2. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Andy
Chi’s arching back and scream of pleasure as she spasms underneath me is too much to bear. I come hard and quick, releasing all the pent-up frustration of not being able to do this every day for the past few months, of not being able to protect her two nights ago, and mostly of being unable to take the pain of her broken, all-consuming grief away from her.
I drop on top of her, panting into her, soaking in the smell of cherries and flowers. Our sweat mingles with the blood on my lip as I pant into her neck. She doesn’t make a move or a sound. I’m almost afraid to look at her face, but after a minute or so, I lean back to check how she’s taken this.
I’m pleasantly surprised at first. She’s all blissed out, a ghost of a smile on her face, just staring blankly up at the ceiling as her heart rate slows. But she notices me looking at her and snaps out of her endorphin-induced trance, blinking hard and pursing her lips together. She’s about to lose it, so I snatch her up and crush her to me right before she bursts.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”
“Shut up!” she cries. “It was my decision. I thought it would make me feel better, and it did for a few minutes, but now I just feel worse!”
I don’t know what to do. I feel so out of my depth as she spirals hard, and I can do nothing but sit and watch. Chi is too exhausted to cry much more, and she quickly turns into a puddle, simply rasping in, before letting her pain out with a weak groan in each exhale. The only reason I can tell when she falls asleep is because the groaning stops, but the rasping still continues.
I sit with her after she falls asleep. I’ve noticed over the past twenty-four hours that there’s something about laying a hand on her forehead that helps her calm down, so I’ve just been doing that for as long as I can stand it. She eventually settles into a less fitful sleep.
As I watch her drift off, I feel the need for revenge like a well-contained, slow-burning fire that just needs a drop of gas to cause an inferno. I don’t want to leave Chi, but I need to get her justice like I need to breathe. I call some of my most trusted guys to get ready for when Cas and Mara arrive. Chi isn’t strong enough to go with us, but I’m going to do this for her. I know she wants me to. I’m going to kill the men who killed her father. I know they’re just contract killers, but it’s the only small thing I can do to help. We can figure out the next step together.
While I wait for my buddy Cas, Chi’s best friend Mara, and my guys to arrive, I creep into the hallway to call Oxy. We have been in constant communication about who might have done this and what we can find out about them. Oxy has been scouring Ring cameras from houses in the general area, and every guard at Chi’s mansion is currently being interrogated by a group of dozens of men from the Scutari organization, sent by me. All of these people have been working persistently, without sleep, to find out whatever they can for us.
I’m not sure how, but Mara and Cas make it to my safehouse in eight hours flat. Chi has woken up and fallen back to sleep twice, still crying nonstop.
“Hey Andy!” Mara says, her eyes already welling with tears. “Is she okay?”
“No,” I say in a monotone, taking the king-sized pack of Twizzlers she shoves into my face. “She’s not doing good at all.”
Cas walks in behind Mara without a hello and sits down on the couch gruffly. He’s clearly unhappy to be back, but he won’t say anything about it. Even if Chi wasn’t Mara’s best friend, he has to be here for this. We need to contain the fallout from Akio’s death as well as figure out together how to deal with Chi’s Omiai . And he doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to help me find and deal with the pieces of shit who did this, too. Today.
Mara starts walking to the hallway that leads to the bedrooms, but stops and looks back at me in uncertainty. “Should I… should I go in now?”
I shrug. “She keeps having nightmares and waking up. But she’s really only been sleeping and crying. So just be prepared.” I huff an exhausted breath out and drop onto the couch next to Cas.
“You look like shit,” he says, biting into three Twizzlers at a time and staring at the TV.
“You love saying that to me lately. You don’t look so great yourself.” I’m mostly just being petty. He looks tan and healthy, like he just got days of relaxation on some French beach. Which is exactly what he’s been doing. He looks just slightly rumpled.
He leans back, sticking a hand behind his head. “Yeah, well, we’ve been traveling. No one looks good after that.”
