Chapter 30 Andy
*****
Chapter 30
Andy
“Get your ass back to her house.” Cas’s voice is calm, but I know he’s extremely pissed off right now. I’ve been waiting for this call since Akio kicked me off his grounds yesterday and am surprised I didn’t get it sooner. I’ve been dodging Cas’s texts since this morning, but I can’t ignore a phone call.
“Akio fucking kicked me out, Cas. I can’t just waltz up to a billionaire’s mansion and ask to come back in.”
“Well, I’m the fucking boss, Andy, and I say you can. And you have to. Because those are my orders.” I roll my eyes, and it’s as if he can hear it over the phone, because I get a harsh earful of his frustrated, forceful breath out. He’s such a grumpy asshole sometimes.
“Cas, listen, Akio and Chi have both made it clear that it would be easier if I’m not there. So, I’m not going to go there. You have plenty of guys that can handle things, and I’m still nearby if something happens.”
What I don’t say is that I’m not about to stand watch over a girl who I’m crazy about but can’t be with. I’m not going to say that I want nothing to do with some weird fucking love triangle between the assholes she’s meeting with and me as her lover in the shadows. I’m not built for second place. Even Cas has never treated me like that.
“You are still my point of contact with Oxy on this, Andy. Also, you’ll sit sentry at the first guard post outside her house each Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. You take the night shift and report in to me at noon the next day, unless there’s an emergency, of course. Clear?”
I want to argue — this is just Cas trying to make sure I stalk the object of my affection the way he stalked Mara. So that I can protect her the way I desperately want to. “Cas, if Akio finds out…”
“If he wants me working for him, then it won’t matter if he finds out. You’re on the night shift, so you’ll be able to stay out of his way. I’m the head of this fucking operation, and if Akio wants my men there, he’ll do what I’m telling him to do.”
I’m certain Cas wouldn’t have this kind of bluster if he were actually speaking in front of Akio right now, but I sigh and nod. I consider the fact that Cas is actually paying me to stalk Chi. To stalk the girl who would probably be mine if we lived in a different world. Who still feels like she’s mine in every way regardless.I told Cas once to move on when he was doing this exact same thing with his girl. I guess it was a good thing he didn’t take my advice, since it all worked out in the end anyway. He didn’t push his presence on her. He watched her from afar. Just wanted to be around her.
“Was that a yes?” Cas asks as I realize that he can’t see my nod through the phone. I push my thoughts away.
“It was a yes,” I breathe out harshly.
“Good,” he says. “Oh, and Andy,” he adds, right before I hang up the phone.
“Yeah?” I ask, preoccupied.
“If you want to take on a few more nights, you just let me know.” I hear the smirk in his voice before he hangs up the phone.
As a sentry outside of Chi’s mansion, it’s amazing the shit I can hear. Cas has each of these vans equipped with some high-powered microphone that has a volume and everything and can pick up sounds from very far away. I don’t listen in on all of Chi’s conversations, but I do occasionally listen in on her meetings with the people who come to visit her, especially after her engagement.
One day, she gets a visit from one of the men she didn’t choose. She tells the guards at the gate to turn him away, but I hear her father mention that the man is very high up in a sect of the Yakuza in southern Japan. Apparently, that means she has to make nice.
She allows him in, and he makes his case, but I’m proud of her when she sweetly and assertively tells him she has had to make a difficult choice, and she was happy they spent some time together. He’s angry as he leaves, but mumbling so much I can’t make out the words. Oxy informs me that he calls Chi a baka onna, and that she’s choosing the idiot just to try and contain her family’s power.
I know that phrase without Oxy’s immediate translation software: stupid girl. It makes me want to get out of the car and stomp his brains into the sidewalk, but I don’t. I do wonder how he knows which guy she’s chosen. The only reason I know is because Oxy has been keeping tabs on her conversations after the first guy turned out to be such a piece of shit. We are, of course, making sure there is no more violence or disrespect.
I was telling Chi the truth the night she came to stay at my safehouse: I really don’t sense a huge threat right now. I don’t mean that there are zero threats, just that they are small.
I’m still curious about her brother, though. I need to know more about this 32-year-old man who, even after his father almost died a few weeks ago, hasn’t stepped up to the plate for his family at all. He still lives off of his father’s wealth. My feeling is that Akio is suppressing him in some way, but why?
Unfortunately, there is truly nothing in any media about him, including the Japanese papers. The last tidbit of information about him is the well-placed, fake-as-hell newspaper article about their sweet little family, with the cloyingly close picture of them all standing like statues with their botox smiles, dusting each other’s shoulders with their fingertips, but clearly worlds apart for anyone looking a bit deeper. They are just a small group of people who don’t really seem to know each other at all when you really look closely.
The only issue with my reconnaissance on Chi’s brother is that I know so little about him, and I hate not knowing about someone. The lack of information on a billionaire’s son is jarring, and I don’t know why I can’t get any sort of read on him. I don’t even have a picture of him except for this one taken six years ago. He could have gained 100 pounds and started balding. He’d look completely different.
I have to admit to myself that Chi’s wellbeing has become too much of a preoccupation for me. I would never normally spend this much time on one thing, and it is probably taking my attention away from other areas of the job. But I want to know that the mansion and its occupants are safe.
Of course, I could tell my men stationed at the guardhouse to keep an eye out, but in my heart, I know that no one will watch the mansion the way I will. Cas would be the best alternative, but even he wouldn’t be as vigilant as I would. And I would never ask him to do such menial work while he and Mara are off dealing with all the family drama that popped up for her after the war.
I don’t want to be completely consumed with this, but I feel it taking over my life, even while Chi seemingly goes about her merry way on her own. I know she has to do it — that her life will move forward whether she wants it to or not, and that there is no use fighting it. But my life is utterly stagnant at the moment, and the contrast is a constant reminder to me that she’ll be gone in a matter of months, both figuratively and literally, and I’ll still be here, doing what I always do.
But my life dictates that I need to stay my course. Hers dictates change, and that’s the way it has to be. I’ve just found that change is always easier to plunge into when you’re leaving something. I’m left to sit in it and dwell. To stew in the feeling of being alone, without new challenges to sink my thoughts into. Despite the bitterness I feel over it, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ll take it so that she doesn’t have to.