I cracked eggs as my brain wheeled through everything that had gone down from the time Dawson had called before lunch until now.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, glancing around the room as if expecting her dad or Ken’Ichi to materialize from nothing. Nolan had said there weren’t any listening devices in this room, and I thought maybe she’d be able to talk freely.
She looked at me and away. Maybe she was afraid of what I’d ask, or rather, of what I’d think of her after she answered. But Jada forgot, Jersey and I had a whole town who hated us for what our dad had done. For killing an innocent teacher because he’d gotten behind the wheel drunk. I certainly would never judge her for the sins of her father.
“What were the Japanese words you called our company to your dad?”
“Kakusareta himitsu?” she asked, and I nodded. “It means hidden secrets. It was stupid. I shouldn’t have said it.”
Silence filled the room as we worked.
“How long have you known about it all?” I was vague because I wasn’t sure I even knew what I was asking about—what “it” was.
“Since I was fifteen. I walked in on a meeting I wasn’t supposed to,” she said quietly. “A guy was screaming. It freaked me out, and instead of running toObaasan, I ran to the noise. Stupid, right?”
I shook my head. “You wanted to see if you could help. That’s not stupid. It’s kind of brave.”
“There was a lot of blood, a dagger, and a missing pinky. Truth was, walking intoOtosan’sstudy wasn’t smart or brave. I fainted, andSaito-sanpulled me from the room.”
“Saito-san?”
“He’s…Wakagashira-hosa…like…a henchman to Ken’Ichi. Ken’Ichi is theWakagashira. It’s like…Dad’s first lieutenant.”
My brain whirled with the Japanese terms. It settled like ice over my veins. Having the daughter of the leader of a syndicate turn to the FBI wasn’t little. Jada was in more danger than I’d really let hit home.
She’d found out about her father at fifteen, years before we’d met, but it was about the time she’d started acting out in school, getting tossed from one after another. She’d seen something horrific, learned something about her family that was impossible to unlearn, and hadn’t known how to process it.
I turned back to the bowl of eggs and the whisk in my hand, realizing more than ever why she drank and partied and did drugs to escape. Hopefully, I could give her a few hours to think of something else.
???
Jada and I spent the next two days in the lab. I’d been surprised when she hadn’t complained about the personal protective equipment or the manual labor. Instead, she actually seemed to like it.
I loved having someone at my side who didn’t expect me to be curing cancer like I’d once wanted to. It had been a little girl’s dream because she’d lost her mother to ovarian cancer when she was too young to hardly remember her. A teenager’s dream as she saw people like Mandy who’d battled and survived the beast. A woman’s hope that she could prevent it before her sister ever got it. Preventing it was just as good.
The first day we were in the lab together, I mixed a new formula using the cinnamaldehyde as the core ingredient again but added some kaolinite. If I could create fillable nanovesicles that would search and destroy the microbes and fungi, that would be even better, but for now, this was a good first step. I’d prove the natural components worked and then write up a proposal in order to get some nanoparticle lab time somewhere.
Once I was done with the antimicrobial 2.0, I explored the things Jada really cared about. Makeup and lotions. We spent hours mixing scents and bases to use in a skincare line that might just makeGrâce Charmantesit up and notice us.
While we spent the days in the lab, we spent our nights eating junk food, watching reality television, and drinking only one bottle of wine instead of the two or three I thought Jada might be used to. Then, we stumbled to bed with me trying to forget the man who was sailing his way back to me across the Atlantic.
It was almost midnight on Friday when I heard from Dawson again.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes. All quiet on the western front,” I teased. “How goes it at sea?”
“If we keep at this pace, we should arrive by ten tomorrow morning. It’ll be two hours longer than the trip to Spain, but still well under the record.”
“That’s really incredible, Dawson,” I said, happiness for him leaking into my words.
“I’m just glad for Dax. That the investment he put into it is coming to fruition.”
“You designed the boat, right? Sounds like you both invested in it.”
Silence.
“So, Dawson Langely, you’ve won theConquistar de la Atlánticacup. What are you going to do next?” I asked, throwing out the old commercial as a tease.
