by Anne Stuart
Reno nodded. He was running out of time, and his grandfather’s words still echoed in his brain, his heart. “This is a good death for him, Kobayashi-san. An honorable death. He would want you to go on. You have more to do in this life.”
Kobayashi didn’t answer, and Reno gave up. Once he’d left the world of sumo, Kobayashi’s life had been tied up with Reno’s grandfather—without him there would be nothing. If he chose to die with Ojiisan, then that was his choice.
Once Reno started moving, he acted quickly. He was sticky with Hitomi’s blood—Jilly had seen him kill the man. That should have finished things once and for all, and he could breathe a sigh of relief. If Taka did what he knew he should do, Reno would never see her again. It was a time of endings. A time of new beginnings.
He set the charge the moment before he slid out the first-floor window. The place would go quickly—there’d be no escape for Hitomi’s soldiers. They would all die, and the ancient organization would disappear, but its name and reputation would stay intact. An honorable anachronism in the world of brutality.
He was just past the outer wall when the place exploded, and he didn’t look back. Jilly and Taka would be long gone, and he had the pieces of a life to pull back together.
A light snow began to fall again, covering the dirty slush that filled the gutters. He walked on, his cowboy boots making a crisp noise on the empty sidewalks, as he disappeared into the early-morning light.
19
“You need to get over this, darling.” Lianne Lovitz came to stand over her recalcitrant daughter, clearly annoyed. “You can’t spend weeks moping. It depresses me, and you know how I hate to get depressed. Besides, the semester started last week, and you only got as far as the driveway before turning around and heading straight back to bed. You need to snap out of it.”
Jilly looked up. She had managed to drag her sorry ass out into the fresh air, and she lay on a chaise by the heart-shaped pool, covered from head to toe in baggy jeans and an oversize T-shirt, sunglasses firmly on her nose. Not that the air was that fresh, of course. First there was the smog, second there were the brush fires currently scouring the canyons. The scent of smoke lingered on the air like a nervous memory.
Lianne, of course, was dressed in the skimpiest excuse for a bikini, which looked magnificent on her perfectly toned and sculpted body. Jilly tilted her head, surveying her mother. She had no idea how old Lianne actually was; she’d told so many lies she probably didn’t know herself. The finest surgeons in the world continued to ensure that Lianne was perfect, particularly if one didn’t look too closely or expect an actual expression to mar her beautiful face.
“Snap out of what?” Jilly said in an emotionless voice. “I’m absolutely fine. I was thinking I may take the semester off. I’m just not in the mood for Mesopotamian archaeology.”
Lianne shuddered dramatically. “I can’t imagine why you ever could have been. If you want to stay home, that’s fine with me, but you need to at least pretend to be happy.”
“Why?”
“Because I need happy people around me. I’m much too sensitive to other people’s feelings, and it upsets me to be surrounded by unhappiness.” Lianne took a sip of her Perrier. “Really, darling, I don’t know how you can be so thoughtless. You know how I am.”
“Yes, Lianne. I know how you are,” Jilly said listlessly.
“You need drugs,” Lianne said, sitting down beside her on the adjoining chaise. Lianne was five foot three inches of perfection, and from the time Jilly turned twelve and begun to tower over her mother, she’d always felt like an awkward, hulking giant. “Some kind of antidepression thing. It will fix you right up—I’ll have Dr. Medellin prescribe some Prozac and some tranquilizers.” She wrinkled her perfect nose, possibly the only feature on her beautiful face that hadn’t been tampered with. “Perhaps some of the new diet pills. I’ve heard they do wonders.”
“I’m not fat, Lianne,” Jilly said, unable to summon her usual outrage.
“There’s no such thing as being too rich or too thin,” Lianne replied. “Wouldn’t you be happier in a size four?”
“I’m almost six feet tall, Lianne. I’d look like a scarecrow.” Though, come to think of it, that wasn’t a bad idea. Apart from her nightly quart of Ben and Jerry’s, she hadn’t had much appetite. Maybe she ought to just stop eating entirely, so that she could waste away—and then he’d be very very sorry.
