Bill didn’t. He just watched her, appearing completely magnetized.
I frowned, and I thought about how he’d always treated me like a daughter, down to being willing to sell me his surf school at a steep discount.
And a realization suddenly hit me, so shocking I said it out loud. “You’re waiting. You’re waiting for him to die so that you can be with her.”
Bill stared at me, then immediately shook his head. “No, no…Terrence is one of my best friends. And those two work. The best guy won. That’s what I said to your dad on the beach.”
But the fact that Bill didn’t even bother to act like he didn’t know what I was talking about told me I was right…and gave me another epiphany about why Bill was suddenly unable to take his eyes off my mom after that long walk with my dad.
“Oh, my gosh, he’s trying to control this. What happens to mom after his death—that’s what you and Dad were talking about for so long.”
Horror filled Bill’s gaze at my words, “Are you some kind of witch or something? How did you know?”
“No, but I know my dad,” I answered with a wry glance toward the man clapping and bopping his head side to side to “Old Town Road.”
“Plus, he stans This is Us, big time, so of course he’d ask you to Miguel all over this. To be there for her after he’s gone.”
Bill shook his head, and it looked like he was going to deny everything again. But then his eyes filled with tears, and he said, “Only as a friend. A relationship—yeah, of course, I would want that. But I wouldn’t push that agenda on your mom. Not unless she wanted it too. I told your dad that.”
I nodded. And I guess I was a lot more grown-up now than I was a year and some change ago because I found myself answering, “She will. Eventually. When she gets over the guilt. She likes you.”
Bill let out a watery laugh. “That’s what your dad said too. He said that was why he was having the conversation with me beforehand so that I could tell her we’d already talked about it—when she’s ready. I won’t say anything until she’s ready. I promise you and your sister that.”
I nodded, unable to speak for the tears clogging my throat.
“I’m sorry if any of this upsets you.” Bill fretted his hands. “We talked a lot about not upsetting you or Mika.”
“No,” I answered. “I can’t speak for Mika, but I’m happy to know Mom will have someone to turn to when Dad’s gone. I’m just shaking my head because only Dad would try to control everything like this. Even after he’s gone. I’m surprised he’s not trying to get me to break up with Han too.”
Bill tilted his head to the side and gave me the funniest look.
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t you get it? He never tries to tell you anything because you’re just like him. At least that’s what he told me when he asked me to teach you how to surf at a competition level instead of squashing your dream like a lot of Army dads would have. And you know, only one woman has ever been able to tell him what to do. When Letty told him it was time to ask her to marry him after four months of dating, he couldn’t jump on that plane fast enough.”
I laughed. “What? I thought he asked her! They never told me that part of the story!”
“Of course not. Letty told him not to,” Bill answered with a big laugh. But then he sobered to add, “So I suspect when he heard that a guy somehow ‘made’ you—Jasmine Matapang Hayes marry him, he’d figured you’d found the same kind of love he had, and there was no fighting you about it.”
My cheeks warmed. “Wow, that was some talk. He told you about that too?”
“Well, I mean, I had a lot of questions, considering you showed up married to the same guy who bought my surf business.”
My heart jolted. “Wait, what? I thought you said a corporation bought the camp.”
“Yeah, and he’s one of that company’s owners. I know, because he came to the contract signing himself and one of the conditions of the deal was that I had to run the place until next August when he was planning to transfer ownership of the school over to another party of his choosing—I’m assuming that’s you.”
“What’s wrong?” my mom asked when I came back to the picnic tables fuming.
“Nothing,” I lied to my mom. I mean, how could I even begin to explain all the stuff I�
�d just learned? “I need to get home.”
“Hold on, I have to give you something for that husband of yours first,” Mom said.
I felt like a race car, raring to go as I watched her walk over to her purse. So many questions were spinning around my head. How could Han keep this from me? Even after everything we’d confessed and shared over the last few days?
