Chapter Thirty
Thirty
As far as deaths went, it was perfect.
Jack obtained a puffer fish toxin called tetrodotoxin from a chemist friend. The chemist had calculated a dose that would put Jack in a suspended state for several hours but allow him to revive naturally without supportive care.
“Who is this guy?” I stretched out beside Jack on my couch, studying the tiny vial in his hand. “Do you trust him?”
“He’s a friend of Lou’s, and Lou says he’s a good man.”
“Lou? Lou can’t even keep his peonies alive.” My voice rose so high, Gage and Chloe came running out of the kitchen. They’d come in case there were any problems when Jack went under. “They’ve been suffering from botrytis blight for over a year.”
“That’s because he didn’t prune off and destroy the infected parts,” he said. “I hope you bought the funeral peonies from someone else.”
“I didn’t get peonies. I got lilies. I didn’t want you to have such a good funeral that you wouldn’t want to come back. If you want a real funeral with all the expensive exotic flowers you ticked on the list, you’ll have to die properly, preferably when you’re over ninety and I’ve already passed away.”
“That’s very romantic.” Jack slid his hand around my neck and pulled me down to his lips. “Give me a kiss before I die.”
I kissed him and kissed him and couldn’t let go.
“I’ll be okay, sweetheart.” Jack gently eased away. “I’m coming back. I’ve got something to give you.” He put the vial to his lips. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I buried my forehead in his neck, breathing in his scent, tasting the salt on his skin with a flurry of last frantic kisses.
He swallowed the contents and closed his eyes while I listened to his heart slow to a barely discernible rhythm. And then he “died” in my arms.
“Jack?” I shook his shoulder. “Jack?”
No response. Bile rose in my throat and a surge of panic rushed through me as I clung desperately to Jack’s lifeless body. I gasped for air, squeezing my eyes shut so I couldn’t see him lying there so still and silent. “I can’t do this. There has to be another way. Where’s the antidote?”
“There is no antidote.” Gage gently pulled me away. “It has to work its way out of his system. When people get puffer fish poisoning in Japan, unless they’re having symptoms, they are often just monitored until they recover.”
“What if he doesn’t recover?” The weight of his sacrifice bore down on me, crushing my spirit. I thought I’d be able to stay strong, but it was too real. What if I lost Jack when we’d only just found each other again? “What if he took too much? What if he misread the instructions? What if the chemist is as clueless about puffer fish poison as Lou is about peonies? I didn’t get the fancy coffin Jack wanted.” My breath came out in a sob. “I didn’t even get his flowers. He’s going to die with lilies. He hates lilies.”
Chloe knelt beside me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “Take a breath, babe. It’s going to be fine. You need to call the funeral home and let them come and get him. He’s taken this risk for us; we owe it to him to play it out to the end.”
I don’t know how I managed to get through the next few hours. I made the call and sat with Jack until they came to take him away. Chloe and Gage stayed with me to help wrap up the final details of the plan and then we made our way to the funeral home where Emma, Axel, Simone, and Cristian were waiting. I had turned down the offer to have the twenty bikers as funeral guests and hired ten actors instead, including an elderly woman who wouldn’t stop crying.
“He’s in the viewing room,” the funeral director said, shaking my hand. “A relative called last night to upgrade his casket and he’s now in our premium oak Bellmont with an adjustable bed and mattress for optimum viewing. It’s a beautiful choice.”
“Did this relative also change the flowers?” I shot an irritated glance at Chloe, who had to cover her mouth to hide her laughter. Jack had obviously been busy last night.
“Yes, indeed. We received a delivery of exotic flowers,” he said. “The driver came with instructions to donate the lilies to other bereaved families, so we’ve placed them in the cooler until the next service.”
“I cannot believe him,” I grumbled as we made our way to the viewing room. “I specifically told him we needed to keep the costs down.”
“You were just sobbing in your apartment about the pine box and lilies,” Chloe reminded me.
“I take it back. We should bury him in cardboard with only dandelions at his service.”
