17. Nairobi Crawford
We need to meet
Jack
fine.
I tapped my finger against the steering wheel and stared at my parents’ house.
I needed to know if Kenya knew about this alleged half-sister of mine.
If she knew what Sterling’s trips abroad were really for.
Fontaine offered to come home with me after the meeting, but I told him no.
I needed to be alone. I needed space to process the myriad of emotions swirling inside me.
I was shocked and confused, but I didn’t know if I was necessarily hurt.
And I was pissed, because why would this woman go through these lengths just to get my attention?
I let out a heavy breath, got out of the car, and forced myself up the walkway. I hadn’t seen my mother in a few weeks. When she’d called and texted, I made sure to keep our conversations brief. I’m sure she meant well, but it was hard not to think about the little girl who’d wanted this all along.
Why’d it take him dying for her to decide she wanted to be a mother? She was about thirty years too late.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside. “Kenya!” I called out.
“Upstairs!” she answered.
I followed her voice and found her in the bedroom, surrounded by a pile of Sterling’s clothes on the bed.
She looked up from the pair of pants she was folding. “Didn’t know you were coming by today.”
I shrugged and sat on the edge of the bed. “What are you doing with his stuff?”
“Donating it. Ms. Annette’s church runs a program for men getting back on their feet. They’re always looking for stuff.”
“Hm.” There was no way to really ease into this. “Did you know Daddy had another daughter?”
Her hands froze mid-fold. She cleared her throat, catching herself and continued the motion.
When she finally looked at me, her expression didn’t shift the way I expected. No wide eyes, no denial—just this look like she knew this day would come eventually.
“When did you find out?” she asked, setting the pants down.
“Yesterday.”
“How?”
I scrunched up my face. “You serious right now? Why does it matter? You obviously knew. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Kenya let out a shaky breath and pressed a hand to her chest. “After your father left the Marines, he got a military contract that had him in Japan often,” she said. “You must’ve been about four or five at the time.”
“I remember.”
“He was gone longer than usual on one trip. Maybe a month? Then a few months later, he gets a call from some woman saying she’s pregnant.”
“And you just went along with it?”
“You don’t know what I’ve gone through, Nairobi,” she said, voice shaking. “What it means to have nothing, come from nothing.
She looked away from me. “You ever wonder why you’ve never met my side of the family?”
I had, actually. Not when I was a kid, though.
Back then I just accepted whatever version of normal my parents gave me.
We moved so much that I assumed that distance was the reason.
Then I got to middle school, and I remember listening to girls talk about their cousins, aunties, big holiday dinners with extended family.
I’d go home to Sterling, Kenya, and me in whatever house on whatever base, eating dinner in near silence.
I asked her about her family once, and she changed the subject so fast I never brought it up again.
“I come from addicts and abuse,” she continued. “Your father gave me stability. He always came home. He didn’t hit me, he never yelled. What would I have if I left? And he’d make damn sure to keep you from me.”
Her eyes went glassy. “Sterling was the kind of man who liked things just so. I barely had an education, maybe that’s why he picked me. I was easy to mold into the perfect Stepford wife. Because where was I gonna go?” She laughed bitterly and shook her head.
I wanted to be angry—wanted to call her weak for staying, for being complicit in his lies—but I couldn’t. My mother made the choices she did to survive.
“Her name’s Hana,” I said quietly. “She lives in Japan, but I think she’s in the States now. And it seems like she’s known about me.”
Kenya’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
I rubbed my temples. “It’s complicated. But your husband left behind a clusterfuck for me to clean up, and that’s all I’ll say.”
She pursed her lips, looking like she wanted to press for more but thought better of it. She knew pieces of my life—stories that Sterling had fed her about me being a private contractor—but never the full picture. And I wasn’t about to divulge shit about The Order or his involvement in it.
“Are you going to meet her?” she asked after a beat.
I might kill her. That’s what I wanted to say.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I reached for a shirt and started folding it. “I’m not sure how I feel about somebody popping up after our father’s dead and gone.”
Kenya resumed her folding. “Maybe she’s had to deal with Sterling’s shit same way we did. Who knows what their relationship was like.”
“Not you caping for her.”
She patted my leg. “It’s easy to make up your own story when you don’t have all the facts. But maybe you should give her a chance. You’ve been on your own for so long. It doesn’t have to stay that way.”
