42. Vi
CHAPTER 42
VI
In the penthouse, minutes keep passing by, and my sanity disappears with them. Kenzo is going to rip me apart like a helpless insect, and I refuse to be fragile. I need to do something, to take action, but I don’t know what to do. There’s no way to pick his office’s doorknob—it’s digital, and I need his phone to access it, anyway—so I’m going caveman style.
I cradle a heavy vase under one of my arms, staring at the office door. I don’t want to give the Golden Honor Firearms information to Uncle Jay, so I have to find something else. Something just as good to satiate our client. I don’t want to screw Kenzo or his family over, but I have to do something before I destroy everything.
I dial Uncle Jay one last time, crossing my fingers he’ll answer and talk me out of smashing this vase. He’s the only one who’s been there for me since I was a kid, who didn’t give me up to the foster care system, who chose to raise me. If this is for our tiny family, for our future, for our house on the beach, then I can do this, even if it means hurting Kenzo.
My heart screams Kenzo is good, but my brain knows he’s bad, worse than anyone we’ve seen in our line of work.
I lift the vase.
“One,” I whisper. “Two?—”
I slam it down on the handle, and the vase breaks, tiny shards of ceramic shooting against my pants. I jump back in surprise. The sound echoes in my ears like a drum.
I glance back up. The doorknob is still there, fully intact. But now, there’s a broken vase shattered on the ground.
Damn it!
The front door clicks. Kenzo enters, and my body instantly flushes. It doesn’t matter if I hate the brooding silence that’s been following him like a shadow lately; my body knows the dirty things he’s whispered in my ears. But just because he’s good in bed, doesn’t mean he won’t kill me.
He faces the hallway, taking in the mess.
He starts, “What the?—”
“I’m sorry. I tripped.” I gesture to the shards on the ground. “I was trying to make room for a candle, putting this vase in another room, and then I?—”
“Where’s the candle?”
I search for something, anything to explain myself, but my mind is blank.
“Is everything about you a lie?” he asks. “Maybe the love for candle-making is a scam too.”
Tingling sensations ripple through my body, putting me on edge. He’s called me a slut, a bitch, a whore, but somehow this— Kenzo pointing out I’m lying again—is more insulting than that.
I need him to believe me. I need something to work in my favor.
“Excuse me?” I ask. “You think I’m lying about the candles?”
“You’re all liars. You probably don’t even know your uncle lies to you.”
I blink, trying to make sense of what he’s saying, but there’s nothing there. Only emptiness. Uncle Jay doesn’t lie to me; we’re on the same team, fighting for the same goals.
Instead, I focus on the candles.
“I’ve always loved making candles,” I say. I tuck hair behind my ear, my fingers running over my tattoo. “That’s one of the only things I’ve always, always loved.”
“Then what about Jay?” he asks.
Everything in me stills. “What about him?”
“Have you told him about our firearms deal?”
I shake my head. That much is true.
“But that’s what you’re after, right? Someone hired you to steal the contract from us.”
I don’t want to lie anymore, so I lower my gaze to my feet, my insides swirling with nerves. “Yes,” I mumble, so quietly the word barely makes it to my own ears.
“Who sent you?” Kenzo asks, raising his voice.
“I don’t know.”
“Who are you protecting?” He runs a hand through his hair. “Is it yourself? Go on, then. Be selfish. I can stand behind that. But if it’s for Jay?”
His eyes leave mine as he shakes his head in disgust.
My stomach churns. “What’s your problem with my uncle?”
He scowls at me, but he doesn’t open his mouth. It’s like the words are tearing him apart, and it makes me nervous. Kenzo is contemplating how to tell me the truth, and that’s not like him.
“Fine,” I say. “If you’re so hell-bent on being honest, then out with it. Why do you hate my uncle?”
“He’s lied to you since he adopted you.”
This is stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“So what?” I snap. “Everyone lies. You may hold truth to your chest like a badge of honor, but you’re exactly like us. I bet you’re lying to your family about me.”
“What did he tell you about your parents?” he asks, his voice low and controlled. “How did he explain their deaths?”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand, and my fingers twitch at my sides.
“I already told you,” I say nervously. I kneel and pick through the pieces of ceramic. “It was a burglary. The robbers were armed. Now, will you help me clean this up?”
He kneels down and grabs the biggest shards of the vase.
“You believe every word out of his mouth,” he says.
“He’s my uncle. My only family.”
“I bet he told you this wasn’t a dangerous job. But you know what?” He flips over the shard slowly in his hand. “If it were Dice or Niko who had taken your marriage contract—if Cherry liked women—if you had been married to any of them, and not me, you’d already be dead.”
Nausea rises in my throat. What do I say to that?
“Why am I even doing this?” Kenzo mutters to himself. “Why do I care about your loyalty to Jay when you won’t even give me half of that respect?”
I grab the shard out of his hand. “Will you shut up about my uncle?” I shout.
“He had your parents killed,” he says.
Blood pumps in my chest like a ticking time bomb, and it throbs in my ears. How can that be true?
“The burglary? It was staged,” he says. “He hired the contract killers. You were supposed to be in there too! You were supposed to die that day, but the fucker felt guilty when he saw you in the back of the car, and then he couldn’t get the insurance money unless he kept you or killed you. Don’t you get it, Vi?” He leans in closer, and his minty breath washes over me like a film of plastic, ready to suffocate me. “He’s using you too.”
I smack him across the face, but it’s only after I’ve struck that I realize I still have a jagged piece of ceramic in my hands. The skin right below his bottom lip is broken. He licks the wound, then bares his teeth at me.
I should feel bad—I didn’t mean to cut him—but I’m furious. Kenzo is saying this just to hurt me. To manipulate me. To tear me away from the only stable person in my life.