Axel’s men had been instructed to keep a lookout for Clare and to alert us as soon as she showed up. We had arranged a short—one-hour—viewing window before the service, after which Jack was to be cremated since we hadn’t arranged for a burial plot. The plan was for him to wake up in the funeral home before the cremation but after we’d caught Clare, and then we’d all rejoice and go home to torture her for information about the necklace. My biggest worry, aside from Jack never waking up, was that he might wake up too late. The funeral home had a legal obligation to deal with the body, and since I’d ticked “cremation” on the “burial choices” form, they would likely be keen to wrap things up after the service.
“Where is she?” I paced up and down the aisle in front of the casket. “Why isn’t she showing up? She cares about him. I know she does.”
“We’ve got a bigger problem than Clare not showing up.” Emma held up her phone. “Axel is outside. He says Jack’s got an influx of unexpected visitors. Dozens of them.”
Chloe and I shared a horrified look. “What visitors? Who are they? Who else knows that Jack is dead?”
“Beta.” My dad walked into the room, his face creased with worry. “We just heard about Jack. Why didn’t you tell us?”
Stunned, I could only stare as my mom, aunties, uncles, and cousins followed him into the room and gathered around Jack’s coffin.
“What’s going on?” I dragged my father out into the hallway. “How did you find out?”
“Anil heard from a friend that Jack had passed. He mentioned it to his father, and his father called me to offer his condolences. He remembered Jack from when he visited them last year and then ran out of their house without saying good-bye. Anil had told him that you and Jack were together.”
“Anil passed on the message?” I was at once happy because the message had clearly gotten through to Clare, and sad that Anil was still with her. Part of me had hoped that he would come to his senses after she tried to kill us.
“Is he not here yet?” Dad asked. “He told his father not to prepare his usual bagged lunch because he was taking the day off work to attend the funeral.”
“I haven’t seen him.” I asked Chloe to tell the rest of the crew that Anil might show up and when he did, to make sure no one touched him because if anyone was going to hurt him for what he’d done, it was me.
“You didn’t answer your phone when I called,” Dad continued, “but I realized you’d probably turned it off when you came here out of respect. Your mom called the funeral home to get the details of the service. Nani called your aunties, and they got everyone together, and thank goodness we made it here in time to be with you for your final good-bye.”
I felt a prickle of awareness and a shiver ran down my spine. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of blond hair, but before I could check to see if it was Clare, Anil was by my side.
After sharing a greeting and a few words with my father, he pulled me away. “I need to talk to you.”
“We have nothing to say to each other,” I spat out. “Jack and I almost died in that container, and you did nothing to save us. I thought you were my friend.”
“I convinced her to leave you in the container instead of having Vito kill you right then and there,” he protested. “After they locked you in, I landed my drone on the roof so I could track you.” He gave me a pleading look. “It was the best I could do.”
“Your best wasn’t good enough. Chloe found us only seconds before the container was picked up by the gantry crane, and since Clare had painted over the number, once the ship left port, there would have been no way to find us. Drone batteries don’t last forever.”
A maelstrom of emotions flickered across Anil’s face. “I had a plan. I just thought I’d have more time.”
“Your plan sucked.” I folded my arms so I wouldn’t be tempted to throttle him.
“What happened to Jack?” His eyes watered. “Was it Clare? Did she kill him? Or was it Mr. X? I didn’t have anything to do with this. You have to believe me.”
“No, she didn’t do it.” I couldn’t trust him, so I gave the lie that we’d prepared in case anyone asked. “He was shot by the Mafia when we went to rescue Cristian. He refused to go to a hospital because gunshots have to be reported and he didn’t want to put us all at risk. Gage did his best to patch him up, but…” My voice caught as I added a few more details to the story we’d come up with the previous night, knowing Clare would have found out Cristian was free.
