Protection for Hire (14 page)

“Oh my goodness!” Vivian exclaimed.

“Tessa, are you all right?” Elizabeth asked.

“I hope the other guy looks worse,” Charles said.

Tessa walked into Charles’s house and handed Slasher to Daniel, who was the only one who didn’t notice the shiner over her right eye.

“Let’s get some ice on that,” Vivian said.

“Oh, and you’re bleeding a little too,” Elizabeth added.

“So did you fight off all fifty of them with just your pinky?” Charles asked.

To be honest, Elizabeth’s and Vivian’s fussing made her uncomfortable, and Charles’s quips made her feel more in control of the situation. No one had ever really fluttered over her when she got injured — usually it was from sparring with her cousins or other yakuza, and if she couldn’t patch herself up or walk away with her head high, she’d lose the ounce of respect she’d fought hard for, a woman in their man’s world. And other times, it had been herself sneaking into her mom’s house late at night, or years later, coming home to her empty condo. No gentle fingers probing her cuts or laying a soft, towel-wrapped bag of ice over her eye. She felt awkward, clumsy, and three years old.

Then again, it wasn’t exactly the worst feeling in the world either.

“Did they come for us?” A horrified look came over Elizabeth’s face. “Did they come to your mama’s house? Is she all right?”

“They saw me in my car a few blocks from Mom’s house. We, er … had an altercation and I left them to the tender mercies of a lady dialing the police department.”

“But they hurt you,” Elizabeth said. “My past keeps hunting me and hurting you.”

And Tessa realized that she and Elizabeth were more alike than she realized. Elizabeth’s past — Heath — was hunting her just as Tessa’s yakuza past hunted her. “It’s okay. They didn’t hurt me very much, and I didn’t tell them anything.”

Charles was staring at her, his humor set aside now, and she couldn’t quite interpret his look. Admiration and wonder, disbelief, anxiety, a hint of wariness.

And intensity. It spilled over the edges of his gaze, pulling at her with its strength. Just like that powerful moment between them at the park, after Kenta had driven away, there was a sense of the deep well of his passions, normally covered tightly by his businesslike veneer. And more than that, there was the sense of his passion for
her
— the burning attraction between the two of them.

No, she was just feeling ghosts of Kenta’s regretful affection for her. Even before her arrest, their relationship had been close and yet distant. He had been one of her uncle’s closest
kobuns
, years more mature than his age, and she’d been the
oyabun’s
unconventional niece. A useful niece, but not a marriage trophy. She would see moments in Kenta where he’d act as if he wanted to draw closer to her, but something held him back. She had respected that.

And after she’d become a Christian in prison, she had written to him to tell him, and he hadn’t visited her again. She had known then that the one man who had wanted to reach past her tough outer shell was lost to her, and she may not ever find another man who was her equal, or who would even want her.

This
thing
with Charles was just … a rebound, especially after seeing Kenta again today.

But she couldn’t deny right now how she felt, almost as if the air were shimmering between the two of them.

It was worse when Vivian bustled off to make some poultice she claimed would clear the swelling right up and leech out the discoloration, and Daniel demanded attention from Elizabeth.

Charles came up to her, his hands in his pockets as if to keep himself from reaching out to her. She loosely clasped her arms around herself, wanting him to reach out to her.

“I’m sure you’ve had worse.” A faint smile deepened the dimples on his cheeks.

“I’m sure I have. I just don’t remember at this moment.”

That intense gaze again, the shimmering air. She couldn’t breathe, as if the temperature had suddenly shot up to 115 degrees and 80 percent humidity.

And then his hand came out of his pocket and he reached up to touch her cheek — her good one.

He had touched her before — his fingers had grazed hers at the park, when Vivian had been holding her hands. It hadn’t been melodramatic, but she’d noticed the feel of his skin against hers, even for that brief moment.

But now, the pads of his fingers sent a shiver through her. Her skin tingled with fire where he touched her, and she could feel the heat from his palm. Her heartbeat started to gallop. She wanted to turn her face into his hand, so she could feel the length of his palm against her jaw.

This was too much like Kenta’s touch today. Then, she’d had to remind herself of her faith, of her reason to distance herself from him.

She had even more reason to keep away from Charles.

With a sharp indrawn breath, she pulled away from him, took a small step back.