“I’m sure the eight-hour private jet ride was very difficult for you both.”
“Mara wanted to do first-class,” Cas’s voice drips with disdain. “She’s on this ‘let’s do what normal people do’ kick.”
“Yes. Normal people use first class and vacation at $3,000 a night world-class resorts.”
He side-eyes me. “You wanna fight or something?”
I smirk back at him. “Actually, I want to murder a couple of people. You in?”
He looks at me in confusion for just a second, and then it clicks. “You’re sure you found them?”
My smirk widens. “Oxy has some leads.”
Cas’s eyes dart to where Mara stands in the doorway of the bedroom down the hall, biting her lip as she peeks into the room. “I don’t know how I feel about leaving Mara.”
I take a Twizzler, even though I really don’t like them at all, and gnaw on the end like Chi does. “I have Gus and Gio coming here. Plus, no one knows where we are. I made sure we weren’t followed, and Oxy confirmed it.”
“I’m not just talking about safety,” Cas says, lowering his voice, his eyes wandering to Mara down the hallway. It’s so strange to see Cas giving a shit about anyone’s feelings that I do a double take to make sure he’s really directing this look of concern toward another human being, even his own wife. But that’s what it is; I’m certain of it.
“What are you worried about?” Something tells me it’s not for Chi’s wellbeing.
“Mara knows more about, like, feelings and shit than I do, but I’m pretty sure Chi had the upper hand in that department. I think she taught Mara a thing or two. Mara looks super awkward, and I don’t like it.”
I snort out a laugh before I can think better of it, and Cas’s eyes dart back to mine and narrow. I decide to explain myself quickly so he doesn’t breathe fire.
“I just think it’s funny that you’re so worried about your girl feeling awkward when the other girl will probably barely realize she’s there. Chi just needs someone to hug her until she falls back to sleep and possibly try to force her to eat something, depending on how long we’re gone.”
Cas’s face loses its hard edge, and his eyes wander back to Mara as I speak. “She’s that fucked up over this, huh?”
“Well, yeah. I mean… her father was just killed. And from everything I’ve pieced together, she saw it. She barely knows her mother. It’s like she lost the only parent she’s ever had. I guess… Daiki was the other closest person to her, and he’s gone too.” I speak slowly, wondering if any of my words will strike a chord with Cas, who lost his mother at 14 and his brother last year. He only has me now, but Chi has effectively just lost everyone she had in the entire world.
“Fuck. Yeah, that is rough.” He looks at me and asks his next question so casually I almost answer in the affirmative on instinct. “So, you gonna go with her to Japan then?”
“Yuh—what?” I think I might get whiplash from turning my head so quickly. “You think I should go with her?”
“No,” Cas says, his eyes boring into me calmly, “I don’t think you should. I know you should.”
“But… what about all of this?”
Cas scoffs. “What? This glamorous life we live here? Trust me, it’ll still be here when you come back.”
“Oh, okay,” I say, settling back down. I had already figured that I was resigned to this — resigned to following Chi around for a while until she gets her footing again. “But I would come back.”
“Well, yeah. Japan isn’t on fucking Mars. You can go back and forth.”
I look at him again, this time in bewilderment. “Are you seriously telling me I should follow her around, just like that? Just follow her everywhere she goes, like… like…”
“Like the love-sick, pussy-whipped little bitch you are? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
My mouth drops. “I’m not pussy whipped, man. You’re telling me to become pussy-whipped, going with her and just giving up everything.”
He doesn’t even answer, just stands up and walks to my fridge, rummaging around and taking out a package of shredded cheese. “Got any eggs here?”
I breathe out in frustration. “Can you fucking focus? You’re telling me to drop everything and go follow her around the globe like it’s just a given. Like… like I don’t have anything important to do here.”
