Unraveled (34 page)

“You her champion now?”

“Yes, because she needs one.”

“Look, Knox, I realize I fucked up monumentally where my sister is concerned. That
seems to be a pattern with me. I ignore her, get pissed off at her, have a reconciliation
with her, and then the whole cycle repeats.” He looked away. “It sucks. I suck. I
spent too goddamn much time thinking when I was in Japan about all the stuff in my
life I wanted to change.”

“And?”

“The changes are coming whether I want them to or not.” Ronin’s gaze flicked to the
house and back to Knox. “What about you two? Are you just hooking up?”

Knox was used to Ronin’s deflection. This time he handed it right back to him. “We’re
together.”

When Ronin’s hard-eyed stare didn’t push Knox to babble like it did with everyone
else, he sighed. “I deserved that.”

“Yep.”

“This is all so fucking surreal. It feels like I’ve been gone three years, not three
months.”

“Ronin, tell me what’s really going on.”

He shook his head. “I need to get every piece of information locked down before we
talk about it. So by the time you’re back next week, plan on having long meetings
during the day.” He flashed his teeth. “I know how much you love that shit.”

“Fuck you. In your absence, I shaved our weekly staff meeting down to ten minutes.”
Knox also flashed his teeth. “Maybe you should give me your notes and I’ll summarize.”

“Funny. I won’t have notes for another two days.”

This secretive stuff didn’t sit well with him. “So is that when you’ll pass down judgment
on us hiring Byerly?”

“I’ll admit I was pissed. But I can’t fault you and Shiori for doing it. I know Byerly
gets results. He is the best of the best, and that’s what the program needs to grow
and thrive.”

That’s when Ronin’s issue with the situation became clear to Knox. “You weren’t sold
on the idea of a full-blown MMA program at Black Arts, were you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Ronin scrubbed his hand over his face. “For this reason. We didn’t have the staff.
We didn’t have the talent. I’ve already started a promotion company that I feel I’m
giving half-assed attention to. I don’t know what my responsibilities will be after
the dojo is under the umbrella of a new house. Amery understands I don’t have a nine-to-five
job, but I’m tired of spending only one whole day out of a weekend with her. So change
is inevitable, and needed, and I’ll be glad for it after it’s all implemented.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Just . . .” He sighed. “I don’t know. Be aware it might be a rougher transition than
I’d like.”

Another vague response. “Okay.”

Ronin’s eyes met his. “I have a pile of shit to do today, so I’d better get on it.
One last thing. Have you been to Twisted lately?”

“Define lately.”

“You’d better not be fucking around on my sister, Knox, because that shit doesn’t
fly with me,” he snapped.

Knox cocked his head. “Ease. Off. It’s none of your business
what I do or don’t do at Twisted. It’s none of your business what I do or don’t do
with your sister, so get to the fucking point.”

“When was the last time you were there?”

“Two weeks ago. Why?”

“Does Shiori know about the place?”

“Yes.”

“Does she know what kind of club it is?”

“Yep.”

“Why the fuck are you being so goddamn vague?” Ronin demanded. Then he aimed a cool
look at Knox. “Guess if I want answers I’ll ask Merrick.”

“You can ask him, but I doubt he’ll tell you what you want to know. Maintaining member
privacy is his one unbreakable rule.” Knox pushed away from his vehicle. “I’m sorry
you’re having a hard time dealing with changes, Ronin, but don’t take that shit out
on me. I’ve got your back. I’ll be by your side for as long as you need me. But there
are some times when I have to draw the line between our working relationship and our
personal lives. Not trying to be a dick, and for the first time I understand why you
did it with Amery. I’m asking you to understand, not to push and punish—either me
or Shiori.”

Ronin squinted at him. “I swear I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.
So I’ll let that go.” He opened his car door. “Remember this conversation, Knox, because
it will come full circle.”

No fucking clue what that meant, but he nodded anyway.

“See you at the dojo Monday morning. I’ll make sure Amery texts you before she shows
up this weekend.”

“That’ll work. Thanks for coming by. You have no idea what it means to her.”

“Take care of her, and if you need anything, call.”

Knox didn’t watch Ronin drive away. He returned to the living
room and saw Shiori sitting by the open window. Her knees were pressed against her
chest and she’d wrapped her arms around her shins.

She’d buried her face beneath her hair, so he couldn’t tell if she was crying.

He dropped to his knees in front of her. “Hey. You okay?”

Her head moved.

“I take that as a no.” He gently pried her fingers loose and let his hands travel
up her arms to her shoulders. “Can you look at me, please?”

