Relief and joy hit me at the same time. The weight of indecision that had been hanging on me since getting the third rejection from the nanoparticle lab committee lifted.
“I’m not going back. To Stanford. To the doctoral program. I’m going to make my antimicrobial and sell it to Grâce Charmante. Right here. Right from home.”
“Are you really serious?” he asked, confusion and disappointment littering his tone.
“Yes. If Mandy and Leena let me, I’ll do it here. If they don’t, I’ll figure something out.” I didn’t have a clue where I could get another space as good for pretty much free. The cost of the equipment and materials was going to stretch me to the limit as it was. I couldn’t afford rent on top of it.
Coming back for Dad’s funeral hadn’t impacted me in the normal way losing a parent should have. It hadn’t made me cry and grieve for a dad I’d never see again. But in the end, it still had changed everything.
Dawson
DEATH OF ME
“Another day, another battle.
We all have a cage to rattle,
This just might be the death of me.”
Performed by Daughtry
Written by Christopher / Daughtry
The noise of the party drifted through the villa, the music and voices filling the space, echoing through the enormous house. With two levels designed around a central courtyard, it looked more like a home on the Mexican Riviera than the coast of Spain. Built to keep the place cool long before the central air-conditioning had been installed, it was full of tile floors and adobe walls layered with expensive art and furniture.
This was the third party Jada had hosted since Dax and I had won the race to Morocco and back. Catered food and a full-service bar had appeared out of nowhere each time Jada snapped her fingers. The cost of it made me want to toss my cookies. I should have been used to it by now after five years of tagging along with my friends, but somehow, my blue-collar roots continued to show up.
Jada was dancing in the middle of the room with a trio of women. A bottle of champagne was in one hand, eyes heavy with alcohol―and maybe more. Ever since Ken’Ichi had shown up in Tarifa, there’d been an extra wildness to her. A carelessness that had filtered into every movement she made.
My eyes flicked across the room to where Dax was trying not to watch Jada. He was surrounded by members of the Italian and Spanish yacht clubs. We’d been schmoozing them all week, spending cash like it was water. Greasing the wheels, my father would have called it. Bribing them, others would have said. All I knew was that we needed them to approve our race as a legitimate attempt at the Conquistar de la Atlántica cup or it was all for naught. Dax was winning that battle, dollar by dollar.
I knew my friend well enough that, when his eyes moved from Jada’s to mine, he was wondering why I was parked at the entrance of the enormous room instead of at his side. I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Dax’s father was a French clothing magnate, and his mother was an oil baron’s daughter turned Bollywood star. Between the two of them, they were wealthier than the majority of the royal lines still in existence. It also put them high on the suspect list for more than one government agency around the world, and because of it, the Armaud family was extra cautious to remain squeaky clean.
This―what I was doing―was far from squeaky clean.
Dax would freak out if he knew.
But I’d seen Ken’Ichi and his henchman, Kenta Saito, go into the study a while ago, and I had to know what was going down in there. The influx of men going in and out since they’d shown up bordered on ridiculous.
My pocket buzzed, and it took me a moment to figure out which of my three phones it was. Pulling it out, I noted it was my secure line. To all the world, it looked like my personal phone. To all the world, it looked like the one Saito-san had handed me several months ago. All three looked identical except for the microscopic dot I’d placed on them.
M1: No ears.
Fuck.
One thing staying at the villa with Ken’Ichi in attendance had proven to me was that the Kyōdaina were religious about sweeping for bugs. Every meeting we’d had, Saito-san had swept the room first. I’d taken a chance the day before, going into the study and leaving a listening device that supposedly no sweep known to man could find, and yet it had been. Which also meant they had a good idea it was someone staying here who’d placed it.
I wasn’t the only guest in the house. Dax was here, as well as a handful of Jada and Dax’s socialite friends who traveled in their inner circle, but I was the one who’d suddenly become interested in doing business with the underground side of Mori Enterprises.
I lifted the beer I’d been sipping and purposefully spilled some over me before reaching for the nearest female body I could find. I didn’t know her name. I’d seen her hanging out with Dax and Jada over the years, but she’d never interested me. Red hair that wasn’t real. Manufactured curves that she put on display regularly. She was the complete opposite of the purple-haired genius who haunted my dreams.
But for tonight, she’d have to do.
I didn’t even strike up a conversation. I just put my lips on hers with my hands on her hips and moved us toward the study all at the same time. If she’d objected, I would have let her go, but she didn’t. Instead, she shoved her tongue in my mouth and wrapped her arms around my neck. I maneuvered us so she was against the door while I fumbled with the handle. When it twisted, I thrusted us through in a way that caused us to stumble across the mosaic floor layered with Egyptian rugs.
The men in the room all looked up: a mix of Asian and Spanish faces. Some in suits, some in leather. There was a somberness to the room that was the complete opposite of the raucous party going on beyond the study walls.
Saito-san blocked the view of the two bodies at the desk, but I was pretty damn sure I’d seen blood and gauze along with the glimmer of a knife. Double fuck.
Ken’Ichi was leaned up against the wall by the window, mimicking a shadow. Black from head to sole. Black hair slicked back. Black eyes cast in shadows by the dim desk lamp that was the only light in the room. Black suit that probably cost enough to fund a food bank. Only his white skin stood out as a contrast to the darkness he radiated.
“Shit. Sorry, man,” I said with a drunken smirk toward the small group.
The woman attached to my body giggled.
“I think you should return to the party,” Saito-san said.
I kissed the woman one more time, patted her on the ass in a way that made me cringe from the inside out, and then twirled her out the door. “Sorry, honey, looks like I’ve got other plans.”
I shut the door in her shocked and angry face.
I was going to hell.
Ken’Ichi hadn’t moved, but his voice dripped with disdain when he spoke. “Go back to the party, Langley.”
“Are you sure? We talking about the Ada Mae?” I asked, throwing out the name of my yacht that was at the forefront of our business dealings. I faked a stumble as I stepped another foot into the room. I was trying to see around Saito-san and the suited goon at his side to what was going on at the desk. I was pushing my luck. I’d never forced myself in on any of their talks. I’d posed myself as Jada’s party-happy friend who just so happened to have a suggestion for moving their products.