Fire and Ice (Ice 5)

It was getting dark, and the evening rush-hour traffic had picked up. It was going to take her forever to get home, assuming that was where she wanted to go. She stood patiently at the intersection with a crowd of people, waiting for the light to change, when someone bumped into her. Hard. Hard enough to make her lose her balance, and she went sprawling forward, directly in front of the rush of traffic.

She heard someone scream, and she tried to scramble to her feet as the headlights bore down on her, and then there was the slam of brakes, horns honking, as someone dragged her out of the road, onto the sidewalk, and she half expected to look up and see Reno.

“You should be more careful, miss,” the tired-looking man said. “You could have been killed.”

“Thank you,” she said shakily, rising to her feet. The light had changed, and people were moving forward, though there were a few curious glances in her direction. She followed them, heading for the parking lot, her hands and knees scraped from her fall.

It wasn’t until she got back in her car that reaction set in. She was shaking, badly, and she leaned back, closed her eyes and took deep, calming breaths.

It had almost felt as if someone had shoved her. But that was impossible—it had to be post-traumatic stress or something ridiculous like that. Or maybe, just maybe, she’d done it on her own, unconsciously.

No, that was ridiculous. She was over him, completely, and she wasn’t going to go wandering out in traffic like some pathetic loser. She was getting on with her life.

She pulled out into the evening traffic, heading up toward the Hollywood Hills. Maybe her mother was right, maybe she needed Paris. Someplace where she wouldn’t keep looking for Reno around every corner, where she wouldn’t imagine his eyes on her wherever she went.

She wiped the tears off her face as she sped up. She’d never been one to cry—it wasn’t her style. She’d grown up tough and calm and capable. When your own mother was a spoiled child, someone had to be the grown-up—and when Summer wasn’t around, the task had fallen to her.

If Lianne was joking about Paris, which she might very well be, then she could go to England, visit Peter and Genevieve Madsen. The countryside in Wiltshire was a good place to heal. She’d watched her sister make peace with her life there—she could probably do the same.

But her sister had had a happy ending. Taka had come for her in the end. That wasn’t going to happen with Reno. No one was coming for her. There was no happy ending.

The truck came out of nowhere. It slammed into her lightweight Honda, pushing her toward the side of the road, to the edge of the overpass. She stomped on the brakes, trying desperately to steer, but the car was still moving, and she knew she was going to die. Her car was going to tumble over the bridge and land on the freeway below in a heap of twisted metal, and probably burst into flames, as well…and then the air bag exploded, the car slammed to a halt and everything went black.

For Reno the decision had been simple enough. Cleaning up the mess left by the destruction of the compound and the organization was a major undertaking, and there was no way both of them could head to L.A. Taka’s wife was pregnant, and the safety of his sister-in-law was a matter of family honor. Reno was the only one who could possibly go.

That didn’t mean he was happy about it. He needed time and distance for Jilly Lovitz to fade into an uncomfortable memory, and it was taking more of both than he would have liked.

He couldn’t even screw her out of his system. He’d gone out prowling a couple of times, looking for fast, satisfying sex with one of his old girlfriends, and ended up coming home alone. He couldn’t even jerk off—he kept seeing Jilly, feeling Jilly. It was no wonder he was a hypersensitive bundle of nerves, snapping at everyone.

And really, flying to L.A. was probably just a case of overreacting. There was no one left alive who could possibly want to hurt her, and both he and Taka would be more obvious targets. Taka’s intel had to be faulty, even if he got it directly from Peter Madsen.

According to Peter’s sources, someone had been watching the Lovitz mansion, following Jilly the few times she left the house. Which brought up any number of questions. Were they after Jilly’s father, whose financial dealings were definitely shady? Ralph Lovitz was a financier, a fancy term for an upper-class robber baron. Were they after Jilly’s bat-brained mother, who’d almost gotten both her daughters killed a couple of years ago when she joined a doomsday cult? The Lovitzes could have acquired any number of enemies, even with their hedonistic L.A. lifestyle. Or were they after Jilly—and who on earth could want to hurt her? She’d only been a peripheral complication with Hitomi and his grandfather, and everyone involved in that was dead, the family disbanded. Maybe it was an old boyfriend, except that she hadn’t had boyfriends. All he’d had to do was kiss her to know that she’d had a ridiculously small amount of experience.

Another question loomed. Why wasn’t she leaving her parents’ mansion in the Hollywood Hills? Shouldn’t she be back at school by now, getting on with her life? She wasn’t the kind of woman to mope around; he’d made it clear that he had nothing for her, and she’d left without argument. She was a practical young woman—she’d be completely over him. Hell, she was probably doing a better job of it than he was.

Not that he was having a problem. Hell, no. He’d known from the very beginning that she was trouble, and he’d done his best to keep her at arm’s length. So his resolve had faltered a couple of times, and he’d managed to enjoy himself a little too much. So what? It was over, ancient history.

But if someone was actually watching her, trailing her, then he needed to make certain she wasn’t in any danger. Reason stood that there was no one left alive who should want to hurt her.

But he was going to have to make sure.

He couldn’t sleep on the flight across the Pacific, as nervous as a cat. The other members of first class weren’t particularly happy to be sharing that rarified air with a flame-headed, tattooed punk, but they were too polite to object, and he stretched out in the little pod that they called a first-class bed, trying to tell himself this was a wasted trip. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in two weeks, not since the compound had blown and Ojiisan had died, and an airplane wasn’t going to remedy that. All he had to do was make certain she was safe and head straight back. She would never even know he was there.

Ojiisan o

wned a great deal of real estate in Southern California—his grandfather always believed in diversifying—and Reno could have chosen his lodging among hotels, condos and even several empty houses in the more expensive sections of the city. Instead, he went for an airport hotel and a rented sedan. In Los Angeles he didn’t have the unspoken protection of the police, and he needed the ability the blend in.

The black suit he traveled in was unimpressive—one would have to look closely to see it was a thousand-dollar silk one. He headed into the bathroom of the suite, staring at his reflection for a long moment.

“Only for you, Ji-chan,” he muttered. Picking up the pair of scissors, he cut through the waist-length braid, dropping it onto the marble bathroom floor.

By the time he was ready to leave, Reno had disappeared. Hiromasa Shinoda was in his place, the ubiquitous dark glasses shielding the tattoos. He’d considered getting makeup to cover them, but at the last minute gave up. As long as he kept the shades in place no one would see them, and wearing sunglasses day and night wasn’t that odd for Southern California.

He tied what was left of his newly dyed black hair in a small tail at the back of his neck. She’d look at him and never recognize him, he thought grimly. He could find out what the fuck was going on and she’d never know.

He was just about to leave his suite when his cell phone vibrated, and he picked it up, staring at the screen. Then he began to swear.

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