Though letting Naomi go is the last thing I want, I do it anyway.
We parted ways as soon as we got to Brooklyn and I might have made out with her for long minutes in public and gave people a show they don’t need.
It took a lot of coercing for me to let her go. She’s insistent on dealing with the situation herself. I don’t fucking want her to. I meant it when I said I’d rather kidnap her and keep her for myself.
If it were up to me, she’d be chained to my bed, where I’d only let her go to chase her.
But the last time one of us decided to handle the whole situation on our own, we were separated for seven fucking years.
Seven years of loneliness.
Of rage.
Of fucking wasted time.
And that won’t be the case going forward.
Besides, Naomi needs this for closure. I might have lived on negative emotions all this time, but she suffered, too. Silently. Alone.
And she needs to rip the stitches from her wound on her own. And when she falls, when it hurts, I’ll be the one to carry her through it all.
The other reason is Akira’s fucking text. He knew about the letters. The asshole was well aware of everything that started ten years ago.
He also knows about my past and my Japanese middle name my grandparents prefer not to mention unless they absolutely have to.
Why do I get the impression that the reason Akira played that card isn’t only to taunt me but also because he has a hidden agenda?
But what?
After going back to my apartment and changing clothes, I head to the firm. My head still hurts from the cold, but it’s nothing painkillers can’t take care of.
The moment I walk in, I find it in a state of chaos.
Daniel sits on Candice’s desk, talking to the new interns and grinning for the sole purpose of showing his damn dimples.
“I know you guys meant to go into my office and made the small mistake of walking into the wrong one.” He snaps his fingers. “Come on, Kate, Omar. Grab your things and come to my world of fun.”
They look between Daniel and Candice, who’s standing by her office, crossing her arms and tapping her leg on the floor.
“Like hell they are,” she snaps. “You should leave, Mr. Sterling.”
“Stay out of it, Candice.” He doesn’t pay her any attention as he continues his grinning session. “I promise more fun than the cold-hearted idiot.”
“Mr. Sterling, please get off my desk so we can work.”
“One sec, Candice. Don’t you have a sick boss to take care of?” He winks at Kate and Omar. “I never get sick, because my physique is strong. See these muscles? I played football in high school. Soccer for you guys.”
Candice raises a brow. “And Sebastian played football, real football, in both high school and college.”
“It’s not real football, love. The real one has the right name. Foot and ball. Not hand and whatever ball.” He directs his smile at the interns. “Lunch later? I’m more generous than your current boss.”
My assistant taps her foot manically at this point. “Are you going to get out or should I call Mr. Weaver? The senior Mr. Weaver who owns this whole place.”
“Jesus, Candice. Does Sebastian pay you extra to hold down the fort in his absence?”
“I don’t, but I’ll start to.” I walk inside Candice’s office and both interns stand up in greeting, still flustered by my colleague’s advances.
I give a hand gesture, so they sit back down.
“Aren’t you supposed to be sick?” Daniel jumps off from the desk, not bothering to hide his displeasure.
“You are.” Candice directs her no-nonsense gaze at me. “You should be resting.”
“I have important things to do. But first, Candice, take Kate and Omar to a late breakfast.”
My assistant gives Daniel the side-eye as if telling him, ‘See?’
“Hey, not fair—”
Daniel hasn’t finished his sentence when I grab him by the collar of his jacket and drag him with me into my office.
As I kick the door shut, he pulls away and fixes his jacket, grumbling, “I’m suing you for assault.”
“Really? Physical assault because I dragged you?”
“No. Assault against fashion. The envy is real, mate.”
“Is that why you were trying to take my interns?”
“I was getting back what should’ve been originally mine. You stole them.”
“Don’t admit defeat then. Now, tell me how far you’ve gotten with information on Akira Mori?”
Daniel sits on the chair’s armrest and fingers the pencils on my desk. “The man is a sodding fort. There’s nothing to get.”
