Chapter Twenty-One

Justine

A LOT CAN happen in a week.

First is Sofia using her newfound freedom to secure Mr. Baek’s. She not only talked a higher court judge into having him released on his own recognizance but hunted down every involved NYPD officer with claims of misconduct until they dropped the case entirely. Campbell quietly paid off the balance for Min-jun’s treatment, although seeing the amount charged on the bottom of the bill was enough to make me nauseous.

I can’t blame Mr. Baek for dealing with the Galicis. An impossible number stood between him and the life of his only son. Loan sharks are no more kind than the Mafia; in my mind, they’re worse, considering the law is on their side. If anything is criminal in this whole mess, it’s the American medical system.

Not everything is settled. After a six-hour phone call with Danny that left me hoarse and fending off a migraine, he swiftly arranged a dinner at my parents’ place, with Campbell and me shepherded into the invite. I love a lot of things about Danny, but his will to grab a bull by the horns and start pulling is near the top of the list.

Still, I didn’t expect us to end up huddled in the corner of the living room while Campbell plays prep cook for my mother and father in the kitchen.

“You’re sure about this?” I ask.

“Absolutely.” Danny smiles. “Look, Tsung-Han and I are probably going to be in this city for the rest of our lives. His parents are here, and so are mine. I want my kids growing up in the same neighborhood I did. Dropping another anchor in New York isn’t going to weigh me down.”

I can’t shake my worry about how my parents will react, but I’ll have to cross—or burn—that bridge when we come to it. “I still feel terrible for asking.”

He puts a light hand against my shoulder. “Justine, you’ve never wanted to settle. Since we were little. I know things ended terribly for you and Richard, but I wasn’t shocked when you went to Chicago. Same with France. Something inside you always wants to move, to see the world from another angle. It’s not a bad thing.”

Not in and of itself, but wrangling my other responsibilities is the true trial. “When did you get so wise, exactly? You talked us into trouble more often than not growing up, and now look at you. Mr. Responsible.”

Danny chuckles. “Blame my fiancé. He’s the one who told me to stop dreaming and do the work.”

Love really can change everything. Being married to Richard eroded my faith in that, but he was never offering me love in the first place. I was a tool to be used, and our relationship was a convenient fiction to paper over that fact. What Danny has with Tsung-Han—and what I have with Campbell—is nothing short of transformative.

“I should check in on the kitchen,” I say under my breath. “Baba is a stickler whenever he has to give up cutting duty.”

Roast garlic and hua jiao welcome me in a warm, familiar cloud. My father minds the former with quick whisks in a pan, drawing out as much flavor as he can without letting anything burn. The sliced eggplant next to him glistens with oil, and hunger pulls low at my belly. Even from a distance, I recognize Campbell’s knifework.

They’re presently dividing a cow’s heart into pieces with clean, single cuts, working open the toughest parts of the muscle to expose the softer chambers within. Near-transparent slices of beef tongue are layered on a plate to Campbell’s right, crowded by the pale honeycomb of tripe, which my mother feeds into a pot piece by piece. Coins of ginger float to the top as she layers peppercorns over the water, sending even more heat into the air.

“Did you cook in the military?” my father asks Campbell.

“No, although I should have learned.” They sound amused, but their hand continues its fluid movement as if they weren’t multitasking at all. “It was mostly MREs and fast food for me until I went overseas.”

Picturing an eighteen-year-old Campbell in fatigues stretches the limit of my imagination; it’s so divorced from who they are now. Then again, the same is true for when I was that age, even with the truth locked away in a time capsule upstairs.

“Anything I can do to help?” I chime in.

“Put the dressing together,” my mother answers without even looking over her shoulder. “And tell Danny to set the table. He’s family, so there’s no excuse.”

That makes me swallow a laugh, especially when I heard his flustered groan from the other room. Having so many people in this kitchen is strange, but every time I nearly bump elbows, I’m reminded I’m not alone.

Even if I leave this place, I’m not alone.

Dinner goes well, serving as a covert excuse for Danny to meet Campbell face-to-face. He asks them pointed questions about what they do for a living, but Campbell parries with ease and somehow ropes him into a tangent on the stock market. By the time our plates are clean and the last bowl is empty, I’ve nearly forgotten what’s about to happen.

Danny leans over to whisper in my father’s ear, then makes a respectful gesture to the other room. In a way, I’m grateful for not having to be party to the conversation, even if my absence has an echo of cowardice.

It’s the right thing to do. My father only has a few years left before retirement will be a requirement rather than a choice, and he needs someone to take over the shipping company. Danny has a head for finance and logistics—neither are my strong suit—and he can promise that what my father built will last for generations. I can’t look him in the eye and swear the same, especially if I’m sharing my life with Campbell.