“I’m telling you that you need to help her, and she needs to go to Japan for some amount of time. Plus, you’re clearly fucking in love with her, judging by how much of a cranky slob you became once you guys stopped seeing each other.” Cas gets tired of waiting for my answer, grabs a can of beer out of the fridge and a bag of chips that must be stale from the pantry, and comes back to the couch. I stare at him in abject surprise for a full ten seconds while he puts cheese on the stale chips and eats them one by one.
“Who the fuck are you all of a sudden? Dr. Phil?”
“No way, fuck that guy,” Cas says, shaking his head. He drops some of the tough guy mocking tone and tension, relenting a bit. “I’m just saying… she has no one now. She might have to marry that shithead or whatever, and you don’t want to be some little fuck toy on the side — I get that. But I don’t think you will be, man. You’d be the main attraction.”
As I settle in to contemplate this astute insight from one of the most unlikely sources I can think of, he says, “Or at least, that’s what Mara told me on the way here.”
I huff out a laugh. “Thank God. I was wondering where your personality transplant came from. I guess Mara had eight hours to talk your ear off about this, so you’re just unloading it all onto me.” Of course, the fact that Cas even heard it at all and agreed is pretty fucking mind-boggling to me, but at least he wasn’t sitting alone contemplating our relationship over the entire plane ride here.
He shrugs and downs another handful of chips. “She would also help our business with her sway in both the Japanese and American governments. Plus, you’ve always made it clear you don’t want to be the leading man, dude. You’ve never been one to ask for attention or the spotlight. You don’t give a shit about titles. Otherwise, you and I would run this side-by-side. We basically do already. So, the question is, do you want to be my side piece more than hers?”
My mouth drops again. Once I finally find my voice, I shake my head in disbelief. “I mean, I get what you’re saying, but… there’s no way I can do that. The idea of her fucking some other guy...” I clench my fist around the couch cushion I’m sitting on and squeeze.
Cas actually winces and backs up in disgust. “Fuck no, man, I’d kill someone if… I mean, that’s something you’d have to talk to her about. But you see the guy she chose? He’ll be happy just to be in the same fucking room as her. If she’s upfront about it with him off the bat — that this is just a strategic marriage — then he’ll have to get on board. She’s the fucking Yakuza queen, dude; she can make that decision if she wants, and he’ll go along with it to hang off her coattails. Especially now that her father’s gone. She’s old enough to take over.”
Cas scarfs another handful of chips without looking at me and then says quietly, “You know what it means if her father was killed, don’t you? Do you think whoever did it will just… leave her be?”
I’ve already thought of the danger for Chi, but it was more about the immediate danger. I didn’t think further into it because I will be fucking slaughtering anyone who had anything to do with what just happened to her father. But this wasn’t just some one-off. I realize now that as a tiny, 24-year-old woman, Chi isn’t exactly going to be taken seriously by her foes. She is about to have a very tough time of it without her father. She will be seen as the easiest target for her enemies, by far. And if they were willing to go after her while her father was still in the picture…
Cas is right. I can’t leave her right now, but there’s no way he understands what it’s like to watch her with other men. I can barely stand it when we’ve both declared ourselves separated from one another. What will I do if we’re forever entangled? If she has my children? I think it will be pretty obvious that they’re not the children of one of the men her father had her choose from.
“I don’t think I can do it, man. I still don’t think I’ll be able to share her.”
Cas rolls his eyes at me and shovels another cheese-covered chip into his mouth. “You sound like a whiny little bitch.”
My mouth opens in indignation. “You have got to be kidding me. From what you told me, you begged Mara to let you beat the shit out of her ex after he saved your life by shooting his own father in the head. And you’re calling me a whiny bitch?”
Cas puts his hands up in surrender, nearly laughing at my show of distress. “Okay, okay, not a whiny bitch. I just mean that you’re overthinking this. She loves you . Just take what you want.” He thinks for a moment before adding, “That fucker deserved the beating I gave him. I don’t give a shit if he shot his father. Look at him now, king of the Rhode Island and New York City bratvas.”
