12. Ashton
The rose earrings that my sister had worn day in and day out had finally turned up. I’d had a team set up analytics for any chatter at any pawn shop in the whole state of Georgia and surrounding states as well.
I’d finally gotten a hit at nearly seven a.m. and had slipped out in the early parts of the morning with a few guards to retrieve them. The drive had taken me hours away to a small town just over the border in South Carolina. I’d also retrieved the video footage because I needed to know who was on the tape.
The entire drive home, my stomach had been in a not. I wondered what was waiting for me on the camera footage and if would it bring me and my nieces some of the closure I desperately wanted. Solving Abby’s murder and giving my family back a sense of resolution had been weighing heavily on me since the night I got the call that my sister had died.
By the time I’d arrived home, I’d found my mother and wife having what seemed to be a very intense conversation. Halo had stormed off leaving me looking between the two of them.
“Mother, what did you say to her?” I snapped.
Her face remained stone-like. “I merely mentioned that the job she took doesn’t sit well with her status as your wife.”
Sternly, I replied. “Mother, that wasn’t your place.”
My mother let out a long sigh, and I saw her shoulders drop just a bit. She probably didn’t approve of Halo just like my father, but I was done letting anyone be disrespectful to her. Her jaw became tense and her eyes narrowed.
“I want you to apologize.”
“You want me to what?”
Her face shifted again from shock to surprise as her mouth fell slightly open. My mother hadn’t been expecting me to stand up for her.
My voice sounded cold and firm. “Halo is my wife, mother. I won’t tolerate any disrespect from you or father. I want you to apologize to her.”
Her eyes snapped wide. “You forget yourself, Ashton. I won’t be apologizing to some common girl.”
I could see she was gearing up for war with me but by then the girls had trapezed back into the kitchen. Handing over some cash so that they could buy snacks at the movie, I waved goodbye to them. They were none the wiser to the interaction that had taken place between me and my mother. She was heading back to Japan in a day or two and who knew how long it”d be before I saw her again.
Part of me wanted to go and seek out Halo. I hadn’t forgotten how she’d just thrown in my face that she was going out with her boss but the tapes beckoned. I could murder her boss in the next few weeks and no one would be the wiser.
I needed to see what was on the tapes now.
Grabbing the tapes from where I’d sat them by the front door and Abby’s recovered earrings, I made my way to my study. Sitting down in the desk chair, I opened my laptop and for a moment I was stopped in my tracks.
Unbeknownst to Halo, I had a camera in her room. A tiny little whale that sat on the bookshelf in her room that was nautical-themed had never given her any indication that she was being watched.
She was standing in front of her mirror trying on outfits and becoming frustrated with her hair.
My pulse began to race as I watched her pull off her clothing, her bare body coming into view. This woman could make me harder than a brick at any given moment. Tiny pieces of guilt wormed their way under the recesses of my mind.
Halo was a good person.
Spying on her should have been the last thing I was doing but for those weeks that I was away, I felt extra secure in leaving her with the girls.
Halo finally settled on a simple white blouse and jeans before she left out of the room. I exited out of the camera feed of her room and put the security footage on, promising myself that I would remove the spy cam in the morning.
I found myself hitting play and then pause for the next fifteen minutes trying to pinpoint the person who had come in and sold these earrings.
The footage seemed to go on and on forever, with me scanning each frame. Under my scrutinizing eye, I would analyze every single moment. The process became tedious but I was determined to get answers.
Suddenly, a figure caught my eye. The shadowy silhouette of a figure walking gracefully up to the counter with sunglasses on and even a low baseball hat on. There was no mistaking exactly who it was.
Jade Nakamura was on the screen pawning my dead sister’s earrings.
Why would she have Abby’s earrings?What was the reason behind stealing the earrings? For ending my sister”s life? My thoughts had started to run a race giving me a headache.
Pausing the footage as Jade accepted the lowest amount possible for the earrings, I found the key to my desk. Unlocking the desk, I reached inside and pulled out a shiny black gun. Sitting it on the table, I stared at the weapon.
The police had even said the way the murder had taken place, it seemed personal but they had chalked it up to a robbery gone wrong because of the earrings.
Another few moments seemed to pass. I steered clear of other Yakuza member”s territories. Again, I wanted to keep my nieces as safe as possible. Atlanta was a huge enough city, that I could avoid causing a run-in with anyone.
To do that required research.
And I was very fucking well-versed in research. The moment Jade had made it known to me that she’d married Ken Nakamura, I’d had Mark figure out which territories he’d set up shop in so that I could avoid going into anything owned by him.
Tonight, that would change.
I closed the laptop and pulled out my phone.
Composing a quick text, I fired one off to Mark. Where are you?
I followed Halo as you’ve instructed. I didn’t know that she was coming here though.
My stomach twisted. Where?
I swear I had no idea, Sir.
I found myself pinching the bridge of my nose. For fuck sake Mark, where?
Kashin, he finally replied.
Fuck, I’d never imagined that Halo would wind up in Nakamura’s club. The one place in the entire damn world that I didn’t need my wife to be in, she’d walked into willing.
Texting Mark a few more times, I made him beef up the security as I was headed that way. The entire drive to the nightclub, I felt as if death were riding in the car with me. It felt like a long slow tingle riding down the middle of my back. My worry for Halo began to haunt my thoughts and guilt hit me.
She didn’t know the danger she was in.
I had never warned her or explained the other side of my business. The woman thought I owned a tea company which was only partially true.
Despite it all, the marriage and circumstances of us being in each other’s lives, I was willing to protect Halo at all odds.
She was important to me now.