When she slowly raised her head, he noticed her damp cheeks and his gut clenched.
Shiori attempted to push her hair out of her face, but he stilled the movement.

“Let me.” Knox brushed her hair from her beautiful face. “Were you listening?”

She nodded.

“Guess I forgot your ears work even if your mouth doesn’t.”

Shiori snatched up her notebook and wrote furiously before she showed him what she’d
written.

YOU STOOD UP FOR ME.

“Always. Why are you surprised by that, Nushi?”

I’M NOT. BUT RONIN CLEARLY WAS. I WANT TO YELL AT HIM TO OPEN HIS EYES. I WANT TO
KISS YOU UNTIL NEITHER OF US CAN BREATHE. CLEARLY I’M AN EMOTIONAL BASKET CASE, AND
I HATE THAT YOU’RE SEEING ME LIKE THIS.

“When I look at you, all I see is the beautiful woman I’m in love with.”

Once again, Shiori didn’t respond in kind. He’d told her
several times since her accident that he loved her. She’d smiled, gotten teary-eyed,
but she hadn’t repeated those words back to him.

She’s suffering from a serious mouth injury and talking is the one thing she’s not
supposed to do. You bark at her every time she tries to speak, so what do you expect?

Knox kissed the tips of her fingers. “Kitten, it’ll all work out. It always does.”

But he had an unsettling feeling that might not be true this time.

IT’D
been a week since the accident. Why did she still feel like she’d gotten hit by a
truck?

Oh, right, because she actually had.

Shiori closed her eyes. She felt like dog shit. She’d finished her cycle of antibiotics
three days ago, so that hadn’t been the reason for her queasiness.

She attributed her tiredness to stress from Ronin being back. He’d thrown himself
back into Black Arts business, questioning Knox on everything to the point Knox earned
sympathy from everyone around him, even Deacon.

The number of students enrolled in jujitsu classes had remained the same the last
three months. No growth, but no losses either. When Ronin asked why the numbers were
static, citing ABC’s increased enrollment numbers, Shiori kept mum. It wasn’t her
place to stick up for Knox—he hadn’t asked for her backing.

Knox had answered honestly; Ronin’s directive to him was to keep things going with
the dojo as they were. That’s what Knox had done. If Ronin had asked for them to try
to increase enrollment numbers while he’d been gone for a quarter of the year, Knox
told him he would’ve refused. When Sensei asked why, Knox said
they didn’t have enough instructors for the number of students they already had enrolled.
And Ronin being gone had left them short-staffed. He worried they’d lose some of the
instructors they had if things didn’t change.

Of course Ronin hadn’t wanted to hear that. Then, when he demanded to meet with the
instructors, it wasn’t meant to be taken as slap in the face to Knox, but that’s how
it’d come across to him—and to everyone else. It didn’t matter that Ronin’s meetings
verified what Knox had told him, that the instructors couldn’t work six days a week
because everyone had other employment obligations; Ronin had become obsessed with
fixing things.

When Ronin asked for her input, she demurred. He pressed her on why she didn’t have
an opinion since she’d been part of the staff for several months. Choose her brother
over her lover? It was a lose-lose situation. That’s why she’d refused to get dragged
into it. But her bottom line was the same as Knox’s; if Ronin wanted to grow the dojo,
he needed to hire additional staff.

This morning Knox had left early at Ronin’s behest. She yawned and forced herself
out of Knox’s comfy bed. She headed to the kitchen and saw he’d put out a mug and
a tea bag for her. Such a sweet, thoughtful man. She loved that he did little things
like that for her, not because she expected it as his Mistress, but just because he
wanted to.

After setting the kettle on the stove, she tracked down her cell phone. Lucky thing
Knox had plugged it in for her last night. It’d been completely dead. There were missed
calls from a couple of clients through Okada. Her e-mail had exploded in the last
day, so she tried to organize it.

The kettle whistled. She poured water into the mug, wrapping her hands around the
ceramic, letting the heat warm them. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the scented
steam. But the second the chamomile hit her nose, she gagged.

Before she could delve too deep into the question of whether
tea could get rancid, her stomach cramped. She hastily set down her mug and stumbled
to the sink, dry heaving for an eternity. When she could finally lift her head, her
skin seemed clammy and she felt feverish.

Something wasn’t right. She needed to see a doctor.

Knox would drop everything to take her, but she didn’t want to put him in an uncomfortable
position with Ronin. She thought about calling Amery, but she was swamped. That scratched
Molly off the list as a potential driver too. Fee and Blue shared a car, and she usually
took public transport everywhere.