“I have friends.”
That made her raise an eyebrow. “Oh, well excuse me. Not like I’d know. You come and go like a thief in the night.”
I sighed. “I can try to be better.”
She folded another set of pants before speaking again.
“Look, Nairobi, I’m not asking you to change.
And I’m not expecting some perfect mother-daughter thing—we’ve never had that.
But… I would like to get to know you. Know about your life.
I get that your work is top-secret, but he’s not here anymore.
We don’t need to keep using him as a barrier between us. ”
I still had a lot of anger toward my parents. But my mother opening up like this, telling her side of the story, made me realize things weren’t so black and white.
Sterling Crawford was good at building cages and keeping us in them. My mother, the obedient wife. Me, the weapon. We were both shaped into what he wanted us to be. And now we were both left starting from scratch with each other.
Cash and Fontaine didn’t want me to go into this meeting alone. It was risky, but the conversation about Hana needed to happen without interference. Those two were too volatile. If Jack so much as looked at me sideways, it’d be belt to ass quicker than I could blink.
The Emerald Lounge was B.C. territory, so the compromise was simple: they’d be in the back office watching through the security feeds.
The place had cameras everywhere. If anything jumped off, they’d be close enough to intervene.
The Order wasn’t stupid. They chose this spot for a reason.
At the very least, they had to assume Cash would be nearby.
I sat in the booth, twisting the stem of my wine glass between my fingers as I tried to get a handle on my thoughts. Migos played low under the steady conversation that floated through the lounge.
Jack entered the lounge with the same arrogance he had when I met him a few weeks ago.
He didn’t even seem to notice the people casting curious glances at him as he made his way toward me.
White folks didn’t come through the Emerald Lounge much, especially not ones that looked like a damn James Bond extra.
He looked sharp as ever in a well-tailored gray suit, and shoes that screamed Italian leather and old money.
“Ms. Crawford,” he greeted, sliding into the booth beside me like we were old friends.
I tipped my head at him and took a long sip of wine.
“Glad you finally reached out,” he said. “We were beginning to wonder if you’d change your mind.”
“I’m a woman of my word,” I replied. “But I’ve got a few stipulations before I start doing anything for y’all.”
Jack quirked a brow, amused. “Stipulations?”
“I’m assuming the pay is more than what I was making at The Agency?”
He smirked as he flagged down the server. “Hasn’t Fontaine told you the kind of reach we have? You won’t have to worry about money.”
He quickly put an order in for an old fashioned and turned back to me with that insufferable composure.
“Anything else?”
“Why the fuck is my sister doing all this to get my attention? If she wanted to talk, she could’ve done it directly. Instead, she sends you,” I paused and cocked my head. “What are you—her errand boy? Her handler? Or are you fucking her? You Hana’s lover, Jack?”
There was a slight tick of his jaw—barely noticeable—but I caught it. Satisfaction spread through my chest as I peeped him shift ever so slightly in his seat.
“You two have more in common than you realize,” he said once his drink arrived. “Neither of you believe in mincing words. Probably got that from your father.”
“All this talking in circles and you’re still not answering my question.”
He took a slow sip of his cocktail. “You want a face-to-face. Understood.”
“Before anything’s finalized,” I clarified. “No more middlemen. If she wants something from me, she’ll have to tell me herself.”
Wordlessly, he pulled out his phone, quickly scrolled through his contacts before lifting the phone to his ear.
“Moshi moshi,”?* he greeted the person on the other end.
I fought the urge to roll my eyes as he started prattling in perfect Japanese. Because of course he spoke Japanese. I tapped my nails impatiently on the table.
“Hai,”?* he said as he nodded.
A pause.
“Hai.”
He ended the call and slid the phone into his jacket pocket.
“She’ll meet you tomorrow.”
“Good. I’m choosing the location.”
“Of course.”
I grabbed my phone and texted him the address to Money’s farmhouse. It wasn’t my usual meeting spot, but it was familiar, off the grid, and I knew it was secure. Me and Hana had some shit to address, and I wasn’t tryna do it over dinner.
“Tell her to be there by 8:00 p.m.”
Jack lifted his glass in acknowledgment.
Let her come.
Let her see for herself what our father had left in his wake.