A flame in his eyes cooled, like a gas light dying, and his hand dropped away.

Sanity returned. She didn’t want to be attracted to Charles. She couldn’t, because of who she was and who he was. They were all wrong for each other. She wasn’t working for Uncle Teruo anymore, but she also couldn’t antagonize her uncle by getting romantically involved with an attorney like Charles — honest, upright. Uncle Teruo would say she couldn’t be sure Charles wouldn’t take any information he might happen to find out about the Otas and send it straight to a federal prosecutor. While she didn’t condone her uncle’s illegal activities, she also wouldn’t be the means of his arrest — he was her uncle. She loved him, and he had done everything for her.

Charles seemed to be realizing the same thing. He twitched his shoulders back under his crisp long-sleeved shirt, looked at her hair, her chin, her left ear. He cleared his throat. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

“I don’t know anything about legal proceedings, but I have a feeling Heath isn’t going to roll over for you.”

Charles glanced at Elizabeth, playing with Daniel on the plush carpet of his wide living room, which was already decorated with some of the toys her mom had given to Daniel. “I’ll probably hear from his attorney soon.”

“A man who sends those three guys after his wife — not even coming himself — has a different agenda.”

“We could be wrong. He could just be intense.”

The word jumped out at the two of them.

“We’ll see, I guess,” she said.

He looked her in the eyes, his brilliant, clear blue gaze that she wanted to drown in. She couldn’t look away.

“We’ll see,” he repeated after her.

But she knew he wasn’t talking about Heath.

H
e’d really thought it would be over with just a nasty-gram or two. Charles stared at the lawyer sitting across from him. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Heath’s lawyer fit every expectation Charles had of the kind of man a wife-beater would hire — he looked like a snake oil salesman. His pencil-thin moustache, his pinstriped suit with a slightly nipped-in waist, even his flashy black-and-white patent leather shoes, which Charles expected him to prop up on the conference room table at any minute. The hand rubbing the edges of his stack of documents was covered in heavy gold rings with the occasional flash of diamond or ruby.

“The burden of proof is on you, Mr. Britton,” Dan Augustine said. His voice was as oily as his slicked back hair. “The money Mr. Turnbull is holding is his own, and none of it belongs to Ms. St. Amant, unless you can prove otherwise.”

“He is illegally holding on to her inheritance money.”

“Mr. Turnbull has already attested to the fact that all that money was spent years ago on a vacation to Italy,” Mr. Augustine said.

“And I have already asked you for documentation and receipts. I have yet to see them.”

“We have thirty days to respond to your document request, and time’s not up yet.”

And he’d be unlikely to give Charles the information by the deadline. Typical stall tactic. It would force Charles to file a motion to compel, which would take up more time.

“My client is currently looking through his files,” Augustine said, “but he has already mentioned that he may no longer have those receipts.”

“And the bank statements?”

“Again, they may have been shredded.”

Sure they were. The man’s teeth were black with his lies.

“In the meantime, we’re serving a deposition notice for your client.” Mr. Augustine slid the envelope across the table.

Deposition? This was unusually early — and very aggressive — for Heath’s lawyer to require Elizabeth to appear before them for questioning. “No, we haven’t gotten the information we requested yet.”

Mr. Augustine cocked an eyebrow. “That’s not our problem.”

Charles gave him a smirk. “
You
have thirty days to respond to our request for documents.
We
have the prerogative to object to your deposition notice.”

Mr. Augustine sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “We offer several times and dates as options. Don’t be unreasonable.” He gave Charles a nasty look. “We could file a motion to compel.”

“Go right ahead. It’ll take even more of your precious time. But my client is not appearing in your offices anytime soon. Unless, of course, you can get us the information we asked for and release her inheritance money to her.”

“We’re back to square one. We’re not obligated to do anything for you until you can prove that money still exists.”

“The money belongs to my client and Heath Turnbull is holding her funds illegally,” Charles said through gritted teeth.

“Then prove it.”
Mr. Augustine stared him in the eye, his black gaze triumphant and condescending.

“It’s not a matter of proof. It’s a matter of illegality bordering on grand theft.”

“If that’s an accusation, Counselor, then back it up with something more than hot air.” Mr. Augustine rose to his polished feet and straightened his black silk tie. “We’re done here.”

