“No, it’s fine. I just took out a loan to close a few gaps,” I answered, constructing the sort of lie as I spoke. “And I’m trying to figure out when I can pay it all back.”
“Wait, you borrowed money?” Mika asked. “From what bank?”
She had every right to be suspicious. My income was super sporadic. There wasn’t a bank in the world that would give me a loan.
So I came up with another partial lie. “It wasn’t exactly from a bank. More like a person.”
“What person?” Mika demanded as we reached the top of the carport stairs. “Who do you know who could afford to let you borrow that much?”
I opened my mouth to answer but stopped when I saw the man standing next to my Jeep parked toward the back of the carport—the extremely handsome man with tattoos running down the length of one arm and all the way up to his neck.
Mika followed my gaze and froze too.
“Jazz,” she whispered. “Who is that?”
HAN
Han couldn’t say it was a decision. He couldn’t remember actually making the choice to come here.
It was more like the jump cut in a Hong Kong film. One moment he’d been looking at the phone, and the next, Yaron was dropping him off outside a large modern villa in Diamond Head. It was the kind of place Victor would’ve picked out for them if The Silent Triad was set up in Hawaii.
And according to the dot on his “Find My” app, Jasmine was somewhere inside, just a few meters away.
“You want me to wait here for you?” Yaron had asked.
“Wait a couple houses down,” he’d answered. “Stay out of sight until I text.”
Luckily, he was a Dragon and never had to explain himself. Otherwise, he would have felt both crazy and embarrassed as he climbed out of the car.
He walked up to the house, and sure enough, there was Jasmine’s Jeep. A few of the boards on top were missing, and the iPhone he’d given her was inside the open car, held up on a clamp. He could see his message on the front screen clear as day.
But, of course, she had been here giving a lesson, and that was why she didn’t answer. He immediately felt stupid and turned to go before she came out of the house to find him there.
But suddenly, it was too late. The voices of two women sounded, which abruptly halted when they reached the top of the stairs.
They both stilled, staring at him.
He froze too.
But not because he’d been caught.
The women.
One of them was Jasmine. But he also recognized the other one, even though she was dressed in a yellow bikini, the opposite of the many pictures Phantom had sent of her dressed in winter coats.
The woman standing beside Jasmine…she was Mika Hayes.
His final target.
11
JAZZ
“Who is that?” my sister demanded, her voice full of horror.
My brain scrambled to answer her question as an incoming tsunami siren went off in my head.
Han was here. Here at my sister’s place of work.
What was he doing here? How had he found me?
“A client,” I answered. As freaked out as I was on the inside, lying to my sister about this didn’t even feel like a choice. I’d do whatever it took to keep her out of this. Whatever it took. “I um…told him to meet me here.”
“A client…” Mika repeated, her tone skeptical.
She scanned Han up and down, and I knew she was eyeballing his ink, not his ridiculously good looks.
Between all the military personnel, Polynesian cultural traditions, and general popularity, tattoos had become a dime a dozen in Oahu. It was almost more unusual to see guys in their 20s and 30s without any ink.
But various Asian mafias had been running criminal rackets on the island since the 1950s. So, we locals knew the difference between the tourists who thought tats looked cool and the guys who provided those tourists with drugs, girls, and whatever illegal things their greedy hearts desired.
Mika turned to me, her eyes wide. “Tell me he just really likes tattoos, and he only looks like he’s part of a Chinese mafia gang.”
Not just part of one. He was a Dragon. He told me that before I knew his name. But how bad would Mika freak out if I told her?
I rubbed the back of my neck. “I haven’t talked with him about his work. You know I don’t care about stuff like that. Money’s money. Especially right now.”
Mika grabbed my arm, her expression as alarmed as mine would be if I wasn’t doing everything I could to hide my real feelings about Han showing up here. “Is he the one you owe the money? Is he harassing you? Stalking you? If he is, you can tell me.”
I didn’t blame her for jumping to that conclusion, considering her history with the Chinese mafia. They’d killed her husband and pretty much ruined her entire life the year Albie was born.
