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“Okay then promise on your parents, that you won’t tell anyone.” I force out laughing.
“Chile, I guess.” She sighs. “Well let me go get these sweet cross buns out the oven.”
“Okay, bye.”
“Bye, honey,” she coos.
I know she’s going to keep her promise right up until she’s had one too many shots of Remy Martin then it’s all going to come out. Plus it’s a Friday night. Yep. My phone will be blowing up by tomorrow morning.
“Ugh,” mumbling to myself, I wonder how long he’s been out there watching me. Probably from the day I left knowing him. He could have been arrested for goodness’ sake or shot knowing how much people down here love their guns.
He really needs to stop. Shaking my head I try to think of what I want to eat, no it’s pointless. Hisashi has taken up all my energy.
How are you?
I wait twenty minutes for an answer thinking maybe he’s busy or not left work.
Trying his phone there is no answer. Then I wait feeling like my heart is skipping every other beat and not in a good way. He just got the most terrible news, has he lashed out to his brother? What did Kiyoshi tell him? Did he admit to the whole thing?
I know I can’t wait around for an answer I’ll never get. I call the one person I would consider an ally in this situation.
“Hiyo, Tay-chan,” comes the thick rumbly voice of the one person who struck fear in me all those years ago — Kiyoshi Takeda, not anymore though. My main concern is his brother.
“Um, hiyo,” I don’t know where to begin. I’m pretty sure between me rushing Hisashi with a hug bomb at the airstrip and the press reports he’s well aware of my return to his brother’s life. I don’t know if he knows how we came to be though. I will never betray Hisashi so I’m trying to be careful with my words.
He sighs gently. “Do you need help, Tay-chan? As I understand it, you are still my sister.”
“He’s not answering his phone. I didn’t want to bother him at work,” I say, feeling more than a little silly. What if they are there together?
“I believe he’s taking the rare day off,” he says, then I hear shifting and a soft murmur of a familiar woman’s voice whispering okay.
I cringe when I realize it’s my cousin. Krie just probably heard me asking after Hisashi and now knows I’m married to him. Why else would her boyfriend call me his sister?
A litany of profanity laced admonishments fly through my mind. “Well, okay.”
There is a long silence on the phone, so long I pull back to check that he didn’t hang up.
“Taylor are you going over there?” Concern is etched in every word.
“I don’t know,” I say, wondering when I started lying so much. “Ah, probably. He never not calls me back. Last night he texted while I was asleep saying he talked to you and found out everything that happened when I left,” I hedge, hoping he’ll fill in the blanks.
“Hai.” The one word stony response lets me know just how false that hope is. Then he says with cold precision, “You will call me when you get there and when you leave. If I don’t hear from you and my brother within two hours of your call I will come to get you.”
“Kiyoshi-oniichan,” I say softly not wanting to be overheard by Krie if she’s near. “He’s never hurt me, not even back then.”
“Ah, bishojo, I know. He’s not who I’m worried about,” comes the solemn warning. “I would never forgive myself if I let anything happen to you again. Promise you will do as I instructed. I trust my brother but his monster as he calls him is another thing entirely.”
“I trust them both. His monster as y’all like to call him only reacted to what he thought was a threat to Hisashi. He only wants to protect him. I promise to call.” I add the last part just to reassure him.
After a few more questions and reassurances he gives me the estate’s passcode: TAYLOR.
“Hey,”I say, my way of introduction, entering uninvited into the darkened bedroom belonging to my husband.
He’s the perfect villain in his lair reclining in a dark gray nearly black chair, his face a mask of despair and anger.
Why that makes my heart clench is not lost on me. I will never stop the feelings I have for this man. I accepted him as he was long ago. He’s deserving of love. He’s deserving of mine. His mental challenges haven’t made him less but so much more. He had the courage to face them and me. I have to have the courage to do the same and show him I won’t fail him again.
“What are you doing here? You wanted to leave, I let you go.” Swirling the whiskey just so it catches the light, Hisashi takes a long swig before resting the crystal highball on the arm of the chair slowly rotating it in his hand.