Looked like she’d be calling the car service.

Shiori found a clean pair of yoga pants and one of Knox’s old T-shirts. Normally she
wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this outfit in public, but right now she didn’t care.
She just wanted to feel better.

The car service sent a limo. Every twist and turn seemed magnified. Feeling completely
green, she sent the limo driver away after he dropped her off at the emergency clinic.

It must’ve been the day for sick people. The clinic was packed. And now she was stuck
until someone could see her. She found a corner away from the sniveling and crying
kids and let her head fall back against the wall.

Names were called and people vanished into the abyss behind the clinic door.

She heard, “Shy-a-rye?”

Shiori looked around the waiting room, but nobody got up.

The nurse said, “Shy-a-rye . . . Hee-rhino?”

Jesus. She’d never had her named butchered that badly.

Luckily she didn’t feel nauseous as she walked to the person holding the clipboard.
“I’m Shiori Hirano.”

“Oh, wow. Guess I got that one wrong. Pretty name. What is it? Chinese or something?”

“Japanese.”

“Cool. Glad you speak English.” She led her into a tiny waiting room. “Let’s get
height and weight and all that.” She pointed to the numbers on the wall. “Stand there.”
After Shiori had moved, the woman squinted at her. “Five feet, four inches. Now, step
on the scale.” The nurse adjusted the weights and said, “One hundred and thirty pounds.”

Pound measurements confused her. She said, “What is that in kilograms?”

“I don’t know. Never have to worry about that. Oh wait. There’s another set of numbers
below.” She leaned forward and squinted. “Looks like about . . . fifty-nine kilograms?”

That had to be wrong. She had to be misreading it. Shiori had weighed fifty-six kilos
for years.

The nurse checked Shiori’s blood pressure and rattled off two numbers that didn’t
mean anything to her. Then she said, “Dr. Barr will be in.”

Left alone, Shiori turned on her side on the exam table and closed her eyes.

She must’ve fallen asleep because a slamming door startled her awake.

“You really are feeling punky, if you can sleep in this madhouse,” a woman’s voice
said.

“Sorry.” Shiori rolled to her back.

The gray-haired woman wore neon-green eyeglasses and purple medical scrubs with one-eyed
green aliens all over them. She smiled softly and patted Shiori’s shoulder when she
tried to sit up. “It’s okay, honey. You just stay like that. I’m Dr. Barr. You want
to tell me why you came in today?”

Shiori explained about the car accident and how sick she’d been in the week since.
“I don’t know if I’m still suffering effects or what.”

“It could be. I won’t rule it out until I’ve ruled out everything else. So we’ll do
some blood and urine tests as well as a throat
culture to see what’s going on. Kirsten will take you to the lab and I’ll be back
after the results are available, which I’m warning you will be at least another hour.”

“Guess I’ll catch up on more sleep.”

After what seemed like a full battery of tests, Kristen returned her to the room.

Shiori closed her eyes, sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she conked out again.
She woke up when Dr. Barr returned.

“So I’ve got your test results. First stretch out on your back and lift your shirt
up to your ribs.”

Dr. Barr gently poked Shiori’s lower abdomen.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“You’re pregnant.”

Her mouth fell open in shock. “What?”

“Honey, you really didn’t have any idea that you’re pregnant?”

“No!”

“Feel this.” She took Shiori’s hand and placed it on a hard lump above her pubic bone.
“That’s your uterus.”

“But . . . that isn’t a contusion from my accident?”

Dr. Barr shook her head. Then she tugged Shiori’s shirt back into place and helped
her sit up. “All right. This is a surprise to you. So let’s backtrack. What was your
last period?”

Shiori scrolled back through the last month. No period. Did she have one the month
before that? No. The last time she’d had her period had been . . . before Ronin and
Amery had left for Japan. “Omigod. I haven’t had one for months, but I’ve always been
irregular.”

“Any unprotected sex?”

“One time. Just one time . . . two and a half months ago.” Her gaze flew to the doctor’s.
“But I took a morning-after pill.”

“Was the intercourse consensual?”

“Yes! I’m still very much involved with him—the baby’s father—omigod, how can I be
pregnant?”

“How long after intercourse did you take the pill?”

Shiori thought back. “It happened Saturday night, and I took the pill around noon
Monday.”

“Pills you bought at a pharmacy here in Denver?”

“Yes.” She looked at Dr. Barr, and she knew every bit of fear shone in her eyes. “Why
didn’t it work?”

