46. Vi
CHAPTER 46
VI
For once, Jay is quiet on the car ride to the airport. Usually, he rambles so much I can barely think, but this time, the silence eats away at my brain. It almost proves that everything Kenzo said is true, like Jay knows he should feel guilty, but he doesn’t. He’s not even denying it anymore.
Breaking the silence, needing something to fill it up, I ask Jay, “Are you okay?”
“Don’t you worry about me, sweetheart. You know I always fix things,” Jay says as he rubs his raw wrists.
Bile burns the back of my throat. Sweetheart. I never like when he calls me that, but I always accepted it, because having a nickname made me feel safe. Now, I know it was just a trick to make me believe his lies.
Jay scrutinizes my healthy body. My neck is still faintly green and red from Kenzo’s hands, ropes, and plastic bags, but overall, I probably look fine. On the other hand, Jay is so bruised, he’s almost unrecognizable. One of his eyes is completely shut, his face is a deep purple, and there’s a good chance he has a concussion. Still, he gives me shit-eating grin with his bloody lips.
Seeing him like this used to upset me. But right now, it’s different. I’m not okay with him being hurt, but part of me knows he deserved it.
That’s behind us though. It doesn’t matter what happened with the yakuza. What matters is this is our second chance. Kenzo is lying to his family to save us, and we owe it to him to take his deal. We need to get out of the country.
Eventually, the driver drops us off at the departing flights curb at the airport. I glance through the window to see the lists of locations, but Jay is already speed-walking to the car rental shop on the other side of the road.
“Where are you going?” I ask. “We can’t screw around right now. The Endo-kai will kill us.”
“Are you coming?” he shouts over his shoulder.
Nerves instantly knot inside of me. This isn’t good. I hold my stomach as I catch up with him. “Jay?” I ask. “Seriously, we can’t?—”
“He said twenty-four hours,” Jay explains. He holds open the door to the rental shop for me, then motions toward the line for the cashier. “I’ve got one more errand to run, then we can go. I promise. We’ll get that dream house of yours.”
He adds a wink, and my stomach flops. I don’t like this. I know Jay, and an “errand” like this means trouble.
“Beach? Paris?” he asks. “Where do you think we should go?”
We? I’m leaving with him, but we’re not a family anymore. After this, I’ve repaid my debt to him. He hired someone to kill my parents; his son was killed because of me. He spared my life when I was a child, and now, I’m sparing his. We’re even.
And my dream house? Why do I get the feeling the idea of a dream house was implanted by Jay too? What if it was a way to keep me in a perpetual state of rawness over my parents’ death with his continued references to the beach? What if I never truly wanted a mansion on the beach?
I touch the back of my ear, that turquoise jar candle tattoo, so similar to the same candle I got with my parents. Maybe it never had anything to do with a beach house. Maybe I just wanted a real family who protected me, loved me, and wouldn’t make me do things I didn’t want to do. Maybe I just let Jay convince me a dream house would get me all that.
“We need to get out of Las Vegas,” I argue, startling out of those thoughts. It’s afternoon now, and I want to leave as soon as possible. “The dream house doesn’t matter if?—”
“You didn’t answer the question. Beach? Paris? Both?” Jay interrupts.
“You’re stalling. We need to go. ”
“We’ll be in the air by dinnertime.”
“But Kenzo?—”
His phone buzzes. He shields the screen. “I gotta take this, sweetheart. Can you wait here?”
“Fine,” I mutter.
I stare at the clock behind the counter, and the hands click around the circle. I grit my teeth. I have one job right now, and that’s getting the hell out of Vegas. Kenzo is protecting us. Lying to his own family to save us, two criminals who don’t deserve it. We?—
No, it’s not “we.” I owe it to Kenzo to make sure Jay and I get out, so the Endo-kai never finds out about Kenzo’s lie. His punishment will be far worse than a permanent scar or a missing pinky, and I can’t let that happen.
But a screw tightens in my chest, and my skin tingles. What if Jay’s errand is another trap against the Endo-kai?
Through the windowed walls, I can see him standing outside of the building, talking on the phone. At least he wasn’t lying about that.
I step out of line, exit, and walk as quietly as I can.
“Uh huh,” Jay says. “Yep. Red Rock Canyon for sure.” Another long pause. “I got one of their phones. We’ll get in.”
My stomach drops. A phone to get in somewhere? Like the keypad at Kenzo’s penthouse?
The guns. They’re in the desert, aren’t they? Shit!
“That works just peachy for me. Send your courier,” he says.
He clicks off the phone and spins around, striding toward the door. But he sees me and freezes in his tracks. His smile drops.
“What are you doing, Jay?” I ask. I step forward this time. “What’s your errand in the desert?”
“Nothing, sweetheart. Don’t you?—”
“ Don’t ‘sweetheart’ me,” I snap. “What’s going on in the desert?”
Seconds pass. My heart races, and my throat runs dry. Jay’s lips pry back into a smile, and every hair on my body stands on end.
“Come on, Vi. You knew this is what it’d come down to, right?” He chuckles, but there’s nothing funny about this.
“No,” I say. “I didn’t.”
“The Endo-kai took my son. Took your marital status. Scarred me with their name. The least we can do is take some of their guns.”
My ears drum. “I couldn’t even break into Kenzo’s office. How the hell do you think you’ll have access to their gun storage?”
