Sake Bomb (12 page)

Minutes ticked by. Kizzie crossed her arms
over her chest, mimicking his stance. Xander lifted a brow. She
pursed her lips.

More waiting.

Xander kept his steady gaze on her, those
chocolate orbs darkening the longer the silence stretched. And the
longer it stretched, the more anxious Kizzie became. She sucked at
this game as a kid, and apparently hadn’t gotten any better at it
with time. A stand off wouldn’t get her anywhere. She should have
let him choke on his silence, but if they were going to work
together again, one of them would have to give.

“Why would I give up more personal info than
what you already have?” Kizzie asked, breaking the stalemate. “What
did my dossier say about my last boyfriend?”

“I’m asking you.”

She rolled her eyes and exhaled deeply.
“Guess it doesn’t matter.” A small smile on her lips, she stared
off into space. “He was…a real prince of a guy, from Philly. Sexy,
I mean
really
sexy—”

“You can leave that part out,” Xander
interjected.

“—high energy, charismatic, you know the
type. Had they lived, I don’t think my parents would’ve
approved…guess all parents are like that, right?” She flicked her
gaze to his long enough to catch him nod in agreement, looked
away.

“Anyhow,” Kizzie sucked in a shaky breath,
“he had a lot going for him: basketball, hangin’ out with his
friends, the usual. I was young enough to believe in forever.” She
rocked her head side to side. “Things got…turned upside down. He
got into a fight with some neighborhood kids, and his mom thought
it would be best for him to move to Cali—”

Xander threw his head back and laughed. “Are
you really feeding me lines from
Fresh Prince of Bel Air
?”
Kizzie shrugged, took another sip of her coffee. “Tell me about
your real boyfriend.”

Technically, it
didn’t
matter. The
last time she had a “boyfriend” they were both clumsy
sixteen-year-olds thrust together because their best friends were
dating each other, and the natural order of things mandated wheels
3 and 4 become a pair. She wasn’t even attracted to the boy. A few
shy kisses, but… What was his name?

Apart from that, there’d been one guy, more
infatuation than boyfriend. Considering he was her bad memory from
Belém, his name she wouldn’t forget. Her personal Voldemort. She
might not speak his name, but Kizzie had penned it on her shit list
so long ago the ink bled through the paper. “Young and stupid. Fill
in the blanks.”

“Was this at the The Point?”

“Got a hard-on for The Point, don’t you,
slick?”

“I’m curious to know what made you drop out
of a prestigious academy and join up with Connolly. Had to be
something earth-shattering, trading a promising military career for
life in the shadows.” Kizzie chuckled sardonically, and Xander
added, “It’s what graduating would have guaranteed, right?”

“If you say so…” she bit off a small piece
of bread, not tasting the jelly. Dropped the rest onto the table,
dusted the crumbs from her fingertips. This was a bad idea.

Sipping her coffee, she glanced up to see
Xander studying her openly.

“And submission. Why does that scare you so
much?”

No doubt the switches were to keep her off
balance, and he was doing a fine job of it. Anything that directed
the conversation away from The Point was okay by her. Kizzie shook
her head. “It doesn’t scare me—”

“But you’re running from it. What you’re
running from and what you’re searching for are the same thing,
sweetheart.”

She snorted. “God, now you sound like Jo.
‘Create your own reality, Kizzie…’” A smile flashed across her lips
before she even thought to wrangle it. She chuckled through her
nose. “Balance your chakras, Kizzie… You’re not what happens to
you, Kizzie-bear…’”

A memory flashed: Jo peddling the bike way
too fast, Kizzie standing on the pegs, screaming “faster!”

How could someone be so young and so old at
the same time?

It doesn’t hurt anymore, Kizzie…

So strong and so weak?

So genius and so
goddamned
stupid?

“Joe… A friend of yours?”

Xander came back in focus as her memories
faded. “Was.” Everything in her body felt numb, and she forced a
breath to keep her heart beating. She swallowed hard, stared out
the porthole opposite her seat. Nothing but darkness and clouds for
miles. If she blinked, she’d see the green ribbon.

“What happened?”

Wide-eyed, Kizzie finished off the remaining
coffee in her mug, keenly aware of Xander’s gaze on her. She licked
the bitterness from her lips and forced the corners of her mouth
up. “We came to the fork in the road.” He frowned; she spelled it
out for him. “We’re not friends anymore.”

