Liquid Lies Read online

The goon behind him whipped out a gun—metal flashing like fire, barrel aimed straight at her. Think, Gwen. Think. How can you turn this asshole’s hubris to our benefit?

  She took too long. Griffin burst like a kraken from Vaillancourt Fountain.

  Water gushed upward from the low pool, assuming the strong, lean shape of Griffin’s human body. Translucent waves flowed over the valleys of his stomach muscles. White froth cascaded over his square jaw and the hard cut of his arms. His torso darkened, solidified. Water droplets skittered across his skin, soaking in. From the waist down he remained a brilliant, shimmering waterfall balancing on the fountain’s bubbling surface. Frighteningly beautiful, unmovable as rock.

  Time slowed as Griffin’s furious dark eyes met Gwen’s. They spoke paragraphs in that moment. She had no time to be pissed off he’d interfered before she’d called for backup. Together they silently assessed the danger. Made plans. Then time caught up, resumed normal speed.

  One of Griffin’s arms went liquid and shot out, fast as a bullet, to wrap around the stunned bodyguard and yank him forward into the fountain. Griffin’s watery legs flowed over the Japanese goon, holding him under the surface. His chest and shoulders heaved with channeled fury.

  Griffin, Gwen’s personal protector. Griffin, the man the Board wanted her to marry.

  The bodyguard thrashed facedown in the shallow pool. Griffin allowed him to break the surface and breathe. Just long enough for him to plead for his life in Japanese. Gwen didn’t translate.

  She transformed her own arm into a liquid whip and snapped it at the Mendacia box sagging in Yoshi’s fingers. Reversing the suction, she peeled it from his grasp and flung it back into her own hands. As her arm returned to solid, she felt the familiar, cool tingle of ebbing waters.

  Yoshi made a strangled, squeaking, unmanly sound in the back of this throat. His empty hands shook.

  She walked to the edge of the fountain, where the briefcase of money floated. Under Yoshi’s bug-eyed stare, she plucked it from the water and spoke the Ofarian words to dissolve every molecule of water from its surface and the stacks of money inside.

  “Something tells me,” she swiveled back to Yoshi, “that Mikatani isn’t aware of your actions tonight.” No response. “Let me guess. You had a better offer? Thought to take me along with the Mendacia? Force me to change the command words to make it do whatever your new clients wanted?” Yoshi gulped, defeated. “You do realize that by violating our contract you’ve just single-handedly forfeited fifty-one percent of Mikatani’s holdings to the Company?”

  Yoshi sagged as though his own body were made of water. “Please. I beg you. He’ll kill me…”

  She set the briefcase on the fountain’s lip and ran her fingers along its edges. A great surge of anger and confidence bubbled inside her. She wondered if that was what drove her father and the rest of the Board day in and day out. That feeling of secret superiority and advantage. How dare a Primary think he could pull one over on the Company?

  She knew what she had to do.

  She looked to Griffin, whose eyes were almost as tortured as their captives’. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Gwen,” he said through clenched teeth. “Just give the order.”

  Usually the Board collectively passed down the sentence. She’d been in the boardroom in the past, when they’d decided a Primary should die for knowing too much, but she’d never been the one to slam the gavel.

  It was Ofarian law and it was necessary, but that didn’t mean she had to enjoy it.

  Plus, there were two offenders. Griffin couldn’t handle both of them at the same time and she…well, maybe here was where her cowardice finally showed its ugly face.

  She faced Yoshi. “I’m sure the death Mikatani will give you will include pain. Humiliation. I understand saving face is very important to your people. It’s why you’re here in the first place, isn’t it?”

  “Please…” Yoshi begged.

  “I’m willing to give you a choice, Yoshi. I can let you go and you can try to run from your boss—which I’m sure will be impossible—or you can die right here.” She glanced at the bodyguard still gasping in the water. “If you go now, your man dies. I’ll trade your life for his. Who’s it going to be?”