I’ll come home for holidays—all of them, no matter what—but I can’t be chained to New York any more than I could stand being bound to Chicago. I’ve chosen to burn my own path, and it’s looking like a pretty glorious cremation.

Campbell’s gaze sharpens with intent, and I’m about to ask why when gray eyes flicker in my mother’s direction. Her gaze almost rivets me to the wall, and my pulse ricochets from my stomach to my throat and back again. Does she know what Danny’s doing? I didn’t even consider she might disapprove, although it’s certainly possible.

“I’m going to handle the dishes,” Campbell declares with a polite smile, standing up. They gather everything into a balanced tower of porcelain before I can say a word. “It was fantastic, Mrs. Zhang. Thank you.”

She returns the smile and nods, but her warmth evaporates the moment they’re out of the room. When my mother speaks, her voice is low and careful, as if we’re both standing on a piece of glass that’s about to break. “I spoke to Mr. Baek.”

Oh. This isn’t about Danny at all.

I hold my tongue, not wanting to implicate myself by accident, and she continues.

“He thought we sent him that lawyer, but I have no idea who she is or where she came from. She represents millionaires, not people like us.”

Sofia is kind of hard to miss. “A lot of white-collar firms do pro bono work.”

“Do they also pay off medical bills?” my mother asks. “Five hundred thousand dollars, Justine. Where does that kind of money come from out of the blue?”

I don’t have to lie about this part. “Campbell is well off, Mama. They didn’t want to make a big deal about the money. Let Mr. Baek have some dignity after everything he went through.”

Surprise flickers through her gaze, but she accepts that with a small nod. “Very generous. And yet it doesn’t explain why the men who were harassing your father have vanished. It’s as if they were never here at all.”

God, my mother is smart. I knew that, but I still didn’t expect her to connect the dots so quickly. Scared, defensive instinct tells me to make something up, to pretend I don’t have the first clue what she’s talking about. She wouldn’t press me, but she would know some hidden truth lurked underneath, bound to fester inside the foundation I’ve tried to build by coming back home. Sofia’s warning lingers in the back of my mind like a flashing red light.

“They’ll never bother you or Baba again,” I say. “Ever. I had it taken care of.”

She pauses and wets her lips as if trying to put a barrier between herself and the question she’s about to ask. “How?”

There’s only one safe answer. I can’t say that I helped kill a man to protect her and my father or that I would do it again without hesitation. I can’t admit that Campbell is an assassin, and the only reason I’m alive is because they poisoned Richard and freed me from my own personal layer of hell.

“Campbell has friends in lots of high places,” I confess, which is true enough. Honesty girds me for the lie to come. “Doctors, lawyers, powerful people. I asked them to handle it, and they did because they love me. I don’t know the details, and I have no plans to find out.”

My mother is quiet for a minute, but the fear and anger I was bracing myself for never arises. She glances at the kitchen, where the soft spill of water in the sink gives away their presence—a calm, domestic mask. “I suppose that’s the sense I get whenever the two of you are in a room together. That Campbell would do anything for you.”

They would. They have.

Helping take out La Rosa feels like such a small price to pay in comparison. The fire at his estate has been topping headlines for days, with the NYPD insisting they’re investigating foul play. But no one’s called it murder yet, and even if they do, Campbell had nothing to do with arson. I imagine the medical examiner will have a mystery on their hands, but the makeshift gallery is gone now, and I already destroyed La Rosa’s check. Enrico scrubbed every sign of Jane Liu from the internet, so the only witnesses left are guilty Galici bastards. They won’t be speaking with the police any time soon.

“You’re right,” I say gently. “So don’t worry. Everything will go back to how it was.”

She opens her mouth to say something else, but Danny leans into the dining room and asks her to join him. My mother nods and follows suit, leaving me alone at the table until Campbell returns with a towel over their shoulder and both sleeves rolled up to the elbow.

“How did it go?” they ask.

I’m out of my seat in an instant, seeking the relief of their embrace. Campbell offers it without reserve, arms secured tight around my back when I whisper: “As well as it could. Thank you for taking care of everything.”

“We took care of it together,” Campbell says, one hand sliding up to cup the back of my neck. “And nothing gets in our way.”

Nothing. Whatever I have to do to keep my freedom, and theirs, is worth the cost. “Is that a promise?”

They nod. “I’ll swear by anything you name.”

In their arms, in the dark, I'm untouchable. What’s there to fear?

With Campbell, I can go anywhere.