“How about Knox?”
“He doesn’t have much either. Just some shady transactions here and others there, which he only managed to get info about by pulling strings back home. His foster father doesn’t like digging into his partners’ personal lives.”
“So he’s spotless?”
“Legally? Squeaky clean.”
“Morally?”
“He has dubious relations with the Yakuza, but they use phantom LLCs all the time. So even if there’s a legal way to prove involvement, it’ll take decades—that is if you stay alive during the process.”
Fuck.
All this time, I had some sort of hope that Akira could be taken care of legally.
Or at least, he could be hurt.
“What’s your deal with Akira, anyway?” Daniel tilts his head. “This whole thing can’t be because you want to secure a client. You don’t even search for new people like Knox and me, who, by the way, are always on hunting missions for fresh blood.”
I’ve gone on a hunt, countless times, but it was never for a client.
“It’s the wife, isn’t it?” He grins, a sly one that makes the sharp lines of his face harsher.
“She’s not his wife.” Or at least, she won’t be soon.
“I always wondered who would be your type. Never thought it would be a married woman.”
“And what’s your type? A skirt?”
“Brunettes in a skirt. Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“A blonde broke your heart?”
His lips twist in what resembles disgust before he smirks. “Not as much as Akira’s wife broke yours.”
“Stop calling her that.”
“Hit a nerve? This shit’s got my interest piqued and I need the inside scoop. Which of the rumors is true?”
“What rumors?”
“They say you broke her heart in college and she married someone more powerful than you and threw it in your face.”
“That’s not true.”
“Pity. I would’ve done that.” His usually joyous features scrunch into a frown. “If someone betrayed me, I’d make sure to slowly destroy their lives until they fell to their knees at my feet.”
“Someone betrayed you? Is it the blonde?”
“Maaaybe.” He shakes his head, seeming to pull himself out of a trance. “But this isn’t about me. This is about you and your Japanese princess. Sorry, I mean, Akira Mori’s princess.”
“Call her that again and I’ll punch your face so hard, no doctor will be able to put it back together.”
“Bloody hell, mate. Not the face! This shit is real estate.”
“Then don’t make me destroy it.”
“I’m just warning you so you don’t get yourself and us in trouble. If you’re gone, Nate won’t have his beloved prince and we won’t have anyone to throw under the bus when we screw up.”
I raise a brow but say nothing.
“Anyway, do what you like, but don’t forget who Akira Mori is. He might be new to the States, but he’s something entirely different internationally. The Mori family is very influential domestically. Not only because of their bloodline, but also because they have direct relations with the emperor of Japan and other business tycoons across Asia. And let’s not forget his recent black diamond fortune that I told you about.”
I couldn’t give two fucks about his power. Either he lets Naomi go or we’ll both die while trying to free her from him.
The door of my office opens and my uncle comes in, his hard gaze taking in the scene in front of him.
Daniel grins. “Nate! I was just telling Sebastian that you’re my favorite boss.”
“Save the ass-kissing for Van Doren, Sterling.”
“Thanks for putting that weird image in my head.” Daniel makes a face and points at me. “I’ll throw you the best funeral when you get yourself killed, Weaver Prince. And then I’m taking away your interns.”
He leaves with an evil laugh that I shake my head to as I fall into the seat behind my desk.
My uncle doesn’t sit down. Instead, he merely places a hand in his pocket as he observes me closely.
“What is it, Nate?”
“I was told you came to work when you’re still on a sick leave.”
“I’m fine.”
“Die someplace else that isn’t my firm, Rascal.”
“You’ll get good press out of it.”
“Not if the cause of death is exhaustion.” He narrows his eyes at me. “What are you up to?”
“A lot of things and nothing at the same time.”
“Let me guess, it has something to do with Naomi?”
Everything has had to do with Naomi since the day I said yes to that fucking bet. I’ve fought it over the course of time, but that doesn’t change the place she currently occupies in my life.
