Page 63 of Billionaire’s Heartbreak

“We’re not hiding.”

“It looks like hiding.”

His jaw tightened. “We don’t move without information. This can be dangerous, June.”

“So?” His eyes narrowed.

“What if the information never comes? What if Squirrel has already been compromised? What if he’s dead?”

“Enough.” The word cut through the room.

I stared at him. “You don’t get to shut me down. Not after what you did.”

His gaze hardened. “What I did kept you alive.”

“No. You made sure I had no choice.”

No matter how hard I tried to move past it, that word kept finding its way back into my life. What I couldn’t understand was how Kai could deliberately kidnap me. He knew firsthand what it would do—the fear, the helplessness, the loss of control—to me. To someone he had once cared about.

Unless he didn’t care anymore.

The thought hurt more than I wanted it to.

“Stop fighting me.”

Somehow, it made me want to fight him even more.

“I’m not.”

The words left my mouth, but I wasn’t sure I believed them. Nothing Kai was doing made sense, yet he still expected me to follow along.

I pushed my chair back and straightened my shirt. “I need food.”

Before he could respond, I headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” he called.

“Getting food. You coming?”

I got downstairs and climbed into the car waiting outside. Dave and Kai followed.

My reflection stared back from the mirrored wall. I looked tired—more tired than I wanted to admit—but at least I was moving. Doing something was better than sitting in that penthouse, waiting for someone else to decide what happened to us.

Fifteen minutes later, we pulled into the older part of the city—the Hong Kong I remembered. Narrow streets squeezed between old buildings, faded signs hanging above tiny shops, air-conditioning units jutting from walls, and laundry strung between buildings as though nobody cared whether strangers could see into their homes.

The driver stopped beneath a no-parking sign.

“Wait nearby,” I told them but didn’t wait for a response. “Follow me.”

The shop was still there, exactly as I remembered it. Small, narrow, almost ridiculously ordinary, with faded tiles covering the walls, a slightly cloudy glass display case, and an air that smelled of warm pastry, sweet custard, freshly baked bread, and old wood.

It felt like stepping into a memory.

The old couple were still there. The woman looked up first, and for a second, I wondered if she remembered me. Then her face softened into a smile.

Something inside me loosened.

I stepped inside. There was still only one table, the same one, and I slid into the seat facing the street just as I had before. For a few seconds, I let myself pretend nothing had changed. Not Hong Kong. Not Dannie. Not Kai. Not me.