“But you were together at The Point?”

“Yup,” Kizzie said, popping the
p
.
Arms out in front of her, she reached until her joints clicked. A
deep breath and her vertebrae cracked. “So…Harvey…”

“Why aren’t you friends anymore?”

“Way more than three questions, Torquemada.
The Inquisition is officially over.”

The plane dipped and shuddered like it would
fall from the sky. It rocked to the side a hair, the lights
flickered, and then everything leveled off again.

“Why aren’t you friends?”

“You’re that kid, aren’t you? The one who
sees a scab and has to pick at it? Score a point for you; you
succeeded in discovering I once had a friend. Lay off, Xander.”
Small solace she kept her voice level.

“Just a question.” He had his elbow propped
on the armrest, thumb moving methodically over his lower lip. “I’m
intrigued by you, Kizzie. I want to know what people close to you
are like.”

“There aren’t people ‘close to me.’” She
flexed her fingers. “Consider it a hard limit.”

Couldn’t they talk about something else? The
sluggish global economy? Seeded versus seedless grapes? Myriad
other topics ripe for exploration…

“Not even Connolly?”

“Bill’s a sonuvabitch.”

“A newly formed opinion?”

No. Kizzie had always known exactly what
Bill Connolly was. But was she any better?

“Tell me about Joe.”

Her gaze flicked up to his. “Harvey.”

“Tell me, Kizzie,” Xander coaxed, so softly
she almost did.

A lump rose in her throat and she forced it
down, shook her head.

“It can’t be
that
bad. Joe’s an ex?
He cheated on you and you dropped out?”

Cheated?

“Yeah, okay. He cheated. I lost a friend,
and this is us moving on now.”

“Nah,” Xander said. “Too simple. Bad
grades?”

“I just dropped out, all right? Decided
college wasn’t for me. It happens.”

“Nah. You were top of your class… Piss off
one of your commanders?”

“Oh, for fuc—” She drew in a shaky breath,
exhaled. “It’s over a decade ago—”

“But it still bother’s you.”

“Leave it alone, Duquesne,” she grit through
clenched teeth. “You keep your secrets and I’ll keep mine.” Kizzie
lifted the mug to her lips, tipping the ceramic for a swallow. None
came. She stared into the empty bowl, the plane suddenly
stifling.

Her palm smacked the table and she stood
swiftly, muttering a curse as she tramped to the galley; snatched
the still-hot carafe as soon as it was within reach. A hip canted
on the counter stabilized her against the plane’s angle of descent
while she poured. Didn’t even want the coffee anymore, she needed
busy. Another small pocket of turbulence rocked the jet and she
swayed but kept her feet.

Xander prowled up the walkway behind her,
planted one hand on the counter, braced the other on the nearby
divider. “I’m determined like that. It’s how I got to be who I am.
We can do this hard or easy, but I’m gonna find out one of these
days.”

With great care, Kizzie set the carafe down,
not trusting herself to keep from launching it at him. Xander
already knew key details of her life—her real name chief among
them. Reason enough to strangle him in his sleep. Or right now,
which proved more convenient.

“Come on, Princess.”

“Stop calling me Princ–”

“Tell me.”

Kizzie wasn’t here for Xander to dig up old
bones, she was here to stop his stupidity with Harvey from creating
millions of new ones. “You want to know so damn bad, use your
contacts.”

Xander leaned down, bringing their eyes
level. “I’m asking
you
, Princess.”

She paused her snappy retort, the tip of her
tongue trapped between top teeth and bottom lip. This was new,
someone giving Kizzie the chance to tell her side. Surely the
official documents, or whatever remained of them, didn’t do
that.

Damn, Brazil. No, damn
Helsinki.
Damn
Mauritius and Xander’s stupid boat and his
stupid
plane that
she was currently trapped in, and Connolly and… just… Damn it
all!
She’d kept a lid on her emotions by not dwelling on,
not
revisiting
the past. Bringing it up wouldn’t change a
thing.

Lie and be done with it.

The slow breath she pulled in was even
slower on the way out.

“I didn’t leave, Xander.” He tipped his
head, brow knit. Gaze boring into his, Kizzie told him the only
truth she knew. “The Point left me.”

