A groan manifested itself from a body hidden from view.
“This is none of your business.” Saito-san was ominous as he stepped toward me. As Ken’Ichi’s Wakagashira-hosa, it was his job to make sure his boss wasn’t interrupted. To make sure that anything the Oyabun and Ken’Ichi needed done happened, no matter the cost. The scar on his forehead and the one on his neck proved that the work he’d done hadn’t come easily.
“Ken’Ichi, my man, need some help?” I said, leaning a head toward the bodies I couldn’t see.
Ken’Ichi’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. He hated the disrespect I showed him by using his proper name. I refused to call him Wakagashira or Matsuda-sama like I would if I truly gave a shit. It was the perfect way to get under his skin whenever I could. The crass American, refusing to bow to the honorifics their Japanese culture―and company―held precious.
“Hosa-san, show our guest the door,” Ken’Ichi said to Saito-san before turning away to the window. In the reflection of the glass, he could watch my exit while still having the power of giving me his back.
Saito-san took two steps toward me, but I was already opening the door and stepping out where I bumped into Jada as if she’d been about to enter the room. My eyes tried to send her a warning, but if she saw it, she ignored me.
“Your guests are bored, Ken’Ichi.” Her voice rang out across the room. “Don’t you think you should let them out to have some fun?”
Ken’Ichi turned ever so slowly, his face a blank slate, but even across the room, I could feel the steel in his gaze as it landed on Jada. She was in a tank top that showed her bellybutton ring, with straps so thin they were almost nonexistent. One had slid down her pale shoulder. Her skirt was leather and short, barely covering her ass, and her shoes were stilettos so high I wasn’t sure how she stayed upright. On someone else, the skimpiness might have looked over-the-top. On Jada, it looked like she should have been a movie star.
Ken’Ichi had refused to be moved from his position by me, but her appearance had him stalking toward us. He brushed past Saito-san and landed next to me. He looked from me to Jada and then back.
“You want to help, Langley? Make sure my fiancée gets put to bed―alone―and then clear out the villa.”
Jada rarely had a filter sober, but drunk, it was even more limited. “You don’t own this house. You don’t own me. My guests will leave when I’m ready.”
Ken’Ichi turned to her. “I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself this week, Jada-chan, because this is the last of your parties. No more. Are we clear?”
“Fu―” The rest of her expletive was hidden beneath my hand.
“Got it. Bed and cleared,” I said, wrapping my arm around Jada and practically carrying her from the room.
The door shut with a click behind us.
Jada dragged herself away from me. “What the hell?” she stormed.
I shook my head at her, pulling her with me toward the wing of the house that her suite was in. One thing about every mansion I’d ever been in of Jada’s was that she always had a huge suite filled with clothes and belongings, which meant she rarely had to pack a bag. The other thing each house had in common was that her suite was always situated as far away from her parents’ quarters as possible. Even growing up, there’d been a wall between them and her.
When we reached her room, I didn’t stop until we’d gone through the French doors to stand on the balcony outside it. I unlocked my secure phone, turned on a music app, and cranked it as loud as I could get it to go before leaning close to her ear.
“I think they might suspect something,” I whispered.
She closed her eyes, sagging against me, all fire gone. “I think it’s why Otōsan is forcing my hand with Ken’Ichi.”
There was nothing either of us could say to that, but dread filled me.
“Let’s try not to provoke him any more then, shall we?” I tried to tease, tried to lighten the mood, but she didn’t bite.
“I don’t know how much more of this I can take, Dawson.”
Guilt. So much fucking guilt.
“We’re leaving tomorrow for New London. You’ll have a break.”
She nodded.
I turned off the music, opened the door, and she went inside. I looked down the steps that led to the first-floor verandah. “I’ll go send everyone home.”
She didn’t respond. She just shut the door much like Ken’Ichi had moments before, with a resounding click.
♫ ♫ ♫
I parked near the beach in a sedan I’d borrowed from the villa’s massive garage and walked toward the café on the corner. There were so many things about Tarifa that reminded me of New London. Like how the sun sprinkled the water with a confetti of yellow, orange, and red as I watched the sky lighten. The soothing sound of the waves crashing on the shore accented by the punch of birds screeching. The smell of the sea mingled with the coffee and cinnamon wafting from the shop behind me.
And yet, the smells here were also different somehow. Tarifa’s were full of suntan lotion and money, whereas New London smelled like old boats and honor. The Coast Guard Academy was as much a part of New London’s essence as the shipyards there were. Tarifa was a mecca for luxurious vacations. It was like comparing a working town to a high society ball.
I’d once thought the only place I’d feel at home was near a quiet lake smelling of algae and pine trees, but now I could barely remember the scents of Clover Lake. Instead, the place that called me home was New London, even if the reason for it had been gone for five years. Flashes of purple filtered through my brain before I could shield them. Proof I really was exhausted from days of nonstop partying and the stress of recent events.
The life I was leading these days was so different from anything teenage me could have pictured for myself that it might as well have been a movie I was watching instead of reality. It was a life I’d carefully divided into thirds. Three worlds with three Dawsons I presented on a regular basis.
After getting a coffee, I wandered through the streets, changing directions randomly, before ending up near a kite and windsurfing shop back by the beach. It was too early for the shop to be open, but the bench outside it was already taken by a man so enormous it was almost impossible for him to blend in like he was trying to do.
Even though I was no slouch at six foot four, Cruz Malone looked like a giant next to me as I joined him on the bench. He had an armored car’s worth of muscles clearly on display this morning in his sweats and a T-shirt. The pale colors contrasted with his dark skin. He’d looped his earbuds around his neck and had a water bottle in his hand in an attempt to be “just another jogger.” But he still stood out like a tank in a parking lot of trucks.
“What happened last night?” he said. His lips hardly moved as he looked down at his phone. From far away, it would look like we weren’t talking at all, but the simple fact that I was on the same bench as him at six thirty in the morning would have been enough for almost anyone to draw the right conclusion.
After the clusterfuck of last night, I’d requested a meet before I took off for Connecticut. Before Malone and the team, who weren’t even supposed to be on Spanish soil, headed back to America as well.