As his pinstriped back left the conference room, Charles’s hands rose to strangle the air, imagining Mr. Augustine’s scrawny neck instead.

“Was he for real?” Rick poked his head into the room. “He looked like he walked straight out of a Spaghetti Western.”

“Dealing with him just added twenty billable hours to this pro bono case.”

“Only twenty? He’s probably betting his colleagues he can take forty.”

“What colleagues? Men like him are Lone Rangers and they eat their mates.”

Rick blinked. “Mixing your metaphors, dude.”

“Heath is worth a hundred million. This would have been a drop in the bucket. Why won’t he be a good boy and just roll over?” Charles groaned and buried his forehead in his hands.

“What made you think he would?”

“Because I researched him. He’s never had a lawsuit against him from a big firm, so I should be as intimidating as Godzilla to Tokyo. But nooo, he has to send his slimy lawyer in here to tell me Elizabeth’s money is gone and all his cash is held up in
private equity investments so he can’t give her a dime. And of course he won’t sign the divorce papers.”

“Come on. I know you didn’t really think he’d sign those papers without a little bit of a bar fight first.”

“But the terms are in his favor. Elizabeth refuses to take a dime from him. All she wants is her inheritance money back. She’s letting him keep everything else. She doesn’t even want child support because she’s got an obscenely large trust fund set up for Daniel from some American royalty uncle somewhere.”

“The last time I believed a financial report at face value was in 1993. He’s probably up to his eyeballs in debt.”

“He’s not in debt. Since his lawyer hasn’t yet given me the discovery, I had to dig for the info myself, but the man just paid off his Lamborghini.”

Rick pouted. He was still paying off his Jaguar. “I’m still right. I know you probably only looked at his personal financials because you have a limited number of billable hours, but think about Heath’s business. A small private equity firm? Doing well in this economy? That didn’t scream, ‘Only possible in the dream world of the Matrix’ at you?”

“So you’re saying I’m going to need to go digging in the trash.”

“Like Luke and Leia in the trash compactor,” Rick said cheerfully. “I’m surprised you haven’t done it before now.”

“Until today, I didn’t think I needed to.”

“And that is why you are not yet ready to face Darth Vader, young Skywalker.”

Charles eyed him with irritation. “Let me guess. You watched the Sci-Fi channel all weekend and they ran both a Star Wars and a Matrix marathon.”

“I also watched a Clint Eastwood marathon on A&E,” Rick said.

Charles rose to his feet. “I’m going to leave before you start quoting Josey Wales.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you at the meeting this afternoon, Greer wants a report on the Imperion case — you know, the one where you actually have a paying client?”

His gut felt like it was a sinking stone in a pond of decaying muck. He had been neglecting the Imperion case in favor of Elizabeth’s.

Rick read his expression. “Going that well, huh?”

“Peachy.”

“Yeah, well, glad it’s you and not me.” He flashed a completely unsympathetic grin and left the conference room.

The truth was Charles had thought this would be easy. He had envisioned he might have to file a complaint and publicly embarrass Heath a little, but the case wouldn’t take more than a few billable hours.

But he’d spent too much time on Elizabeth’s case this week after being contacted by Heath’s lawyer. Normally he’d spend those hours working on his non-pro bono cases, racking up billable hours to regular clients in his race for partner.

But now it looked like he would need to spend even more time on this. And with Heath’s lawyer stonewalling him, coupled with what Tessa had told him about the attack on her a few days ago, it all pointed to something deeper and darker under the surface.

But what?

The only way to find out would be to dig.

The other option would be to let Heath see his wife and throw Elizabeth and her son to the dogs, and he wasn’t about to do that.

He had always been strict about his billable hours, strict and honorable to his firm. They set a limit on the number of pro
bono hours he could bill. Any other time he took was on his own dime, but if it took time away from the firm’s other clients, he had to prioritize.

Except Elizabeth didn’t have time. If men were really after her and Daniel, he needed to find out quickly what was going on to keep them safe. He needed to help her because it was the right thing to do.

He thought about Tessa, and how she had told Kenta she was responsible for Elizabeth and Daniel. Kenta had said he understood.

The problem was that Charles didn’t think his firm would be the same way. And what would that mean for him and his dreams?

He needed to make partner. Just the thought of not achieving it caused a primeval twisting in his gut, an anguish deeper than logic or words. This drive came from a dark place inside him where he never went, a place forged with blood and pain.