Not that she was thinking of him. She didn’t even know who “him” was. She was just tired, and her mother was being even more annoying than usual.
“But clothes hang so much better when you’re a little bit underweight,” Lianne said.
“How would you know—you never wear any clothes,” Jilly grumbled.
Lianne’s hurt silence was evocative enough. Jilly should have known she wouldn’t let it go at that. “You’ve been spending much too much time with your half sister. Summer was always un-sympathetic, and now that you’ve come back from Japan you’ve been almost as bad. God knows why you wanted to go there, anyway—it’s filled with foreigners. Your sister may have been crazy enough to move there, but you’re my brilliant daughter. You should know better.”
“Summer’s got a Ph.D. in art history, Lianne.”
“Yes, but it took her the normal amount of time to earn it. And she didn’t even get into Harvard—she had to make do with Stanford.”
Jilly opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again. She just didn’t have the energy.
“I’ll make an appointment with Dr. Medellin,” Lianne said. “And with my nutritionist, and my astrologer and my aesthetician.”
Jilly stayed silent. Lianne was like a wave washing over her—all she had to do was keep her footing and she’d ebb away soon enough.
But Lianne hadn’t moved. She was looking at Jilly more closely than she usually did. “Your sister tells me you fell in love.”
“Summer’s crazy. It’s pregnancy hormones.”
Lianne shuddered. “Don’t remind me. I refuse to be a grandmother. I’m much too young.”
At another time Jilly would have easily distracted her—Lianne was always much more interested in discussing her own issues than anyone else’s, but even in the interest of self-preservation she couldn’t rouse herself. All she could do was run.
“I’m going out,” she said, pushing off the chaise.
Lianne brightened. “Well, that’s a good thing. Maybe you’ll stop moping. Are you going shopping?”
“Yes.”
“Where? I could come with you.”
“Little Tokyo.”
Lianne made a face. “I swear to God the Japanese have been nothing but trouble in my life. First there was Summer’s nanny, who turned her against me, then there was that crazy cult leader, then your sister marries someone who has all the warmth of Dracula, and now you come back from Tokyo looking like someone ate your dog. They eat dogs over there, you know.”
“No, they don’t, Lianne.”
“I think we should go to Paris. We could get you some new clothes.”
“No, Lianne.”
“Then why are you going to Little Tokyo? Why drive into the heart of downtown L.A. when you’re depressed? It’s not going to cheer you up. What’s there that you can’t find just as easily in Beverly Hills?”
There must be some way to shut her mother up. “A Hello Kitty vibrator?” she suggested.
Lianne shrieked—Jilly wouldn’t be surprised if she put her hands over her ears and began singing loudly to drown out the sound of her voice. Typical Lianne—for all her lack of modesty with her own knockout body, she was ridiculously prudish then it came to her daughter’s sexuality. Then again, it might have been something as simple as not wanting to be old enough to have daughters who were sexually active. Or inactive, as Jilly intended to be for the rest of her life.
“I’m kidding, Lianne. I’m just going to the grocery store.”
“For heaven’s sake, why? We have a cook.”
“I want octopus.”
It was enough to silence her. Jilly could feel her mother’s eyes on her as she headed for the ten-car garage, but she didn’t look back. Despite the bright Southern California sun she felt like ice, and she wasn’t going to let anything break through her cool, unearthly calm.
Driving in L.A. traffic was enough to keep her mind off other problems, but the moment she parked she realized she’d made a huge mistake. No one had flame-red hair and red teardrop tattoos. There were no tall, leather-clad bad boys lurking around every corner. There was nothing for her here.
There was, however, food. She found her sister’s favorite restaurant, not much more than a diner, and ordered miso soup and oyakudon. Her mother was right about one thing, she had to get it together. The longer she stayed inside and moped the worse things got. And even Ben & Jerry’s wasn’t doing it for her.