Jay holds up a black smartphone. “I’ve got everything we need,” he says. “When Dice was waiting for Tomo to show up, he left me with one of his guards. This four-eyed fucker. New guy. All it took was the promise of riches, and he practically gift-wrapped it for me.” He belly laughs, then winces in pain. “We’ll be rich, Vi. Fucking rich. ”
My blood runs cold. “Rich,” I repeat, my voice barely audible. It’s the only thing that matters to him.
“Rich,” Jay says. “Richer than your mafia husband. Richer than—” He sees my expression and stops. “Rich enough to finally get you the house you want. On the beach. Seventeen rooms. An infinity pool. A movie theater. I don’t care. Just let me do this. For you, Vi.”
Everything seems surreal right then. I used to want everything Jay said to be true so badly, but it was all a lie to keep me calm and obedient.
“This is suicide,” I say, pleading for him to stop. “Kenzo saved us when he was supposed to kill us. If we take their guns, they will come after us, and there will be no saving us this time.”
“Oh, hush,” Jay says. “All we have to do is be on the run for a few months, and then everything will be over. By then, they’ll have lost the war.”
My heart pounds. War? What war?
“What?” I whisper.
“Come on, Vi,” Jay says. “Our client from Tokyo? The Ito-gumi aren’t going to put up with the Endo-kai taking more money from them, especially cutting out Shabu-8! From what I hear, that’s the only trade they have right now. Cutting out their gun deal is like a slap in the face. They’ll obliterate the Endo-kai, and you won’t have to worry about divorcing that asshole. You may even get to collect! I’m sure he put something in his will.”
He beams like even Kenzo’s will was a part of his plan.
I can lie. I can run away. I can do a lot of things.
But I can’t let Kenzo get hurt.
“This isn’t right,” I stammer. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you.”
“Why do you care?” he barks. “They aren’t your family. I am. Move on. ”
His words are callous, bringing me back to when I was eight years old. I still kept that turquoise jarred candle with me everywhere we went, but when I was sleeping, Patrick had scooped the wax on the carpet and mashed it into the fibers. The hotel room reeked of salt, sunscreen, and grief. I couldn’t fix it, and I couldn’t stop crying.
Jay was red-faced as he yelled at Patrick, but then he turned to me, his jaw tight. I sunk inside of myself.
You need to move on, Vivy, he said coldly. They’re not your family. We are.
“Kenzo was right,” I say. My body constricts with nerves, and I laugh, every muscle in my body pulsing. “You don’t care, do you?”
“About what?”
“About me!” I shout. “You say this is about vengeance, but it’s an excuse. You hardly even cared when your own son died at the hands of the yakuza. You probably wouldn’t care at all if they killed me too!”
“You’re not going to die,” Jay scoffs. “Kenzo loves you too much. The dumb bastard.”
Love. Real love.
Giving your wife and her crappy fake uncle twenty-four hours to skip town isn’t the sweetest way to show you love someone, but it’s the only way Kenzo can save me.
And Kenzo didn’t lie about that.
“Did you get a car yet?” Jay asks. “Let’s go.”
I stand in front of him. Jay tries to go around me, back into the building, but even as he jumps into the street, I block his path. Cars swerve around us. I don’t let him pass me.
“We’re not going,” I say.
His forehead furrows, and his swollen eye barely flutters open. He leans down to me, his breath sour.
“Are you defying me, Vivy?” he asks calmly.
I straighten my shoulders. “We’re not going to steal their guns,” I say. “We’re leaving. Right now. ”
“Guess I’m doing this by myself then.”
The back of Jay’s hand whacks me in the face so hard my head crashes against the window of the building. My vision goes white. I fall to my hands and knees, then wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
Slowly, I can see again. Blood smears my skin.
“Are you all right?” a stranger asks.
“What happened?” another person asks. “Did someone hurt you?”
Jay.
I scan the area for Jay. A flash of his gray-brown hair catches my eye across the road, and I shove myself up to my feet.
“What the fuck?” a man shouts as Jay cuts in front of him. Jay slides into the back seat of the taxi, slamming the door shut behind him.
I race across the lines of oncoming traffic. Tires screech and horns honk, but Jay’s taxi is already gone.
Shit!
My throat aches. I grab my phone, my fingers shaking as I dial Kenzo. It rings, but he doesn’t pick up. I stand in the taxi queue, then flip through my wallet, finding a hundred. I hand it to the person at the front.
“Please,” I beg.
He scowls. “Screw you.”
“I’ll take it,” the woman next to him says.
“Thank you,” I say.
I stand in front of her, and we wait. I could try a rideshare app, but instead, I dial Kenzo again, and this time, the call goes straight to voicemail. I smack my phone to my chest, cursing that my call isn’t going through. My temple drums.
What do I do?
I take the taxi over to the penthouse, but the front desk clerk won’t let me up.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Petrus, but you’ve been removed from the?—”
Petrus. Kenzo had them change my surname from Watanabe back to Petrus. Because he thinks I chose Jay over him. And in a way, I did. I couldn’t kill Jay, but I could leave. It was the only way I could make things right for Kenzo—by making sure Jay and I left.
Maybe loyalty is more than blindly following someone into the desert. And love—maybe love is more than standing beside someone, even when you realize you’ve made a mistake. No. Love is fixing it, even if it hurts to do the right thing.
I owe this to Kenzo.
I hail another taxi and take it to Samurai Castle. It’s a death wish to show up at the Endo-kai headquarters like this, but I need to find Kenzo. It’s the only way I can make this right.