“Simi…” Anil crumpled to the floor, one knee down, an arm across his face as his voice cracked, broke. “He died thinking I was a bad guy, that I betrayed you…”
He was so utterly distraught, I knelt beside him. “What were you thinking? She doesn’t care about you, Anil. She’s going to use you and throw you away. Was it really worth losing all your friends?”
Anil let out a loud, ragged sob. “You were all so unkind to me. You looked down on me, teased me, laughed at me, made me feel unworthy. Clare didn’t do that. She thinks I’m brilliant. She makes me feel like a real man. She loves me for who I am.” He grabbed my shoulder as if trying to give me a hug and whispered in my ear, “How am I doing?”
“What?” Puzzled, I frowned. “How are you doing what?”
“Is it too much? I decided to give up MMA and get into method acting. I’ve immersed myself in this role.” He clutched my sleeve and wailed in a loud voice. “I can’t bear it. Jack might still be alive if I’d been there to help you. Forgive me. Please.”
“Never.” I raised my voice, because I was, in fact, beginning to realize that we might not have lost him after all. “You made your decision.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Anil grabbed my hand and pushed something into my palm. “If you can’t forgive me, I’ll go. You’ll never have to see me again. At least, Clare needs me.”
I helped Anil to his feet and glanced over my shoulder. Clare was watching us, a thoughtful expression on her face.
“It was the long game, like you said,” Anil whispered in a broken voice before he walked away. “I just wish Jack could have been alive to know that I was always on your side.”
I slipped away to the restroom and locked myself in a stall before I opened my hand. There, in my palm, lay the Florentine Diamond.
By the time I’d processed what had happened and shared the news with Chloe, the viewing and ended, and we were late for the service.
“There are too many people for our small chapel,” the funeral director said, running a hand through his graying hair in agitation. “You may wish to reschedule and hold it in a larger facility.”
I looked over at the hired actors, dutifully crying in the hallway.
“It’s fine. I’ll send some of them home.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Um…” I shot a frantic look at Chloe.
“They just came for the viewing,” she said quickly. “They don’t like services. Too emotional. I’ll look after them. Tell the minister we’ll be ready in five minutes. Anyone who can’t fit can stand in the hall.”
“What’s the plan here?” Emma whispered after Chloe had gone. “Milan and Vito are in the chapel with Anil and a whole pile of sobbing aunties who don’t even know who Jack is. I haven’t seen Clare, but I’m just itching to get my hands on her. Gage brought his bag of torture tools and Axel knows a place nearby with good soundproofing.”
“We need to keep her away from Milan and Vito,” I said. “Tell Axel to get a couple of guys to drag them out to the van. When we have Clare, we’ll take them all to the warehouse like we planned. I don’t think we’ll need any violence. We have something to trade.” I opened my hand and showed her the diamond. “Anil just gave it to me. He said he was playing the long game.”
Far from being excited, Emma shrugged. “And you believe him?”
“Why would I not?”
“Because he works at a place that makes fake jewelry.” Her voice was ice-cold. “Because he made a replica of the Wild Heart so good it fooled everybody. Because he betrayed us, and he’s probably betraying us again.”
Anil had been closer to Emma than anyone else in the crew. She’d taken him under her wing and made it her mission to turn him from a naive mama’s boy into a respectable man. Of anyone, she must have been hurt most by his betrayal.
“But we’ll have Clare,” I said. “Either it’s real and she trades us for the necklace, or it’s fake and we let Axel and Gage torture her until she tells us where she’s put the Wild Heart.”
“You’ve become a hard woman,” Emma said. “I like it.”
“We only have six hours until midnight,” I reminded her. “I’m prepared to do what needs to be done to keep us all safe.” I returned to the viewing room to do one last check for visitors, and found Clare standing beside his coffin.
“What happened?” she said, studying his face.
“He was shot by the Mafia when we went to rescue Cristian. He wouldn’t go the hospital, so Gage patched him up. He said he was fine. One minute he was cracking jokes on the couch. The next he was…” I didn’t have to feign the emotion. The sight of Jack lying so still was still hard to shake. “Gone.”