  Yoshi, made all the more tiny by his round-shouldered fear, pointed one shaking finger at the goon gurgling beneath Griffin’s liquid legs. “Him.” Then he turned and ran.

  TWO

  Yoshi sprinted across the plaza and disappeared into the city, his black hair and suit blending in with the shadows. The sharp beat of his loafers on pavement faded to nothing. Gwen fumbled for the signal switch clipped inside her lapel that would call the limo back.

  “Gwen.” Leashed panic lifted Griffin’s voice over the rushing water. “What the hell are you doing? You let him go?”

  She had, hadn’t she.

  She stuffed the Mendacia box back in her pocket and scooped up the briefcase. “You can’t take care of them both at the same time, Griffin.”

  “Don’t tell me what I am and am not capable of.”

  She glared in the direction where Yoshi had run. “I could say the same thing to you.” His nostrils flared. “I can’t take a life. I’m not trained, physically or emotionally.” No, she was corporate, through and through.

  “He’ll talk.”

  “Dad will call Mikatani the second the limo comes. Yoshi’s as good as dead.”

  Griffin was still half water, towering above her. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  She did, too. Leaders had to own their decisions and she’d stand by hers.

  The limo screeched around the bend and braked where it had dropped her off earlier.

  “Get in the car.” Trouble darkened Griffin’s eyes, and the slant of his mouth turned grim.

  She understood. He didn’t want her around when he drowned Yoshi’s henchman.

  The past fifteen minutes settled like ice in her bones, and she stumbled to the limo without remembering the walk. She fell into the seat, unclipped the signal switch, and tossed it in the corner.

  “Kiddo? Gwennie?” Her father scooted closer. “You’re shaking. What happened?”

  When she removed the Mendacia box from her pocket and couldn’t read the name for the quivering of her hand, she knew it to be true. His hand squeezed her shoulder, forcing her to look at him.

  She swallowed hard. “Call Mikatani. Tell him to come pick up his trash.”

  “What do you—”

  The door flew open and in tumbled a naked Griffin. “Go,” he yelled at the driver, then turned to scan the windows for witnesses. The limo lurched away from the curb and sailed down the Embarcadero.

  Her father shifted seats so Griffin could sidle next to Gwen. She fought the urge to scramble away.

  She’d seen Griffin naked once or twice before, but only during transformation. Ofarians didn’t need to be naked to change, but it took extra effort to maintain outside objects as liquid, and he’d been waiting in that fountain for a good thirty minutes before Yoshi showed up.

  Though she averted her gaze, she was still acutely aware of Griffin tugging the black pants of his security uniform up his bare legs. He’d stashed his clothes next to the whiskey carafe, and when he stretched forward for his black shirt, the lean, strong muscles in his shoulders and back bunched.

  Any woman in the world would pant at the sight of him. Any woman except Gwen.

  She turned to her dad. “Go on. Call Mikatani. Let his people deal with the translation on their end. I’ll talk if I have to, just can’t promise what I’ll say. I think you’ll be better with diplomatic relations right about now.”

  “What happened?”

  She told him, Griffin silent beside her. Before she was even finished, her father had gone fire red in the face.

  “Forget Mikatani,” the Chairman blurted. “We’re hunting that son of a bitch right now. Griffin, get on it.”

  Griffin opened his phone and mumbled orders to his security team. In minutes, tens of
plainclothes Ofarian soldiers would be scouring the city for Yoshi. Come sunrise, SFPD would be saddled with not one, but two mysterious deaths of Japanese nationals.

  “And you,” her father said, “you shouldn’t have let him go.”

  One awful lesson learned. The Board position slipped out of her immediate reach. She’d have to make up for that.

  Adrenaline seeped from her body in stuttering waves, and she sank deeper into the seat. From underneath it all floated the tap tap tap of her father’s fingers, back on his phone again.

  She let the rock and jerk of the limo carry her farther and farther away from what had just happened. How could she remedy this? How could she save face in front of the Board?

