Bare Facts (15 page)

“What do you want from me?” he asked at last, his gaze meeting hers. She felt that maybe this time he’d come clean.

“The truth,” she said.

She didn’t even have to think about it. “I can’t trust you without it.”

“Some things…I’ve done things that you won’t approve of.” There was no shame in his voice, only a type of resignation. He knew he didn’t have the answers she needed, but he was willing to try to give them to her.

“My approval isn’t important,” she said. “Your safety is.”

“I…I paid the blackmail the first time because I didn’t want to lose all of this,” he said, gesturing not only to the room but the city skyline as well.

“Was this before Yuki?” she asked.

“Yes. Long before her.”

She hopped off the desk and walked over to him when she realized he wasn’t going to turn and face her. She bent down and slipped under his arms so she had her back to the window. She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back away from all that glass.

“You can’t stand in front of a window like this.”

“The glass is bulletproof.”

That revealed so much about the kind of life he led. And it fit with everything she was coming to know about him. Daniel hadn’t lived an easy life. He had to constantly be on guard. Constantly be waiting for a threat from his past to come and take away all he’d worked so hard for.

“I need to know about the other blackmailer…the one you paid off. Maybe this new threat is connected to that in some way.”

Daniel walked over to the wet bar and poured himself two fingers of good Scotch whiskey. He downed it in a single swallow and then looked back at her.

His eyes, which were usually so blank, so devoid of any emotion, seemed filled with anger.

“The blackmailer I paid off before was Sekijima. It’s totally connected to him and to my past.”

“Is he using the same thing to threaten you this time?” she asked. “What is that, by the way?”

“Not really the exact same thing.”

“What did he use the first time?”

“He used my past. The illegal things I’d done to climb my way up in the Dragon Lords. He threatened to make those actions public.”

“How? It’s not like it would have been safe for him to go to the cops,” Charity said.

“He had photos of the crimes I’d committed.”

“What kind of crimes?” she asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“Murder.”

“What?”

“I was Sekijima’s hit man.”

D
aniel’s life had been filled with injuries and it had shaped the man he was. He knew the wisdom of Confucius and had spent some time trying to make sense of his life when he’d battled back from the blackmail. How was he going to explain that to Charity?

For him the odd part was that he actually wanted to. And he saw the horror on her face when he’d said the words hit man, but he wasn’t going to hide anymore. Sam’s ladies were digging up information that he assumed would never see the light of day. In fact, it hadn’t until now.

“Hit man?”

He struggled not to just say the hell with this and walk away. But having held Charity in his arms, having come so close to tasting the one thing that had always been out of his reach—true peace and happiness—he had to try.

“Um…yeah, I’ve always had an affinity for weapons.”

“Well, so have I but I don’t kill unless I have to.”

He shook his head. “Charity, I had to. It was the only way to move up in the Yakuza. I had no ties to anyone. No family, until the Dragon Lords.”

She just continued to watch him, her eyes wide. Which made him want to keep talking to her, as if he could somehow wipe away the stain of the past by explaining himself and then somehow…what? She’d forgive him? Did he really need her forgiveness? Hell, no, but he wanted her understanding.

He didn’t want her to look at him and see a monster.

“And your family demanded that you kill?” she asked, her voice quiet and flat.

“Yes. It was the one thing I was good at. I slept with a knife and attacked more than one member if they got too close to me.” God, he wasn’t going to tell her this. Tell her about Bo Long, the boy who’d watched him with envy and a lust to kill him. He had to keep his damned mouth shut. There were things that she could never know. Like how he’d been an amoral killer. He hadn’t ever been overly emotional about killing—well, it had become his job. Leaving that world behind, moving into the corporate life, had been harder than many would have believed. But he’d done it.

He’d made a break with that part of himself, yet when the Dragon Lords had called him he’d always gone back. One more time. One last job. One last chance to pay back the debt he’d owed to Sekijima and his family for giving him a roof over his head.

“Sekijima threatened to leak photos of the men you killed to the press?”

Sort of. “Yes.”

“How much did it cost you to keep paying off the blackmail? How long did it last?”

The cost was one she’d never understand. Sekijima hadn’t wanted money. The man was wealthy and powerful. What he’d wanted was for Daniel—his best hit man—to come out of retirement. Sekijima had used his leverage three times after Daniel tried to leave his life as a Dragon Lord. And three times he’d answered the call.

He let himself believe that he did it because he owed another man a debt. Never admitting he did it because…well, because deep inside he knew that was the man he really was. He knew that the corporate world he’d started to move in was really nothing more than a fresh coat of paint on the rusted-out hull of the man he’d always been.

