65–Joey
I’d been so busy with Yasu, doing health checks on babies and stitching upp minor cuts from cross–clan scuffles, I hadn’t noticed my phone had almost clogged up with voicemails, until I went to check it, on a break.
You have twenty–three new voice messages.
“What the fuck?” I muttered, pressing a button and placed the phone on the table, as the first one played, and I picked up my sandwich
Jory?”
1 blinked at the voice which floated down the line.
Jory. Answer your phone.”
The line clicked and I reached out, pressing the next button
“Joey. Please, Answer your phone. I need to talk to you.”
Next
“Jory. Please.”
Next
“Joey. I’m sorry. Please.”
Next
I was starting to feel sick with the desperation in Jake’s voice.
Message after message the same pleading.
It got toward the end of the messages, and I was starting to feel sorry for him.
“Joelene.” My blood ran cold with the change in his voice. “Joelene. Answer the fucking phone. Now.”
My stomach soured and I put down my sandwich, reaching out to stop the messages, but my finger accidentally pressed next, and the last one played.
“You think fucking my brother is going to save you from what’s coming? It’s going to make it worse. You’ve put yourself in a place you don’t belong. It’s going to bite you in the ass and you’re going to wish you never left my side.”
I’d never hit stop so hard in my life and I pushed my phone away and turned, leaping out of my seat and ran to the bathroom, bringing up the small bit of lunch I had managed to eat.
Oh my god….
What the fuck was wrong with him?
Jake was sick. He had to be and for a split second, I thought he might have a brain tumor….
“Joey”
There was a gentle knock on the door of the bathroom and I stood, “I’ll be out in a second.”
Washing my mouth out, I quickly cooled my face with cold hands and fixed my hair. Turning, I opened the door and stepped out.
Alex was standing at the table, looking down at the phone, which had practically been slung across the table, and the sandwich I had dropped, its contents spilling out onto the table. He turned to me, concern in his eyes. “Are you okay?”
“No.” I said, walking back to my phone and I replayed the messages to Alex, who stood there, staring at the phone in my hand, anger darkening his features.
“What the fuck. That’s it. I’m fucking done with his shit.” Alex growled.
“Wait, it gets worse.” I said, as I pressed the button and played the last message.
Alex’s face went from one of anger, to paling and he gripped the back of the chair, as his brother finished his threat. I put the phone on the table and Alex reached out and picked it up. He pressed a couple of buttons, and his own phone pinged. Another couple of taps, and he closed my phone and handed it back to me. “I sent them to me. I will send them to the clan’s
lawyer, he will archive them, for if something happens to you. We will have proof.”
I blinked. “Happens to me? What do you think is going to happen to me?”
My legs were starting to feel like jelly, and I stared at Alex.
“Alexander.”
His lips pursed together. “The little black Oni on your bedside table, it’s an omen.
I wasn’t going to like this. No matter what he said next, I knew I wasn’t going to like this one little bit.
He reached up, pulling aside the collar of his shirt and I sat the one I saw carlier. “The black Oni is exactly like this one Which I had put on me, when I first started at the Takada clan. No one else has ever seen it, except you, Yuka and So
I blinked. “When you fight..”
“Sota covers it. It’s not something which I want people to see.” He let go of the shirt and stepped closer to me. ““Someone les been watching me, Joey. The black Oni had a twin of sorts. A green one, left for me at the Jade, telling me I’m being
watched.”
This started to make my head hurt. “W–what does a black one mean?”
Alex closed his eyes. “Impending death.”
Nope…
I didn’t like it.
“What? Whose death?”
Obviously, it was mine, I was just having a hard time making sense of it. I hadn’t done anything to anyone. I was nice, I was a good nurse and liked helping people.
Was this what my life was going to be? Constantly having to look over my shoulder? Was the salary Yuka offered worth it? Was being with Alex worth it?
My stomach churned again, and I turned, ran to the bathroom and threw up again.
Alex was by my side in an instant, holding back my hair, soothing my back. “I’m sorry, doll.”
Ispat into the toilet. “Sorry isn’t going to cut it, Alex.”
Slumping back onto the tiled floor, I looked up at him.
“Someone is threatening my life, and all you are saying, is sorry?”
There was venom in my voice, and I expected Alex to match my tone with his own acid, but he didn’t. “Tm trying my best to find out who is threatening us, Joey. I really am. I haven’t slept properly in weeks, because I am too scared to, since the Ikeda chased you. Because I’ve been having nightmares about someone coming and hurting you. And then the Oni were
left…”
A single tear streaked down Alex’s cheek, and I blinked.
He was crying.
I reached out, grabbing his hand. “I’m sorry, Alex. I’m just terrified. You’re used to threats and violence. I’m not.”
“Not like this, I’m not. Not against someone I love more than anything.” Alex lifted himself to his feet, pulling me up floor. “It’d kill me if you got hurt.”
u off the
I wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing my head against his chest. “And I wouldn’t be able to go on without you.”
Alex kissed the top of my head, wrapping his arms around me. “I think we need to beef up our security a bit more. Get you a new number. And we need to move.
I lifted my head and looked at him. “Move?”
Alex nodded. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel comfortable at the house anymore.”
“Yeah Neither do 1.”
“Well, then that’s what we’re going to do this afternoon.”
“Huh?”
63–Joey
Alex smiled, bringing me back into his embrace. “We’re going house hunting.”
That sounded great, but I knew it was his way of taking my mind of what the real truth was.
We were in danger.
And if the messages were anything to go by, it was his own brother, who posed the biggest danger of all