  “Sir, if I may,” came Griffin’s quiet interjection. The Chairman nodded for him to continue, but he was looking out the window, his expression clouded.

  “The international deals,” Griffin said, “they’re getting riskier.”

  Gwen sat up straighter, not liking at all where this conversation was about to go.

  The Chairman pinched his lips between his fingers and sighed. “You’re right. They are. Because foreigners aren’t scared of us yet. The Americans are because we’ve been doing business with them for almost a century. Our existence is protected here. Fear breeds secrecy.”

  Griffin nodded vehemently. “And is this a new threat? Assholes like Yoshi wanting to grab Gwen? Get her to reconfigure the potion? I don’t like it. Not at all.”

  “Gwen,” her father said, “is your safety really worth this?”

  He turned sad eyes to her, and the emotion behind them struck a deep, bitter chord.

  Ofarians weren’t immune to vanity. Though her father was closing in on sixty years old, tonight he looked barely forty. She didn’t like facing him when he did Mendacia and the glamour made him look like the photo above his mantel in which she was a little girl on his knee. Seeing him young was like looking into the past, and she wanted more important things—things other than his wrinkles and softening gut—to change instead.

  She wanted her mom back. She wanted her sister to have been smarter, more loyal.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” She spread her arms between the two men. “Going global was my idea. Think about everything my division has done for Ofarians in the past seven years. Because of me, we’ve tripled Mendacia production and our earnings. We have everything we could possibly need. More, even. Our people are the happiest they’ve ever been.”

  “Right,” the Chairman said, clamping a loving hand on her knee. “So maybe we should scale back. Be more selective in our international clientele. Try instead to expand our American base.”

  “I have Griffin,” she argued. “It’s his job to keep me safe. The whole race trusts him. His security team is impenetrable.”

  She risked a look at her protector, but he was staring at his lap, his mouth a straight, white line. He hadn’t had much say in his role when the Board handed it to him when he was sixteen. He didn’t have much say about it now.

  She couldn’t help wondering if part of the reason he was so amenable to a marriage with her was to improve his station in their society.

  “Please.” She held her father’s hands now. Though they looked smooth, they felt dry and wrinkled. “This is what I have. What I was born to do. I’ll do what I can to keep Mendacia viable overseas, then campaign to be admitted to the Board. I have so many ideas, Dad…”

  He tugged his hand out. “You understand why I worry, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “We’re on the same side, Gwennie. We both want what’s best for our people.”

  “And I can do things for them that no one else can. I’m the first Translator born since we came here. Don’t shut me down.”

  She’d been hearing she was special since she hit puberty and accidentally learned Spanish over chicken flautas and virgin strawberry margaritas in a Mexican restaurant. The Board had gone into a tizzy and the very next day she’d been assigned a protector, the same man who would eventually hand-pick and train Griffin before retiring.

  “Mendacia is a gift to our race,” she went on, and her father nodded with pride. “It’s let us figure out how to live as Secondaries in a Primary world. Besides”—she sat back with a grin—“you know I’m dying to know how it’s made.”

  The Chairman wagged a playful finger. “When the Board votes you in, my dear. Not a moment sooner.”

  She couldn’t wait.

  “So I can scout the job in Moscow next week?”

  She’d already booked her and Griffin’s flight, giving herself five days to learn the language and study the culture and potential client. This time it was an heir possibly linked to crooked money.

  “I want extra guys,” Griffin said, and her father acquiesced.

  As they pulled up in front of her apartment building, the limo slanted at a steep San Francisco angle, a text came through Griffin’s phone.

  “Got ’im,” he said. Wow, that was fast. “They’ll detain him at a neutral location until I get there. If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to wait until after we’ve met with the Board.”

  Gwen threw a look of relief at her dad, who was watching Griffin like a proud father-in-law to be. She lunged for the door, eager to get away. “Good night. Or good morning, rather.”

  She stumbled out to the sidewalk, her vision a little blurry, her legs a little shaky from the adrenaline crash.

