It could have been a cheerful sendoff, if it weren’t for the silky menace in his voice. Darren looked more than a little worried as Kati dragged him out, giving Ben and Akira a wide berth.
“Aren’t one of you going to follow them?” Akira asked dryly. “He could be trying to take advantage of your sister right on the front stoop.”
“I would, but Kati’s still cranky I sat between them during the movie last night.” Ben wiggled his eyebrows.
Akira pounced on the kernel of information. “So Jacob’s been gone since yesterday?”
Ben rubbed the back of his neck. “Jacob’s been gone for a couple of weeks, Akira.”
Akira froze. Jacob wouldn’t have up and left his family on a whim, not for that length of time. Unless he had desperately needed to be alone. Maybe because he was in pain?
Had she hurt him so badly?
When she had sat in the guestroom that morning, she’d stared at the bedspread as she waited for Jacob to leave and told herself she was letting him go for his own good. So he could be happier, so he could have what he deserved.
Of course you hurt him. If you felt like you’d ripped your arm off, imagine how he felt, writing you a note telling you he could love you.
Akira clutched her purse, lead weighing in her belly. “Please tell me where he is.” Unaccustomed as she was to pleading, her words were halting, unsteady.
Connor was silent, but Ben fixed her with a sympathetic look. “Akira, see…I don’t know if we can. He’s in a strange mood—”
“Strange how?”
Ben shrugged. “Grim. I mean, he’s always serious. But this is extra dark. Even for him.”
“Dark?” she asked faintly. Jacob only appeared taciturn at first glance. When he brought a person into his world, he was warm and funny and clever… He brought her dinner and perfect roses and gave her his socks.
Darkness had no place in his soul.
Connor was studying her with an intensity that would disturb her if she weren’t already so disturbed. “We know you guys had a run-in a while ago when he came to you about Mei giving Kati that thing.” He cocked his head. “Do you know anything about why Jacob’s acting this way?”
Unable to say anything, Akira looked away. She couldn’t lie to Jacob’s brother, but whatever was between them felt far too new and unsettled for her to open up to the man either.
Jacob had kept their unusual relationship from his family. She had suspected he would, and she didn’t fault him for it. But it didn’t feel right to come clean to them without him here.
“See, the reason I ask is because it’s really out of character for him to call us with no warning and tell us to come stay with Kati for an extended period of time like this. So if you did have something to do with him running off…”
“Connor, this isn’t our business,” Ben interjected.
“It’s absolutely our business,” Connor shot back. “We’re the ones who had to put our life on hold to take care of Kati.”
Satisfaction mixed with anger. Satisfaction Jacob was putting himself first for once, even if she was the reason he had to take some time away. Anger at these dumb, thickheaded oafs. “Really?”
“Really what?”
“Really. You had to put your life on hold for a couple of weeks?”
Connor set his jaw. “Yeah, we did.”
“That must have been hard.” She nodded so furiously, her hair bounced. “So hard for you to do that.”
“Your tone is conveying sarcasm, but itwashard. We have a business, and personal lives and—”
Oh. No. He. Didn’t. Akira stepped right up into Connor’s face, crowding into his personal space, exposing him to her most ferocious glare, the one that made grown men run for their lives. This young pup didn’t stand a chance. “Jacob has put his life on hold for you since you were born,” she hissed. “For you and your brother and your sister. He has a career, and he could have a personal life, if he were able to have some fucking time to himself, if he weren’t always worried about his precious babies at home. So shut your goddamned whiny mouth. If he needs you to pull some duty at home on short notice, you do it. Hell, if he needs a kidney, you rip it out with your bare hands and hand it to him. It’s the least you owe that man.”
Shock chased across Connor’s face. He folded his arms over his broad chest. The resemblance between all the brothers was strong, but Connor’s features were more refined than Jacob and Ben, his full lips and long lashes making him almost pretty. “I know exactly what Jacob’s done for me. Us,” Connor responded defensively.
You’re overreacting. This is not your place.It wasn’t her family, after all. Her ire was controlling her mouth, however, and there was no stopping her now. She sneered. “So put on your fucking big-girl panties and act like it. It won’t kill you to help him out now and again.”