He could do it. He could stay within his billable hours for Elizabeth’s case, or if not, work even harder so that it didn’t impact his other cases. He would impress Manchester Greer with his abilities. He could do it if he set his mind to it. He just needed to focus.

If he dug deep enough, he could do this. And if he had to, he would fuel himself with that dark place.

He would make his father’s legacy work for him for a change.

Tessa was so bored.

Elizabeth had played for hours with Daniel, and now the two of them had passed out in their bedroom, leaving Tessa with
no one to guard and nothing to do. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush of dealing with Heath’s men and now the letdown of not even having a dog to walk.

She exercised on Charles’s exercise equipment and decided that if it had a kitchen, she’d be happy to live forever in his exercise room; it was that full of awesomeness. She fixed herself a protein shake with his cyborg-like blender that did everything except pour itself down her throat for her.

After a shower, she was reduced to circling Charles’s living room, being nosy. Except he had exactly four pictures on his fireplace mantle and a dead fly on his windowsill. Not exactly high entertainment.

Vivian glanced up at her from where she sat on the couch knitting, with the Food Network on the large screen plasma TV so that she could see every pimple on Rachael Ray’s nose — not that Rachael Ray had any, darn her. Vivian had been a bit disgruntled earlier when she wanted to make Tessa’s shake for her, but had understood completely when Tessa confessed she wanted to play with the blender’s 237 buttons and Porsche-size motor.

“It’s these acrylic carpets,” Vivian said.

“Excuse me?”

She gestured with her knitting needle to Tessa’s feet. “You can wear a hole in that acrylic carpet with only a thousand paces. Now real wool carpets, you can pace over them until the cows come home and they won’t show a single wear spot.”

Guiltily, Tessa sat next to her on the sofa and watched Rachael add bacon, butter, cheese, and cream to some hot dip for bread, aka “The dip I spit out of my mouth as soon as the camera angle moves, because otherwise I’d fall dead with a coronary right in front of millions of viewers.”

Vivian sighed, then said, “I am hereby taking pity on you.”

“What?”

Vivian slid her needles out of the scarf she was knitting and proceeded to pull the yarn out, dismantling it.

“What are you doing? Did you make a mistake?”

“No.” She pulled the crinkly yarn out in long sweeps of her arm. “You’re going to do this.”

“Pull the yarn out for you?”

“No, knit.”

“Oh, no, I don’t knit.”

“Of course you don’t. I’m going to teach you.”

Tessa eyed the yarn, which had rich jewel tones. And suddenly, she had a flash of memory — red, pink, and gold origami paper, and Aunty Kayoko’s fine dark eyes and slender hands.

She couldn’t remember a woman teaching her anything the way Aunty Kayoko taught her to make paper cranes. She couldn’t remember mattering to someone so much that they’d take the personal time.

When her grade school classmates had taunted her with her uncle’s reputation and she got into fights — embarrassing Alicia with the number of times she got sent to the principal’s office — her uncle had cared enough to send her to martial arts schools. When her birthday rolled around, her mom had cared enough to buy her a cake — although she always got white cake, mixing up Tessa’s preference for chocolate and Alicia’s preference for white. When she had earned enough from working for her uncle and had wanted to buy her own condo, Uncle Teruo had set her up with his own real estate agent and mortgage broker.

But as for sitting down with her, investing time and their physical presence … only Aunty Kayoko had done that.

Until now.

“First, I’m going to teach you the knitted cast on,” Vivian said.

An automatic assault rifle had felt more comfortable in her hands than these two sticks and length of string.

“You’re strangling the yarn, darling,” Vivian said. “I would almost think you had unresolved anger issues.”

“I do,” she said baldly as she tried to insert one needle into a loop that was so tight it was practically glued to the other needle.

“I’m sure you really do love your sister, deep down.”

“I do get angry with Alicia, but my anger issues are with my father.”

Vivian blinked. “Your father?”

“He left us when I was ten and Alicia was thirteen.” There, she got the needle through the loop.

“Good, now throw the yarn over the needle … You’re rather calm and open for someone with anger issues.”

“My counselor in prison said that the fact that I could talk about it without emotion meant I have deep-running emotion about it. That didn’t quite make sense to me, but whatev — rats!” She lost the yarn off the tip of the needle.