She wandered through the neighborhood, past the Otani Hotel, through the Zen garden. It didn’t feel like Tokyo—there wasn’t the buzz, the energy. There wasn’t Reno.
And God knows what she was looking for. She needed to look forward, not into the past. She needed to get over it, get back to school, start a new life.
She glanced up at the replica of the old Japanese fire tower. She’d spent a fair amount of time in Little Tokyo with Summer when she was growing up, but everything looked and felt different now. Later, after a lot of time had passed, she was going to have to go back to Japan, get outside the city, see things. She’d come back with the impression of noise and light and blood. And sex.
There had to be a lot more to it. There had to be some kind of Zen serenity if she looked for it.
It was getting dark, and the evening rush-hour traffic had picked up. It was going to take her forever to get home, assuming that was where she wanted to go. She stood patiently at the intersection with a crowd of people, waiting for the light to change, when someone bumped into her. Hard. Hard enough to make her lose her balance, and she went sprawling forward, directly in front of the rush of traffic.
She heard someone scream, and she tried to scramble to her feet as the headlights bore down on her, and then there was the slam of brakes, horns honking, as someone dragged her out of the road, onto the sidewalk, and she half expected to look up and see Reno.
“You should be more careful, miss,” the tired-looking man said. “You could have been killed.”
“Thank you,” she said shakily, rising to her feet. The light had changed, and people were moving forward, though there were a few curious glances in her direction. She followed them, heading for the parking lot, her hands and knees scraped from her fall.
It wasn’t until she got back in her car that reaction set in. She was shaking, badly, and she leaned back, closed her eyes and took deep, calming breaths.
It had almost felt as if someone had shoved her. But that was impossible—it had to be post-traumatic stress or something ridiculous like that. Or maybe, just maybe, she’d done it on her own, unconsciously.
No, that was ridiculous. She was over him, completely, and she wasn’t going to go wandering out in traffic like some pathetic loser. She was getting on with her life.
She pulled out into the evening traffic, heading up toward the Hollywood Hills. Maybe her mother was right, maybe she needed Paris. Someplace where she wouldn’t keep looking for Reno around every corner, where she wouldn’t imagine his eyes on her wherever she went.
She wiped the tears off her face as she sped up. She’d never been one to cry—it wasn’t her style. She’d grown up tough and calm and capable. When your own mother was a spoiled child, someone had to be the grown-up—and when Summer wasn’t around, the task had fallen to her.
If Lianne was joking about Paris, which she might very well be, then she could go to England, visit Peter and Genevieve Madsen. The countryside in Wiltshire was a good place to heal. She’d watched her sister make peace with her life there—she could probably do the same.
But her sister had had a happy ending. Taka had come for her in the end. That wasn’t going to happen with Reno. No one was coming for her. There was no happy ending.
The truck came out of nowhere. It slammed into her lightweight Honda, pushing her toward the side of the road, to the edge of the overpass. She stomped on the brakes, trying desperately to steer, but the car was still moving, and she knew she was going to die. Her car was going to tumble over the bridge and land on the freeway below in a heap of twisted metal, and probably burst into flames, as well…and then the air bag exploded, the car slammed to a halt and everything went black.
For Reno the decision had been simple enough. Cleaning up the mess left by the destruction of the compound and the organization was a major undertaking, and there was no way both of them could head to L.A. Taka’s wife was pregnant, and the safety of his sister-in-law was a matter of family honor. Reno was the only one who could possibly go.
That didn’t mean he was happy about it. He needed time and distance for Jilly Lovitz to fade into an uncomfortable memory, and it was taking more of both than he would have liked.
He couldn’t even screw her out of his system. He’d gone out prowling a couple of times, looking for fast, satisfying sex with one of his old girlfriends, and ended up coming home alone. He couldn’t even jerk off—he kept seeing Jilly, feeling Jilly. It was no wonder he was a hypersensitive bundle of nerves, snapping at everyone.
