42. Nari
FORTY-TWO
NARI
They built it in four hours.
Nari called James. James called Reo. Reo called Dojin. Dojin walked into the production room carrying a fresh pot of coffee and an expression that said he’d been waiting for exactly this kind of fight his entire professional life.
He sat beside Nari. Not across from her—beside her.
His knee touched hers under the table. His hand found the back of her chair.
The contact was casual, automatic, the physical language of a couple whose bodies had stopped negotiating proximity and settled into it.
Nari leaned into the warmth of his leg. Didn’t move her chair away.
Didn’t comment. Let him anchor her left side while her right hand annotated the evidence map.
The strategy was elegant in its simplicity: do nothing different.
Continue production. Continue recording.
Let Mercer believe his stolen goods were being converted into content that would eventually benefit him.
Meanwhile, James would compile the authentication reports, Reo would secure Crane’s testimony, and Hana’s pattern analysis would be filed with the legal team as supplementary evidence proving systemic fraud.
“We don’t tip our hand until the case is airtight.
” James’s voice came through the speakerphone with crisp authority—he tried cases like architects built bridges, load-bearing, no decorative elements.
“Mercer’s strength is his legal team. If he gets wind of the case before we’re ready, he’ll bury the evidence in a legal motion we’ll be fighting for three years. ”
Reo looked up from his phone. His voice was even in the way it got when what he was about to say was not.
“One variable James doesn’t have full visibility on.
Mercer runs private enforcement off the books—a contractor named Gregor Wevik.
He’s been deployed before when legal exposure was building and the process was moving too slowly.
Physical coercion. Not negotiation. If Mercer suspects a case is being built before we’re ready to file, Wevik is the next move. ”
James, over the phone, without a pause: “Then we make sure he doesn’t suspect. And we compress the timeline.”
“Already watching him,” Reo said.
“So we smile.” Nari tapped her pen against the table. “We go to the studio. We record beautiful work. We act like nothing has changed.”
“Can you do that?” James’s question was practical, not patronizing. He knew his daughter. He knew her volume was directly proportional to her fury and that asking Nari Wixx to stay quiet about an injustice was like asking a fire to burn politely.
“Dad. I’m a voice actress. I pretend to be fictional people for a living.”
“You’re terrible at pretending to be calm.”
“I’m excellent at pretending to be calm. I’m terrible at maintaining it when someone says the wrong thing in my presence.”
“Which is every meeting.”
“Which is every meeting, yes.”
Dojin’s hand moved from her chair to her shoulder. A brief squeeze. Not patronizing—grounding. He’d watched her perform impossible emotional feats under studio lights. He trusted her to do this too. She covered his hand with hers for two seconds. Squeezed back. Let go.
The production table was covered in marked-up storyboards, legal timelines, Hana’s spreadsheet printed and flagged with Nari’s red pen, and two empty lunch containers that still smelled like rice and honey.
The sun had shifted while they worked—late afternoon now, the studio’s west-facing windows casting long amber rectangles across the floor.
Hana stood. Gathered her laptop. Looked at Nari and Dojin, side by side, his hand resting on the back of her chair, her ankle hooked around his under the table in a tangle neither of them had initiated or untangled.
“You two are going to be unbearable.”
Nari pointed her red pen at Hana. “Was that a pun?”
“I don’t make puns.”
“You made a bear pun. In a room full of people building a legal case against a corporate predator. Hana Keiser, you made a pun.”
Hana’s composure held for three seconds. Then the corner of her mouth cracked. She looked at Dojin. “Is she always like this?”
Dojin’s foot nudged Nari’s ankle. Warm. Amused. “Always.”
“You picked her.”
“I did.”
“Good.” Hana put on her headphones. Walked out. The compliment landed after she was gone—delayed, quiet, impossible to return. That was how Hana’s compliments always arrived.
Priya closed her tablet. Stood. Surveyed the table of evidence and strategy, and empty containers, and two people.
“Production resumes tomorrow at eight. Bring your game face.” She paused at the door. “And Nari?”
“Hmm?”
“Your grandfather would be proud of you. Not the voice—he always knew about the voice. The fight.”
Nari’s pen stopped. She looked at Priya.
The director’s face was steady, professional, offering a truth she wouldn’t repeat.
Nari nodded once. Her throat was tight but her eyes were dry.
She would not cry about Hideo in a production room.
She’d save it for the booth, where tears became performance and grief became art, because that was the Wixx way, and it was also, she was learning, her way.
Priya left. The studio was empty. The afternoon light had gone from amber to deep gold.
Dojin pulled her chair closer to his. The wheels squeaked against the floor.
She didn’t resist—let herself be drawn in until their chairs were touching, until his arm was around her, until her head found the space between his shoulder and his neck that was rapidly becoming her favorite location in Manhattan.
“We’re going to win.” Her voice was buried in his collar.
“We’re going to win.” His chin rested on the top of her head. His hand traced a slow line up her spine. “Your father’s case is airtight. Hana’s evidence turns it from a single theft into a criminal pattern. And Reo will get Crane.”
“Reo could intimidate a confession out of a dead tree.”
“He left for Crane’s two hours ago. He said he was going to be polite.”
“Reo’s version of polite is ‘I haven’t physically threatened you yet.’”
He laughed. Low, warm, the vibration of it traveling through his chest into her cheek.
She pressed closer. Let herself have the moment—the quiet studio, the evidence table, the setting sun, the man whose heartbeat she could count through his shirt.
They’d been at war for weeks. The war wasn’t over.
But the battle plan was solid, and the man was warm, and her ankle was still hooked around his and the trap was set.
His phone buzzed. He checked it without lifting his chin from her head.
Reo: Crane talked. Signed a deposition. Cried into his coffee. Twice.
Nari read it upside down. Her chest ached—for Crane, for Hideo, for all the ways love and betrayal could live in the same person.
“Good,” she said quietly. “That’s good.”
“Dojin.”
“Hmm.”
“You stole my onigiri.”
“I’ll make you more.”
“You’ll make me more and sneak in a side dish because you can’t help it. You’ll put it in my specific container and bring it at exactly the time I’m getting hungry because you track my eating patterns like a wildlife biologist studying a rare species.”
“You’re not a rare species.”
“What am I?”
He tilted her chin up with one finger. Kissed her—slow, thorough, tasting like the coffee they’d shared all afternoon. When he pulled back, his eyes were warm and amused and completely, embarrassingly besotted.
“The only species that matters.”
“That’s the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“You’re smiling.”
She was. She didn’t stop.