“Well, honey, those pills aren’t one hundred percent effective. The effectiveness
drops after the first twenty-four hours, and it’s about half as effective after forty-eight
hours. That could’ve played a part in the failure.” She patted Shiori’s knee. “I can’t
give you a definitive answer beyond the pill failed and you are pregnant.”

Shiori clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Feel sick?” Dr. Barr asked.

She shook her head.

“In shock?”

Shiori nodded. How could this be happening?

“Deep breaths. Don’t pass out on me.” She rubbed Shiori’s back. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five.”

“Any other children?”

“No. I’ve never had a pregnancy scare. Never.”

“You didn’t want children?”

Shiori had to take a minute to slow her breathing. “I was in a bad marriage and it
wasn’t an option then. After that I devoted my time to work and I didn’t have a steady
relationship until recently.”

Dr. Barr kept rubbing her back, trying to calm her down. “After hearing this, I’d
guess you’re about ten or eleven weeks along. Almost through the first trimester.
I can do a pelvic exam, but I’m not sure I need to.”

“Why not?”

The doctor moved in front of her. “Is terminating the pregnancy an option?”

She started to say,
I don’t know
. But in that moment, Shiori did
know. She was keeping this baby. “No.” She cleared the emotion from her voice. “I’m
in shock, and probably will be for a few days, and I have no idea how the father will
react, but I’m having this baby.”

Dr. Barr smiled. “It’s your choice. For what it’s worth, I think you’re making the
right choice.”

“Why?”

“I was in your situation once. I’d ended up divorced because I’d focused solely on
my medical career. I had a drunken one-night stand with an old friend from college
and whoops . . . I got pregnant.” She smiled again. “At thirty-five. That baby was
the greatest thing that ever happened to me. She was the joy of my life. She still
is thirty years later.”

Shiori managed to keep her tears to just a few and not an outburst. “And the baby’s
father?”

“Oh, he was a deadbeat. Wanted nothing to do with either of us. Turned out we didn’t
need him. So since you are going through with the pregnancy, I’ll do a pelvic exam
and then . . . would you like to hear your baby’s heartbeat?”

At that point Shiori did burst into tears.

*   *   *

SIX
hours had passed by the time Shiori finished at the doctor’s office. She had the car
service take her to her place.

She showered. After she wrapped her hair in a towel, she stood in front of the mirror
and turned sideways. Her belly didn’t look like a baby was growing in there.

But one was. She had a couple of very grainy pictures and she’d heard the heartbeat.
She wished Knox had been with her.

How did she break the news about her pregnancy? Buy a pair of baby booties and give
him a
Congratulations on your impending fatherhood
card?

Buy a jar of pickles and a carton of ice cream, hinting that she’d be having cravings
for it in the next seven months?

Just tell him. Straight out. Knox, the morning-after pill I took after the
first time we had sex didn’t work, and although we’ve used protection every other
freakin’ time, we’re pregnant.

Shiori had to quit obsessing, and yet she still checked to see if she had any text
messages from Knox. That’s when she noticed a voice mail from a number she didn’t
recognize. She put it on speaker.

“Good morning, Miz Hirano. This is Jeff Jenkins of Executive Luxury Associates calling
in regard to the penthouse lease. The owners of the property you’re leasing have returned
to the country two months earlier than planned due to health issues. The lease contract
has a provision for medical emergencies, so you’ll need to vacate the premises by
one week from tomorrow.”

What the fuck?

“Naturally, you will be refunded the entire deposit amount, the payment for the last
month will be refunded, and we’ll foot the cleaning charges. Please, Miz Hirano, call
us as soon as you receive this message. Sorry for the inconvenience.” The message
ended.

“You’re not one bit sorry for the inconvenience, you asswipes.” Just what she didn’t
need to deal with on top of everything else.

After making sure she had her phone and the pictures from the doctor’s office, she
called for a car to take her to Knox’s house.

His place was dark; only one dim light from the kitchen reflected in the front window.
But Knox’s pickup was parked out front, so she knew he was home.

She turned the handle, but the door was locked.

Hadn’t he been expecting her?

Shiori dug out the key he’d given her, unlocked the door, and slipped inside. When
she hit the living room lights, she saw Knox hunched over the breakfast bar.

He didn’t acknowledge her. The half-empty bottle of booze clasped in his right hand
could be the reason for that.

“Are you celebrating something?” she asked.

“Just the opposite.” Knox didn’t offer any further explanation. Instead he said, “What’re
you doing here?”

“You asked me to stay this morning, remember?”

“But you didn’t stay. I figured you went home. Besides, when do you take into consideration
what I want?”