And really, flying to L.A. was probably just a case of overreacting. There was no one left alive who could possibly want to hurt her, and both he and Taka would be more obvious targets. Taka’s intel had to be faulty, even if he got it directly from Peter Madsen.
According to Peter’s sources, someone had been watching the Lovitz mansion, following Jilly the few times she left the house. Which brought up any number of questions. Were they after Jilly’s father, whose financial dealings were definitely shady? Ralph Lovitz was a financier, a fancy term for an upper-class robber baron. Were they after Jilly’s bat-brained mother, who’d almost gotten both her daughters killed a couple of years ago when she joined a doomsday cult? The Lovitzes could have acquired any number of enemies, even with their hedonistic L.A. lifestyle. Or were they after Jilly—and who on earth could want to hurt her? She’d only been a peripheral complication with Hitomi and his grandfather, and everyone involved in that was dead, the family disbanded. Maybe it was an old boyfriend, except that she hadn’t had boyfriends. All he’d had to do was kiss her to know that she’d had a ridiculously small amount of experience.
Another question loomed. Why wasn’t she leaving her parents’ mansion in the Hollywood Hills? Shouldn’t she be back at school by now, getting on with her life? She wasn’t the kind of woman to mope around; he’d made it clear that he had nothing for her, and she’d left without argument. She was a practical young woman—she’d be completely over him. Hell, she was probably doing a better job of it than he was.
Not that he was having a problem. Hell, no. He’d known from the very beginning that she was trouble, and he’d done his best to keep her at arm’s length. So his resolve had faltered a couple of times, and he’d managed to enjoy himself a little too much. So what? It was over, ancient history.
But if someone was actually watching her, trailing her, then he needed to make certain she wasn’t in any danger. Reason stood that there was no one left alive who should want to hurt her.
But he was going to have to make sure.
He couldn’t sleep on the flight across the Pacific, as nervous as a cat. The other members of first class weren’t particularly happy to be sharing that rarified air with a flame-headed, tattooed punk, but they were too polite to object, and he stretched out in the little pod that they called a first-class bed, trying to tell himself this was a wasted trip. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in two weeks, not since the compound had blown and Ojiisan had died, and an airplane wasn’t going to remedy that. All he had to do was make certain she was safe and head straight back. She would never even know he was there.
Ojiisan o
wned a great deal of real estate in Southern California—his grandfather always believed in diversifying—and Reno could have chosen his lodging among hotels, condos and even several empty houses in the more expensive sections of the city. Instead, he went for an airport hotel and a rented sedan. In Los Angeles he didn’t have the unspoken protection of the police, and he needed the ability the blend in.
The black suit he traveled in was unimpressive—one would have to look closely to see it was a thousand-dollar silk one. He headed into the bathroom of the suite, staring at his reflection for a long moment.
“Only for you, Ji-chan,” he muttered. Picking up the pair of scissors, he cut through the waist-length braid, dropping it onto the marble bathroom floor.
By the time he was ready to leave, Reno had disappeared. Hiromasa Shinoda was in his place, the ubiquitous dark glasses shielding the tattoos. He’d considered getting makeup to cover them, but at the last minute gave up. As long as he kept the shades in place no one would see them, and wearing sunglasses day and night wasn’t that odd for Southern California.
He tied what was left of his newly dyed black hair in a small tail at the back of his neck. She’d look at him and never recognize him, he thought grimly. He could find out what the fuck was going on and she’d never know.
He was just about to leave his suite when his cell phone vibrated, and he picked it up, staring at the screen. Then he began to swear.
20
Everything hurt. Jilly didn’t want to open her eyes—the light overhead was too bright and whatever she was lying on was too narrow. She knew where she was without looking—the sounds and smells of a hospital were unmistakable. She wondered idly if she was going to die. The thought wasn’t particularly distressing, as long as it didn’t hurt too much. She’d dodged a bullet, literally, so many times in the past month that maybe her time had run out. She ought to be able to summon up some kind of emotion, but right at that moment all she wanted to do was breathe. And not hurt.