“Daniel?”

“It wasn’t money he wanted. And he came to me three times before I finally put a stop to it.”

“What did he want?”

“For me to keep working for him.”

“Did you?”

“What do you think? Didn’t Anna find something that said I’d paid off my blackmailer before?”

Charity came closer to him and he struggled to hold his ground. When he was in the past, he felt dirtied by it, knew there was no way he’d ever be the man he liked to pretend he was now. Staring down into her beautiful face, he knew he wasn’t the man she needed. That he never could be, and that pissed him off.

“Yes, we did find that. So what happened? You stopped paying the blackmail, right?”

Daniel knew she wasn’t naïve. He’d seen her run down an assassin and she’d calmly shot the man that Sekijima had sent after them in the garage. But she’d done it for a noble cause. She’d done it because she wanted to protect him.

“If I tell you…”

“Trust me, Daniel. I’ll keep your secrets safe. I’m not about to tell anyone what you’ve revealed. But I can’t really protect you if I don’t know what we’re up against.”

He reached for her. Touched the side of her face with that mangled forefinger of his, then cupped her jaw and tipped her head back. He leaned down, brushing his lips over hers lightly. He wanted her to remember he wasn’t just the hard Yakuza. He wanted her to somehow remember that he was more than that with her. That with her he had the potential to be her man.

She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him close to her body. She felt so small next to his bulky muscles. But as he skimmed his free hand down her back, he felt the sheath with the gun and the knife.

He felt a twinge of arousal shoot down his spine, pooling at his groin. He groaned. Why did everything about her turn him on?

Finally she pulled away. Stepped back and waited for him to continue telling her about his past.

The truth hit him in a rush. He never looked to the past, not because he’d moved on but because he didn’t want to remember.

What he’d been trying to forget was he hadn’t hated that old life, and this new one wasn’t as fulfilling as he’d always thought it would be. But finally seeing Charity standing in his study, he thought he found a reason to let it go.

Charity struggled with all the things that Daniel revealed to her. She’d had an idea that his life wasn’t all that great because of the things he’d already told her about his past. But this new information…she didn’t know how to make it fit with the man she’d come to know.

A man who cared not only about the corporation he ran, but who also really cared about his staff. She’d met hit men before. She’d seen cold-blooded killers and knew that they’d somehow managed to find a way to take the humanity out of the equation. Their humanity.

Something she’d never been able to do. She’d always struggled with the very necessary job of killing. Even Kenkichi, who had fueled her own rage and been responsible for leading her to the path that had brought her here. She’d thrown up after she’d killed him. She hadn’t realized that she was never going to find peace in meting out justice.

It had taken another person’s outrage to lead her away from her own remorse and guilt at being Kenkichi’s executioner. His face still haunted her to this day.

She wondered if there were any faces that did that to Daniel. Was there any part of him that regretted what he’d become?

“You were going to tell me how you stopped being blackmailed.”

He put his arms behind his back, the motion pulling the fabric of his dress shirt taut against his skin. As she remembered the smoothness of his body, electric tingles spread over her and she turned away from him. Lust. Why did it have to be lust now when she needed her synapses firing on all fronts?

“I had to remove the threat to stop the blackmail.”

“The threat was Sekijima,” she said, thinking out loud, putting it together with what he’d said about thinking the other man was dead. “You killed him.”

“Tried to. I got his inner guard and he was lying in a pool of blood when I walked away.”

She gasped at the image and he stopped talking. She’d asked for his secrets and she knew that now she had to prove she was worthy of keeping them.

“Sorry. It’s just that I know you thought of him as your brother. That must have been a difficult choice.”

Daniel shook his head. “We lived by a code, Sekijima and I. That code was one where black and white were absolute.”

“I guess it would have to be, considering the life you led. How did he cross the line? Was it when Yuki was killed?”

He shook his head. “No. Not at all. That I understood. She’d made the reckless decision to try to infiltrate the Dragon Lords.”

“Then what was it? What line did he cross?”

“He refused to honor our bargain. I paid his price and he gave his word to let those photos go. And in the end he wasn’t going to stop. He knew it and I knew it.”

“But he was your brother.”

“Not when he started using me. We’d always had honor between us. We worked together to move up in the Dragon Lords. Though I feel Japanese in my soul, I knew that I’d never have the position of Oyabun and so did Sekijima.”

“Was that something you would have wanted?” she asked.

“In another life, perhaps. But now, I don’t think so.”

“You both worked together to make him the Oyabun, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Once he achieved the position of power he repaid me by asking me to take over one of the legitimate businesses of the Yakuza. An import/export shipping company. I agreed and started using my power. I cleaned up my image as a street hood, did what it took to make the legit business really work.”