* * * *

O
ne arm through the
sleeve of her light jacket, Kizzie descended the final step,
setting boots and bag on terra firma sectioned off for Haneda
International Airport. It took a second for her eyes to adjust to
the bright lights inside the private hangar set a good distance
away from the main airstrip. Darkness hovered just outside the open
doors, too afraid to cross the threshold and upset the balance but
happy to watch the action going on inside.

Though well before dawn, it was still warm
and somewhat humid out. Kizzie inhaled a lungful of Tokyo air,
tainted as it was with the all too familiar scent of aviation
fumes. Xander’s pestering about her past had finally come to an
end—though her threat of gelding him
might
have influenced
that outcome a smidge. Now she wondered what was taking Thelma and
Louise so long to get this party started.

Solid footfalls sounded on the stairs behind
her. Xander descended, his phone pressed to his ear, and then a new
voice from the left drew Kizzie’s attention.

“No no no…” A man waved his hands as he
approached, coming directly in line with Kizzie’s analysis.
American. Khaki pants, horizontal creases at the upper thigh—he’d
spent a long time in a chair—untucked blue shirt concealing his
waist. Gun? Moderate height, rumpled brown hair finger-combed in a
hurry. Had a walk on him like he’d broken a leg a time or two,
maybe knee surgery. Nothing in his hands and, after another
surveillance of his midsection, he didn’t appear to be packing. Not
an immediate threat, but her guard stayed firmly in place.

“Stix said two,” he held up as many fingers,
“
two
. And no mention of a woman.”

Kizzie pushed her other arm through her coat
sleeve, shrugging to adjust the material on her shoulders.

“Send it over,” Xander said, so close to her
ear she flinched. She hadn’t noticed him slip up behind her. His
leather duffel landed next to hers and he brushed her hands away
from her collar. Pulling her trapped hair out from beneath it, he
curled his fingers in the mass and gave it a quick tug, just hard
enough to make her scalp tingle. A shiver slithered down her spine,
and then he brushed by, heading toward the man now scowling in
their direction.

“Calm down, Freddy. I adjusted for Gigi.” He
tossed her a winked, then shook the man’s hand.

“Frederick.” A glare at Xander, a glance at
Kizzie, and then Freddy slid something into his pocket. “Where’s
Phillip. He’s—”

“Gonna forget about the cargo I hauled all
the way from St. Germaine if you keep it up,
Freddy
.” Phil
came down the steps carrying a the world’s smallest cardboard box,
the sight of which made Freddy’s eyes widen. Something between
ecstasy and relief crossed his features. He reached for it; Phil
jerked away and removed the lid.

“What is this thing?” He plucked a ceramic
object from the cotton batting and held it between two fingers,
twisting it to and fro.

Freddy sucked in a quick breath, hands up as
though ready to catch his priceless piece should it fall. “That
thing
is only the culmination of perfection. The final piece
in a series entitled
Ma Petite Beauté
!”

“It’s got ‘little’ going for it,” Phil
said.

“It’s ugly,” Xander offered.

“It’s
art
,” Freddy insisted. He spun
toward Kizzie. “Gigi, is it? I can’t expect two Neanderthals to
understand. What do you think?”

All eyes shifted to her: Freddy’s gaze
fixed, Phil’s aloof, Xander’s twinkling. Kizzie blinked. Were they
really having a fine art discussion in a private hangar in
Tokyo?

“Uh…” Kizzie screwed up her face to keep
from laughing, studied the miniature from one angle and then the
other. A thoughtful “Hm…” before she decided, “Exquisite,
Frederick. The curves, the…
obvious
detail the artist put
into this rendering. Anyone with eyes can see this for the
masterpiece it is. Utterly remarkable.”

“
Thank
you
,” Freddy said, his
tone equal parts exasperation and satisfaction. He rolled his eyes.
“Neanderthals…”

“
Savages,
” Kizzie agreed
enthusiastically, flashing a smile at Xander.

Freddy reached for the piece and Phil pulled
it away. Huffing, Freddy peeled six bills off the wad he’d just
received and exchanged them for his ‘art.’ Phil shook his head,
said, “Neanderthal tax,” and Freddy ripped off six more.

Wad a little lighter, Freddy snatched his
prize away and slammed the lid into place. “Customs is handled,
keys are in the car. Leave your weapons on the plane—strict
anti-gun laws here. It’d be a mess trying to get you out of prison
for something you won’t need.” Without another word he stalked off
as quickly as his leg would allow.