Mom returned with a stamped flower print envelope, and on the front, it had Mr. and Mrs. Han written out in her pretty cursive over the address which she’d insisted I give her at Mika’s Christmas party so that she could come visit sometime.
“It’s a thank you card for the walker,” she explained
“Seriously, mom? You already wrote a thank you card?” I asked. “It’s just us.”
“Well, I don’t want my new son-in-law thinking we’re rude,” mom answered, lifting her chin proudly. “And I always keep some thank you cards stamped, locked, and loaded in my purse.”
A lifted an eyebrow. “Just in case you have a thank you card emergency?”
“Exactly!” Mom answered with a cheery smile. “Oh, my little Jazzy, you know me so well.”
Yeah, anyone who’d ever met our parents would have no problem understanding why Mika and I could best be described as cheerful hard asses. Half sunshine and half drill sergeant.
I found myself still laughing at my mom’s Filipina Miss Manners antics as I walked to meet Bui at the car. Just him today.
I’d asked Han to put me back down to one guard since Victor and Phantom had successfully ousted the old 24K Dragon and installed a new one back on the East Coast. And, you know, this being a family picnic with several former soldiers in attendance. My husband had reluctantly agreed, which had felt like a future relationship win for us.
But that didn’t mean Han was entirely off the hook. I whipped out my phone to send him a strongly worded text message.
35
HAN
JASMINE: You bought Bill’s surf school for me???? WHAT THE HELL?
Jazz’s question appeared on Han’s phone with an angry buzz, and the last bit was written all in caps.
Han grimaced.
Apparently, Bill had put two and two together after Han sent him a private message about meeting them at the car. And then he added it up for Jasmine.
“Everything okay, Boss?” Chen, who was sitting on the other side of the dining room table, asked.
“Jasmine just found out I bought her a surf school,” Han admitted with a weary expulsion of breath.
Chen, who’d gotten to know his wife well during his months as her driver, groaned. “Oh, I bet she didn’t like that—especially now that you two are headed back to the East Coast for good anyway after the new year.”
Normally, Han was terrific at keeping his expression neutral. He’d learned from the best in Victor, who schooled his face into a mysterious blank for most conversations. But things had been going so well with Jasmine. He hadn’t gotten around to telling her that they’d be leaving her beloved home state in a week so that he could train another Silent Triad snakehead to take over for him in Delaware. So he grimaced again when Chen brought it up.
Chen’s widened his eyes at Han. “You haven’t told her yet? But if not now, when?”
As if tacking on to Chen’s question, another all-caps message came through from Jasmine.
JASMINE: “I’m coming home now. And when I get there, we’re going to have a long conversation. About this and whatever else you’re keeping from me. No more secrets. I’M YOUR WIFE.”
As angry as the text message sounded, the last sentence, written all in caps, filled Han’s chest with sunlight. That she said this so easily now was more than he ever could have hoped when he made that desperate play to keep her by his side back in September.
And later on, when he finished with his meeting with Chen, he said, “I’ll walk you downstairs. Bui and Jasmine should be here at any moment.”
They rode down in the elevator, then lingered in the garage to talk about Chen’s wedding. The newly minted snakehead was thinking of having it right after the Lunar New Year and maybe inviting a few of the weed maha’ais. But he wasn’t sure how Dexter would feel about the guest list.
Han advised him, “Business relationships are most important in this line of work. And your future husband must understand who he’s marrying. You do not need to rub his face in it, and I doubt there will be much danger, considering that we’ve recruited so many of Kuang Jr’s former forces, and the new 24K Dragon has already ceded this territory to us. But you should give your future husband reminders every so once in a while so that he doesn’t act silly or put himself in unnecessary danger.”
“That’s a good idea,” Chen agreed. “He says that he wants to keep on running and operating his food truck by himself after we’re married. So maybe seeing how much security we’ll need to post up at the wedding will help him understand.”
“Whatever you decide, just let me know,” Han told him with a clap on the shoulder. “I know Jasmine will want to be there, so we will most definitely fly back.”
