Chen, who’d gotten to know his wife well during his months as her driver, groaned. “Oh, I bet she didn’t like that—especially now that you two are headed back to the East Coast for good anyway after the new year.”
Normally, Han was terrific at keeping his expression neutral. He’d learned from the best in Victor, who schooled his face into a mysterious blank for most conversations. But things had been going so well with Jasmine. He hadn’t gotten around to telling her that they’d be leaving her beloved home state in a week so that he could train another Silent Triad snakehead to take over for him in Delaware. So he grimaced again when Chen brought it up.
Chen’s widened his eyes at Han. “You haven’t told her yet? But if not now, when?”
As if tacking on to Chen’s question, another all-caps message came through from Jasmine.
JASMINE: “I’m coming home now. And when I get there, we’re going to have a long conversation. About this and whatever else you’re keeping from me. No more secrets. I’M YOUR WIFE.”
As angry as the text message sounded, the last sentence, written all in caps, filled Han’s chest with sunlight. That she said this so easily now was more than he ever could have hoped when he made that desperate play to keep her by his side back in September.
And later on, when he finished with his meeting with Chen, he said, “I’ll walk you downstairs. Bui and Jasmine should be here at any moment.”
They rode down in the elevator, then lingered in the garage to talk about Chen’s wedding. The newly minted snakehead was thinking of having it right after the Lunar New Year and maybe inviting a few of the weed maha’ais. But he wasn’t sure how Dexter would feel about the guest list.
Han advised him, “Business relationships are most important in this line of work. And your future husband must understand who he’s marrying. You do not need to rub his face in it, and I doubt there will be much danger, considering that we’ve recruited so many of Kuang Jr’s former forces, and the new 24K Dragon has already ceded this territory to us. But you should give your future husband reminders every so once in a while so that he doesn’t act silly or put himself in unnecessary danger.”
“That’s a good idea,” Chen agreed. “He says that he wants to keep on running and operating his food truck by himself after we’re married. So maybe seeing how much security we’ll need to post up at the wedding will help him understand.”
“Whatever you decide, just let me know,” Han told him with a clap on the shoulder. “I know Jasmine will want to be there, so we will most definitely fly back.”
“Speaking of which, look who just got here,” Chen said, pointing his gaze over Han’s shoulder.
Han turned, and the flesh between his legs stirred at just the sight of the car ferrying his wife.
Yes, Jasmine was most likely furious at him for keeping this secret from her, but he would have to convince her to let go of that anger when he got her upstair—
The car exploded with a thunderous boom, the shockwave so great, it knocked both Chen and Han off their feet.
36
HAN
Han woke up to the sound of someone pounding on his bedroom door. The noise was almost as loud and irritating as the headache throbbing between his ears.
On instinct, he looked over to Jasmine’s side of the bed, but no….
There were two empty bottles of baijiu where she should have been and a black blank as to how they got there. Also, the air reeked of piss. As if someone had gotten so drunk, they’d urinated in the bed, as opposed to making use of the facilities just a few feet away.
He had a bad feeling that someone might have been him.
He swam through the thick mud of the headache, trying to figure out what was going on. Why had he gotten so drunk? Who was pounding on the door? Where was Jasmine? On Dawn Patrol may—
The memory returned to him with another boom….
The explosion….waking up to find the Honolulu fire department pulling her body out of the passenger seat…burned to a husk.
Because she was…she was…
Pain. Pain, unlike anything Han had ever known, exploded like that bomb inside of him. Again.
And then the door to the room flew open, revealing the guy who had kicked it in.
“Phantom…” Han croaked, so dehydrated he could barely speak.
Phantom looked around the room: Han in his foul bed and all the bottles littered amongst the furniture he’d kicked and turned over after coming home from the morgue without his wife. “Aw, fuck, honorary cuz. They warned me it was bad. But…you’ve got to get up.”
“I told her father I would protect her,” Han answered, remembering how her parents and Mika had cried when they met him at the morgue.