Or that she should’ve been in seven fucking years ago.
Nate takes my silence as affirmation and sighs. “I knew you’d get yourself in trouble because of her the day you kissed her on TV without caring if Mr. and Mrs. Weaver saw you.”
I grin. “Remember how Mrs. Weaver clutched her pearls? Priceless.”
“Her reaction doesn’t make you less impulsive. Or stupid.”
“Stupidity is accepting that she was gone. Besides, getting back what was originally mine isn’t impulsive, Uncle.”
“It certainly is if you lose control of your head for it.”
“You’re only saying that because you’ve never loved someone so much that being apart from them feels like drowning and burning alive at the same time. You’ve never stayed up all night, staring at the fucking sky with the minuscule hope that she’s also staring at it from a different nook in the world. You’ve never loved, period, Uncle. You’re nearing your forties and still are a cold-blooded bachelor with no settling down in sight.”
“Why settle down when you can be free? And you’re right, I’ve never loved and I don’t plan to. It’s all a stupid idea of nothingness that fools like you believe in. It’s not real. Not tangible. And certainly not lucrative.”
“If Mrs. Weaver hears you say that, she’ll have a stroke.”
He smiles, but it soon vanishes. “What do you plan to do now?”
“The only thing I can do. Bring down Akira.”
“That’s not wise.”
“And neither is being hollow for seven years.”
“Akira has dangerous allies, Sebastian.”
“I’m not a kid anymore.”
“You don’t understand.” He places a palm on the desk and leans forward. “He has allies you should never cross paths with.”
“I won’t know until I take my chances.”
“You will stop this nonsense of going against Akira and that’s fucking final.”
“No.”
“Sebastian…”
“No, Uncle. I’m not going to stand back this time and then lose my mind when she fucking disappears again.”
“This is about your life.”
“I’m well aware of the risks.”
“No, you’re not. I didn’t want to tell you this, but you need to know what you’re getting yourself into.”
“What are you talking about?”
Nate unbuttons his jacket and sits across from my desk. “Your parents didn’t really die due to an accident.”
“I kind of figured that out on my own. Mom embezzled something and she paid for it with her and Dad’s lives.”
“How do you know that?”
“The day they passed, I overhead them when we were in the car. As I grew up, I connected the dots.”
“That’s not the end of it. Do you know who Julia stole from?”
“Who?”
“The Yakuza. I don’t know if it’s the same branch Akira’s connected to, but it could be.”
My pulse quickens as the pieces of the puzzle start falling together. The fact that Ren knew about my tattoos and the accident back then all point in one direction, but I don’t want to think about its relation to Naomi.
So I say, “My parents already paid for it.”
“They did, but you were supposed to die with them. Instead, you were held prisoner in the hospital for ransom.”
“I was what?”
“You were kidnapped in Japan. They called Mr. and Mrs. Weaver and told them that if they didn’t pay, they wouldn’t be seeing their grandchild again.”
“They…paid?”
“Of course they did. They might have cut Nick off when he chose to be with Julia, but they always had this misconception that sooner or later, he’d come crawling back into their laps. So when they learned their precious eldest son had died, it devastated them. You were all they had left of Nick, therefore, they didn’t hesitate to pay the kidnappers.”
“But it’s done. They released me.”
“With a final note that said, ‘His life is ours now. Make sure he keeps his mouth and eyes shut if you don’t want him to end up like his parents.’ Mrs. Weaver burned that note and put the whole incident behind her as if it never happened. But I knew there’d come a time when you’d cross those people’s paths again. And here we are. Nick and Julia lost their lives because they messed with the wrong crowd. Don’t repeat your parents’ mistake, Sebastian. Don’t walk toward death with your own two feet.”
I lean back in my chair and let the information sink it, then I release a sigh. “But that’s the thing, Uncle. I’d rather die than live without being alive.”