“Speaking of which, look who just got here,” Chen said, pointing his gaze over Han’s shoulder.
Han turned, and the flesh between his legs stirred at just the sight of the car ferrying his wife.
Yes, Jasmine was most likely furious at him for keeping this secret from her, but he would have to convince her to let go of that anger when he got her upstair—
The car exploded with a thunderous boom, the shockwave so great, it knocked both Chen and Han off their feet.
36
HAN
Han woke up to the sound of someone pounding on his bedroom door. The noise was almost as loud and irritating as the headache throbbing between his ears.
On instinct, he looked over to Jasmine’s side of the bed, but no….
There were two empty bottles of baijiu where she should have been and a black blank as to how they got there. Also, the air reeked of piss. As if someone had gotten so drunk, they’d urinated in the bed, as opposed to making use of the facilities just a few feet away.
He had a bad feeling that someone might have been him.
He swam through the thick mud of the headache, trying to figure out what was going on. Why had he gotten so drunk? Who was pounding on the door? Where was Jasmine? On Dawn Patrol may—
The memory returned to him with another boom….
The explosion….waking up to find the Honolulu fire department pulling her body out of the passenger seat…burned to a husk.
Because she was…she was…
Pain. Pain, unlike anything Han had ever known, exploded like that bomb inside of him. Again.
And then the door to the room flew open, revealing the guy who had kicked it in.
“Phantom…” Han croaked, so dehydrated he could barely speak.
Phantom looked around the room: Han in his foul bed and all the bottles littered amongst the furniture he’d kicked and turned over after coming home from the morgue without his wife. “Aw, fuck, honorary cuz. They warned me it was bad. But…you’ve got to get up.”
“I told her father I would protect her,” Han answered, remembering how her parents and Mika had cried when they met him at the morgue.
“I’m the one who was supposed to die first!” her father had said, his legs giving out for reasons that had nothing to do with his disease. “Oh, why God, why?”
“I told him I would protect her, but then I….” Han faltered, unable to find strong enough words to castigate himself.
Phantom shook his head. “It’s not your fault. You did everything you could. And she wouldn’t want you falling apart without her.”
“What’s the point?” Han asked Phantom, honestly looking for an answer. “What’s the point of living without her?”
Phantom scraped a hand over the back of his head.
“I guess we’re going to have to find out,” he answered—right before depositing him in the shower, the same way they did Victor back
in September.
Han regretted that now.
Not the throwing his brother into the shower part but how he’d judged him at the time. He’d seen it as weakness on display for his brother to lose himself like that over a woman. But now…
Now he found himself happy that Victor wasn’t there.
If he was, Han wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep his envy in check. His brother had not only gotten his bride returned to him, but she’d just given birth to his child.
So yes, Victor had suffered, but he survived his pain and misery and now could live his happy ending with Dawn.
There would be no such happy ending for Han.
She was gone. She was…
“Aw fuck, man,” Phantom said when he came back into the bathroom to find Han sitting on the shower floor, sobbing like a baby, as the water sluiced over him.
Phantom switched off the shower. “I don’t know how to help you with this. I can’t even fucking imagine. But I got some ramen for you. C’mon, let’s eat.”
So that was the unusual way Chen found them when he came through the penthouse’s front door about ten minutes later.
They were both slurping noodles. Phantom in his usual suit and Han in nothing but a clean pair of underwear Phantom had commanded him to put on because “there are limits to this sympathy shit.”
To his credit, Chen just said, “Good to see you out of bed, Boss. Phantom, how are you?”
Phantom, proving why he was rarely the one they sent in to do business that didn’t involve fists, just grunted.
Han’s return greeting was even worse. “Did you find Kuang Jr. and Yaron?” he demanded.
“No, not—”
“Then why are you here and not out looking for them?” Han demanded.
The only reason he was still holding on was because of the promise of torturing the men who’d killed his wife to death as soon as they were found.
HAN: Her Ruthless Mistake: 50 Loving States, Delaware (Ruthless Triad Book 4) Page 24