And I don’t believe a word he says.
“Now, you’re lying,” I say.
“Deep down, you know I’m telling the truth,” he growls. “Damn it, Vi. You’ve been lying to yourself for so long, you probably don’t even know what’s true anymore.”
Exhaling slowly, I drop the shards. But everything is red, and I feel the anger building inside of my chest.
“What do you even want, Vi?” Kenzo asks. “Is it money? Candles? To adopt children? Did you even get a choice when it came to this job?” He chuckles, but there’s no humor in it. “You don’t know, do you? You’re just a puppet.”
“Fuck you!”
I lunge at him, taking him by surprise and knocking him down to the ground. I pound my fists into his chest, and he grinds his teeth, taking each blow. I don’t stop until I can’t breathe. Because if he’s right?—
If Kenzo is right ? —
He grabs my body, and we both roll until I’m pinned underneath him. His hard-on is raging between us, stabbing against my stomach, but his eyes pierce my soul.
“You would rather believe a man who lies to get money,” he says. “Who commits insurance fraud, making people believe he’s their long-lost relative. Who uses you like a whore just to get people to pay for things neither of you need.” He searches me for understanding, but every inch of me is full of anger. “I don’t give a shit what you do, but believing him over me? That’s what fucking hurts, Vi.”
I spit in his face. Any sort of reason escapes me as I lurch forward, trying as hard as I can to bite him, but he pushes himself away and storms down the hallway toward the kitchen. He grabs the candle I made for him and hurls it against the wall. It crashes into a pile of wax and glass. He flips the glass coffee table, and it careens against the wall too, shattering it into a million pieces. I curl into a ball, hiding from the glass.
His eyes reach mine and both of us hold still. Shards of glass. Chunks of wax. Ceramic fragments. The broken remains of a home. There’s a darkness in his eyes I can’t read—guilt, maybe, or sadness—but before I can figure it out, he storms toward the balcony.
“What are you even doing out there?” I demand. “Calling backup so your soldiers can kill me? Because you’re too much of a coward to do it yourself?”
He flips around, rage radiating off of him. “I can’t think straight when I’m around you,” he howls.
His nostrils flare like a predator, and my breath catches in my throat. I slowly rise to my feet. Then he exits to the balcony, locking the door behind him. Out of desperation, out of the sheer will to fight, to do anything so I know he feels something for me, I rush to the door, banging on it and screaming at the top of my lungs.
Kenzo ignores me. He grips the railing as he stares out at the city.
He’s going to leave me alone. Just like my parents.
Maybe he’s right.
Maybe my uncle did something terrible like that. To someone else. Not me though. He could never do that to me.
But even if Kenzo is right, Uncle Jay is still here, still by my side, and that says more to me than anything else.
Kenzo can’t even finish an argument with me.
By the time the balcony door opens, most of the ceramic in the hallway is gone, but the living room is a mess. I refuse to help him clean up his tantrum.
But Kenzo doesn’t even see the broken remains of our fight. His eyes are so focused on me I can feel his gaze like a silk cocoon weaving tightly around my body. My throat constricts.
A light shimmers through his gaze. Maybe it’s hope. I cling to that possibility desperately.
“I have proof, Vi,” he says, his voice gravelly, but calm, like he’s been practicing these words. “You don’t believe me, but I have it on my phone. I recorded the whole conversation.”
My insides churn with fury. I want to tell him recording like that is an invasion of privacy, that Jay—my uncle—could have been lying to Kenzo just to create a superficial bond. I want to tell him what happened in the past doesn’t matter because, if Uncle Jay did do it, he has atoned for his crime by taking care of me my whole life.
And I choose family.
Uncle Jay has never left me. That’s loyalty. I don’t need to hear Kenzo’s recording. It’s just another one of his games. He’s the one manipulating me right now.
“Go to hell,” I say.
I spin around and walk toward one of the guest rooms. I may be locked inside of this penthouse, but I refuse to indulge in this conversation.
“Listen to me,” he commands. Chills run through me. His tone is so different from the carefree, playful Kenzo I walked down the wedding aisle with. That switch of personality runs through him, and I know, no matter what happens, this side—this dangerous side—will always be there, waiting for me.
Because I keep letting him in.
“I can’t keep letting you or Jay do this,” he says, his voice loud but steady, like he knows he needs to stay calm in order to keep me still. “I’ve been keeping everyone off of his back and yours, promising I’ll take care of this, but I can’t let you or him fuck us over forever. If you bring him in, we can get through this together, but we have to do something now, Vivian. If we don’t, the rest of the family will get involved. It’s not just about us anymore.”
Vivian. He says my full name like he has some sort of authority over me. Like he thinks he can control me.
“Stop pretending like you care,” I say, spinning around. “You’re nothing but a jealous idiot who is so fucking broken, you want to break down the only bit of hope I have left.” I cross my arms over my chest. “And I refuse, Kenzo. I’m not going to be a broken girl to you anymore.”
But suddenly, I’m in that backseat. Waiting for my parents to come back. Waiting for someone to save me.
You’re not supposed to be here, Uncle Jay had said. Is Kenzo right? Was I really supposed to go inside of the house and be murdered too?
Kenzo’s jaw tightens. “I’m trying to warn you, Vi.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
I reach for the open door to the guest room. He clicks a button on his phone, and I flip around. He’s holding his device to his ear, and I know what that means.
“You made a promise,” I say, reminding him he said he would never touch Uncle Jay. Promises matter to Kenzo. I have to hold on to that.
Kenzo glares at me but doesn’t acknowledge what I said. He turns to his phone.
“Capture him,” he says.