He grumbles a bit more before I cut in and steer him back to the subject at hand. “I don’t know how she’ll feel in a year. Maybe she’ll realize she loves collecting Pokémon cards with him. I’m sure he just loves Star Wars and that Baby Yoda thing.” I actually cringe at how sulky my last sentence sounds.
Cas pulls at his hair, which is how I know I’m starting to really annoy the fuck out of him — it’s his tell. “Andy, Jesus fucking Christ. How do you know she’s not gonna run away with the fucking mailman? You don’t. What have you got going on here anyway? You gonna find a nice girl, settle down, and bang out a couple children? Get a dog and a house with a nice green lawn? My God.”
I go to give a snarky answer and realize I’m not actually sure what to say back to that. I’ve always known I wasn’t going to live a normal life. I’ve always known that shit wasn’t in the cards for me. I don’t think I’d be able to give that to a girl. “No. I’m not.”
Cas throws out a palm and nods once in the universal sign for, “See? I knew you’d succumb to my logic eventually.”
But there’s more to discuss here, so I change tack. “Okay, but what about the organization? What about everything you’ve built?”
He nearly laughs. “Are you asking if it will crumble to the ground if you go to Japan for a while?”
I sigh. “God, you’re such an asshole sometimes.” I face him full on, not finding this funny in the least. “You know, I’ve been holding this shit together for months now, man. While you’ve been living the sweet married life, playing family man, I’ve been running the show. I don’t need acknowledgement, but I’d like you to at least realize that it might be hard without me.”
“Holy. Fuck.” Cas leans back dramatically. “Don’t start asking for employee perks like health insurance and a 401k, all right?” I just stare at him, seething, so he continues. “Yes, you’re a huge fucking help. I would not have been able to be with Mara and my daughter as much these past few months without you. But… you’re my second, man. I run the show. Do you think I’ve forgotten how to do that?”
I run my tongue over my teeth as I consider his words. He’s right. Again, this asshole has left me uncertain of what to say. Finally, I just blurt out the first thing that comes pops into my head. “You and Mara have been through the ringer, man. You should be done now.”
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “If I wanted to be done, I’d give up the business. But I don’t, and neither does she. She gets so fucking antsy when she doesn’t know every little thing, I swear,” Cas says, looking fondly at the quiet doorway down the hall that Mara disappeared into half an hour ago.
I shake my head. “You guys don’t deserve anymore of this. You’ve had so much to deal with.”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the look he gives me next might be tinged with just the tiniest smidge of pity. “What we deserve ? What do I deserve , man? Maybe I should go bang out two kids and get a dog? Is that what you’re saying?”
I can’t help but laugh at his intensity. “No, Jesus Christ.” I run my hand through my hair. “I don’t know; I just think… that…”
As I’m struggling to figure out what to say next, Cas continues to obliterate my next logical choice for an argument. “Let’s pretend life actually gives two fucks about us. What do you deserve?”
Again, I have nothing to say back to this, and I realize I’m somehow digging myself into a bigger hole with this new Philosopher Cas I’m just meeting for the first time, so I decide that staying silent is probably my best bet.
“What? Don’t you deserve to bang out two kids and live in Chichi Yano’s golden mansion?” He rolls his eyes. “All I’m saying is, do what you want to do. And be honest about it. You clearly want to be with her. Who cares how you go about it?”
I seethe through my teeth, realizing that perhaps for the first time, the cretin sitting on the couch next to me has more insight into what I really want than I do.
For better or worse, I’m saved from having to answer when I hear a familiar sob from the bedroom and Mara shushing Chi and telling her it’s going to be okay in a somewhat hysterical voice. Cas’s eyes dart to the door as if she’s about to be murdered in there.
“What you want right now is to go help my girl out before she gets as hysterical as yours. Right?” Cas looks back at me with a severe look and a side of worry, and I nod back.
“On it.”