  “Gwen. Wait.” Griffin climbed out after her. He leaned back inside to apologize to the Chairman, who was already back tapping at his phone.

  Griffin jogged the few steps to her, then stood with his legs planted wide, arms crossed over his chest, like he was trying to root himself to the spot. Or keep himself from touching her.

  “You got a gun pulled on you tonight.” His expression was as dark as his hair and clothing. “You can try to act tough, but I really need to know if you’re all right.”

  She blinked up at him, so ready to say, Yeah, of course! Fabulous! “I will be,” she replied, because this was Griffin and not a Board member. With him, she didn’t have to pretend.

  His brow creased and his eyes dipped to the sidewalk. There was more. He wasn’t moving from that spot until he’d said it, so she stayed put.

  “What the hell were you thinking, not calling for me? I heard everything that was happening with Yoshi. I heard how shit was going south fast. Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I thought I could handle it.”

  “Gwen…”

  “All right. Because I knew you had my back and I was trying to figure out what he wanted and what more he knew. If this was a bigger threat than it seemed.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. There were too many emotions on Griffin’s face—none of them bending in her favor.

  “Don’t do that again,” he said.

  “How about, don’t make a move unless I say?” Big, awkward moment. She’d never pulled rank like that before and it made his jaw clench, though he didn’t respond. At considerable length she asked, “Are you okay? With what I had you do?”

  “Yeah. Fine.” It was the most she’d ever get out of him on the subject of acting executioner.

  His arms dropped to his sides. He wasn’t much taller than her when she wore heels, and his every movement had a careful grace, as though he’d planned it moments ahead of time.

  “Want me to walk you up?” A casual question, but his eyes begged: Please, please can I walk you up?

  She looked away. “It’s late. Or early, however you want to look at it.”

  He cupped his jaw in the crook of his hand between thumb and forefinger and gazed down the street. They’d known each other so long that she recognized the sign of his barely controlled frustration. He said, “We haven’t hung out at your place in a long time.”

  Not since she’d first heard the rumblings from the Board about their impending marriage match.

  She shrugged. “Still looks the same.”

  “That’
s not the point and you know it. We haven’t stopped being friends, have we?”

  Her head dropped back on her neck, heavy as a sack of flour. “Of course not.”

  It had taken a while to get to this place, to friendship. All through junior high, Griffin had picked on her so much she’d spent a lunch or two crying in a bathroom stall. He hadn’t cared that she was a Translator or a Board member’s daughter. Then her assigned protector wanted to retire when Gwen finished high school; he tested every boy her age and guess who came out on top?

  She and Griffin had resented the new relationship, but duty to the Ofarians rose above all. By the time they graduated high school, they fell into friendship. The best kind.

  Until the Board shook up eleven years of closeness by wanting the only known Translator and the man sworn to protect her to procreate. They’d never say as much, but they were hoping she’d birth a child with her gift. The official engagement announcement hadn’t come yet, but it would.

  And then they’d be married. Sleeping together.

  Griffin rolled his eyes, reading her panic. “I’m not talking about sex, Gwen. I’m talking about talking.”

  He made perfect sense. She couldn’t throw away their relationship over a bit of discomfort. It was how the Ofarian marriage system worked. Every man and woman suffered initial panic. In this regard, she wasn’t remotely special.

  And this was Griffin. Brave, beautiful Griffin who’d always be there for her. She opened her arms.

  He swept across the sidewalk as silkily as if he were still in water form. They embraced hard. She couldn’t deny it; he felt like home. The cologne he’d worn forever, the lean, athletic build of his body, the caring circle of his arms. That moment reminded her of the first time they’d hugged when she was seventeen. When the Ofarian doctors had told her family their race wasn’t immune to cancer and that her mom didn’t have long to live.

  “Gwen.” He drew a deep breath and blew it out, warm, into her hair. “The way I feel about you has…changed in the past few weeks. It may have even changed before that.”

  She fell perfectly still. “I have no idea what to say to that.”