“He was the only person who was ever kind to me.” Her voice wavered. “He would take the blame when I screwed up, so Xavier would beat him instead of me. Sometimes the beatings went on so long he would pass out.”
“I didn’t know it was that bad.” No wonder Jack had been reluctant to share that part of his life.
“He was the only real friend I ever had.” She turned to me, and for a moment I saw the woman and not the monster. “I loved him.”
“I know.”
“He didn’t love me back, so then I hated him,” she continued. “It got out of hand.”
“I was thinking that when you locked us in a container to die.”
Clare shrugged. “It’s the job.”
It occurred to me in that moment that this was the perfect opportunity to incapacitate Clare. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a weapon, and the only thing in the room, aside from the coffin, was a wreath made of exotic flowers on a wire stand beside me.
“Jack loved his flowers.” I bent over as if to smell the flowers, grabbed the wreath, spun, and smashed it over Clare’s head. Flowers scattered across the carpet and the wreath came apart in my hands.
Stunned, Clare just stared, her hair adorned with a sea of pretty pink plumeria.
“Simi, what are you doing?” Dad stood in the doorway, his face a mask of horror.
“This is the woman who kissed Jack with a gun to his chest. She also tried to kill me. She tried to make it so I would never see you again. I still might have to leave you because of her.” My hands tightened around the wire frame so hard my knuckles turned white.
Dad’s brow creased in a frown. “Use your fist like you did when you were playfighting with your brothers.”
“Pathetic.” Clare grabbed the remains of the flower wreath out of my hands and threw it on the floor. “If you really wanted to hurt me, you’d pick something more substantial.”
I threw a hard right, grazing her cheekbone when she ducked to the side.
“That’s it,” Dad called out. “A little higher.”
“What’s going on?” Mom walked into the room with Nani. “Why is Simi hitting that woman beside Jack’s coffin? We’re at a funeral. It’s disrespectful.”
“This is the woman who tried to break them up,” Dad said. “She’s the reason for all that talk of leaving us. She tried to kill our Simi.”
“Hit her harder.” Mom held her fists in the air. “Give her a one-two punch.”
“Mom? Seriously?” My mother picked up spiders and carried them out of the house. She shooed flies out the window and even checked the grass for insects before she mowed the lawn. She so abhorred violence that she couldn’t even watch my brothers wrestle in the backyard.
Clare still hadn’t raised her hands to retaliate, and I was contemplating just what kind of person I really was when Axel and Gage burst through a side door, grabbed Clare, and dragged her away.
“Simi, who were those men?” Dad took a step forward. “You didn’t even have a chance to break her nose.”
It was then that Nani screamed. “He’s alive! It’s a miracle!”
I turned to see Jack sitting up in his coffin, a confused expression on his face.
“Are you okay?” I rushed over to check on him, running my hands over his face, his chest, feeling his wrist for the steady beat of his pulse.
“I thought I was supposed to wake up in the chapel.” His voice was hoarse, rough, and his breathing was fast and shallow as he took in the mess of flowers and my family standing openmouthed behind me.
“We had some unexpected guests.” I waved vaguely at the people crowding in the door to see the dead man come to life. “It caused a bit of a delay.” I dragged myself away from his side to quickly explain to my family that Jack had never really been dead, and we’d staged the funeral to get back at his ex-girlfriend for all the mean things she’d done. Nani wouldn’t accept my apology that they’d been dragged into the charade. She wanted the miracle. It made for a better story.
After they’d gone, I returned to the coffin and filled Jack in on what had happened while he’d been dead. “Axel and Gage have Clare.” I wrapped my arms around him. “We may have the diamond, too, thanks to Anil. If it’s real, we should be able to make a trade.”
“The bikers have Milan and Vito,” Chloe said, joining us. “They’re bringing everyone to the warehouse. Can Jack walk?”
“I might just lie here for another minute,” Jack said. “This extra cushioning is very comfortable, but for my next funeral, I think I’ll go with the super-deluxe.”