They’d both gotten what they’d always wanted, and she could tell from what he said that the success he’d achieved hadn’t given him what he’d been searching for. She wondered if he even knew what he’d wanted.

“What happened then?”

“Everything was good for a few years, and then the incident with Yuki. After that I broke ties with the Dragon Lords. Another faction moved against Sekijima and he needed a man he could trust to go after their leader.

“He came to me, and I did the job for him, never suspecting that he was setting me up. The photos came from that job.”

Charity’s heart ached for him. To Daniel, loyalty was so very important, and he’d honored that old bond with Sekijima by doing him a favor and he’d been betrayed. Could he ever really trust again? She didn’t think so. The one man he’d always had confidence in had done the unthinkable.

“A few weeks after that he starting blackmailing me. He was no longer my friend but a powerful Oyabun who demanded my fidelity.”

“But you no longer felt bound to him.”

“You’re right. I didn’t. That’s when he showed me the photos and the video surveillance. I would have gone to jail for murder.”

“Why didn’t you take out the surveillance cameras?”

Daniel gave her a really hard look and she almost backed down, but he wasn’t a stupid man and that kind of mistake was too careless for him.

“My spotter was supposed to take care of that.”

Now it all made sense. “I’m not sure what Sekijima’s motivation is in all this now. You’re not going to be his hit man—he must know that.”

“Yes, he knows that.”

Scenarios were spinning in her mind, like puzzle pieces that she couldn’t make fit. She kept on working it from every angle, and then they started falling into place.

“Blackmail’s not his true goal in all this, is it?”

Daniel just watched with that level green stare of his.

“He’s going to leave you for dead.”

“Exactly.”

Daniel had expected fear or revulsion from Charity but instead she took on a steely-eyed look.

“I’m not going to let that happen, Daniel.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t know that you can stop him.”

“I do.” She nibbled her lower lip and then tipped her head to one side. “You called me sweetheart.”

“That’s right, I did.”

“Did you mean it?”

“Yes.”

“I…I know this is a crazy time for you.”

“You, too,” he said, walking slowly toward her. “But?”

“I…I’m not sure what I was going to say,” she said.

He knew that she had chickened out. It surprised him because she was so brave about everything.

“I never figured you for a coward.”

“Don’t make me get tough with you,” she said, a teasing note in her voice and in her eyes.

He wanted to tease her some more. Draw her out of the sadness and lethal intensity that had swamped her when he was telling her of his past.

“I’m not afraid of you, Charity.”

“Good.”

“Are you?” he asked, needing to know if what he’d revealed had finally pushed her away, had finally shown her that he was less than the man she deserved. He wouldn’t apologize for who he was; otherwise, his entire life would have no meaning, and he’d learned a long time ago to live with himself.

“Afraid of myself?” she asked. “Not at all.”

He shook his head. “I never figured you for obtuse.”

“I’m not afraid of you, Daniel. There are things you said that scare me, but if I start talking about them, I’m fearful I’ll lose my focus. And right now, protecting you is more important than dealing with my emotions.”

He couldn’t stop himself from going over to her. She looked like a badass in her black clothing with all those weapons, but her eyes were soft and sad. Sad for him, he thought. Sad for the brother he’d lost when Sekijima betrayed him.

No one had ever cared about him that way. Even he wasn’t sure that he cared about the loss of Sekijima. A part of him refused to acknowledge the pain of losing that relationship. The Yakuza had been his family for so long and when he’d left…he’d been all alone.

“Sweetheart,” he said, drawing her into his arms, sweeping his hands down her back to linger on her backside. He cupped her and drew her into the curve of his body.

But she wedged her hands between their bodies and pushed him away. He let her go because he had no idea how to handle this situation.

“I meant it. Once I go emotional…Just don’t do that right now,” Charity said.

“I want to comfort you.” And he did. He wanted to be her rock. And he’d never been there for anyone before, never gave a fuck about what anyone else felt or if they were upset by his actions. But with Charity—all bets were off.

She glanced down at the front of his pants where his erection strained. “That doesn’t look like comfort.”

She startled a laugh out of him. He was shocked because he always guarded his responses. He hadn’t laughed—ever. His life just wasn’t given to frivolity. And the situation they were in, where death was stalking them—well, he hadn’t expected it.

She smiled then. “I like your laugh.”

He just shook his head and walked over to her, cupped her face in his hands and tilted her head back until he was looking down into her gray eyes. There was strength in them, caring in them. And he relished being the man she felt those things for.