Chương 6 - WHAT MY FATHER CHOSE TO SAVE
Kazuki looked as if Daichi had struck him.
“You said he went back for evidence.”
“That is what my father told me.”
Daichi shook his head.
“Akihiro lied.”
I turned toward Kazuki.
“Did my father save you?”
His voice was low.
“Yes.”
“Then why tell me he went back for something else?”
“Because that is what I believed until tonight.”
Daichi rubbed a hand over his face.
“When the fire began, Masato was already outside.”
My heart twisted.
“He got out.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“Kazuki was missing.”
Kazuki stared at his uncle.
“You knew this?”
“I arrived after Masato went back.”
The rest came in pieces.
Kazuki had entered the warehouse to retrieve the ledger for his father.
He discovered armed men instead.
When the fire started, he became trapped behind a collapsed loading door.
Masato escaped through a side exit.
Then learned Kazuki was inside.
He went back.
“My father could have walked away.”
“Yes,” Daichi said.
“But he didn’t.”
Kazuki’s eyes stayed on the floor.
“I woke outside.”
His voice sounded distant.
“Masato was dragging me across the pavement.”
“How badly was he hurt?”
“Burns. Smoke. A broken wrist.”
“But alive.”
“Yes.”
For fourteen years, Kazuki had believed Masato later returned for the ledger and disappeared in the secondary explosion.
Instead, Akihiro had removed him.
“Why would your father lie to you?”
“To keep me from asking where Masato went.”
“And why would my father forgive you?”
Kazuki looked at the note.
“I don’t know.”
The answer came from Shigeru.
“Because Akihiro blamed you.”
Kazuki’s head lifted.
Shigeru looked ashamed.
“He told Masato the entire disaster began because you ignored orders.”
“I was sixteen.”
“Yes.”
“His son.”
“Yes.”
“And he blamed a teenager to pressure an injured man.”
Shigeru’s mouth tightened.
“Akihiro could be ruthless when he believed the family was threatened.”
I felt sick.
“What did he make my father do?”
Nobody knew.
Not yet.
The cipher in the coat contained references to financial transfers.
I decoded them through the afternoon.
One account was still active.
Not in Japan.
Switzerland.
Opened under the name M. Sato.
Masato without two letters.
The last activity was six years ago.
My father may have survived until I was eighteen.
Maybe longer.
I had graduated high school while believing he was dead.
Celebrated birthdays.
Cried at his grave.
And somewhere, perhaps, he had been alive.
That evening I stood alone on the terrace outside the Takahashi residence.
Kazuki joined me.
He stopped several feet away.
Good.
“I terminated the contract.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“It’s over.”
“You don’t get to terminate something on my behalf.”
His mouth moved faintly.
“Fair.”
“Why?”
“Because every reason I had for bringing you into my family has become more dangerous than I understood.”
“There it is again.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“I heard it as soon as I said it.”
“Protection.”
“Yes.”
“Making decisions for me.”
“Yes.”
“You’re terrible at learning quickly.”
“So I’ve been told.”
I almost smiled.
I didn’t want to.
“You’ve watched me for seven years.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever come near me?”
“No.”
“Were you at the Margaux tasting six months ago because of me?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Four.”
“What?”
“I saw you four times before the charity auction.”
My skin prickled.
“Why?”
“At first, because I was checking whether anyone else was watching you.”
“And later?”
He hesitated.
“Later, because I wanted to hear you talk about wine.”
That was worse in a completely different way.
“Kazuki.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t get to make surveillance sound romantic.”
“I’m not trying to.”
He looked genuinely ashamed.
“That is exactly why I stayed away.”
I folded my arms.
“Then why approach me now?”
“Because Daichi asked about you.”
There it was.
“He asked what?”
“Whether Masato Suzuki’s daughter still worked at Château Noir.”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“And you decided to put me on your arm.”
“So nobody could touch you without declaring themselves against me.”
I stared.
“And you thought fake dating was the least insane way to accomplish that?”
“No.”
He almost smiled.
“It was the only explanation my family would believe for why I suddenly kept you close.”
I hated that the logic made sense.
I hated more that it did not excuse the manipulation.
Inside, raised voices began.
Ken.
Daichi.
Keiko.
We returned to the dining room.
Ken stood beside the table holding an old leather notebook.
My father’s.
I recognized the wine stains on its cover.
I had seen it in our apartment throughout childhood.
Then it disappeared after my mother died.
Ken looked at me.
“I took this.”
My hands curled.
“You what?”
“Three years ago.”
While we were together.
“Why?”
“Daichi’s people offered me a position if I found anything connected to Masato.”
Keiko stared at him.
“You worked for Daichi?”
“Indirectly.”
“That word is doing a lot of work tonight,” she said.
Ken looked ashamed.
“I copied several pages.”
“And then?”
“I gave them over.”
My stomach turned.
“Was any part of us real?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t.”
“It was.”
His voice cracked.
“And that made what I was doing worse.”
“So you punished me for it.”
He swallowed.
“What?”
“You spent months telling me I was boring, anxious, too serious.”
His eyes dropped.
“I wanted you to leave me.”
The confession was ugly precisely because it sounded true.
“I thought if you hated me, you’d stop asking questions about what was wrong.”
“You could have simply told me.”
“I was a coward.”
No excuse.
At least one man had learned not to call cowardice protection.
Ken slid the notebook toward me.
“I stole it back from Daichi’s office tonight.”
Daichi’s face darkened.
Ken ignored him.
“There’s a page I never understood.”
I opened the notebook.
The final sheet contained a list of wines scheduled for a Takahashi-Mori engagement banquet.
Tomorrow night.
The dinner where Kazuki was supposed to formally announce whether he would marry Aiko.
One wine had been circled.
A 2001 Burgundy.
Beside it, my father had written:
WHEN THEY SERVE THIS BOTTLE, SOMEONE IS ABOUT TO DIE.
I stared at the date beneath the note.
It wasn’t fourteen years old.
The entry had been added six years ago.
May you like
My father had been alive then.
And somehow he had known about a dinner that had not happened yet.
