Page 84 of Bearly Out Loud

“We’re going to win.” His chin rested on the top of her head. His hand traced a slow line up her spine. “Your father’s case is airtight. Hana’s evidence turns it from a single theft into a criminal pattern. And Reo will get Crane.”

“Reo could intimidate a confession out of a dead tree.”

“He left for Crane’s two hours ago. He said he was going to be polite.”

“Reo’s version of polite is ‘I haven’t physically threatened you yet.’”

He laughed. Low, warm, the vibration of it traveling through his chest into her cheek. She pressed closer. Let herself have the moment—the quiet studio, the evidence table, the setting sun, the man whose heartbeat she could count through his shirt.They’d been at war for weeks. The war wasn’t over. But the battle plan was solid, and the man was warm, and her ankle was still hooked around his and the trap was set.

His phone buzzed. He checked it without lifting his chin from her head.

Reo:Crane talked. Signed a deposition. Cried into his coffee. Twice.

Nari read it upside down. Her chest ached—for Crane, for Hideo, for all the ways love and betrayal could live in the same person.

“Good,” she said quietly. “That’s good.”

“Dojin.”

“Hmm.”

“You stole my onigiri.”

“I’ll make you more.”

“You’ll make me more and sneak in a side dish because you can’t help it. You’ll put it in my specific container and bring it at exactly the time I’m getting hungry because you track my eating patterns like a wildlife biologist studying a rare species.”

“You’re not a rare species.”

“What am I?”

He tilted her chin up with one finger. Kissed her—slow, thorough, tasting like the coffee they’d shared all afternoon. When he pulled back, his eyes were warm and amused and completely, embarrassingly besotted.

“The only species that matters.”

“That’s the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“You’re smiling.”

She was. She didn’t stop.

FORTY-THREE

NARI

The hotel conference room smelled like leather chairs and ambition, which Nari found fitting for a place where a man’s career was about to end.

The Langham’s private meeting suite occupied the northeast corner of the fourteenth floor—floor-to-ceiling windows, a mahogany table long enough to land a small aircraft, and décor so aggressively neutral it screamedsix hundred dollars an hour, coffee not included.James had booked it specifically for its lack of personality. You didn’t want character in a room built for a legal takedown. You wanted clean sightlines and enough table surface to spread an autopsy.

Which is exactly what they’d done.

Nari stood at the windows, arms crossed, watching the setup with the focused calm she used before difficult recording sessions—the breath held low in the belly, the jaw unclenched, the voice saved. Across the table, James arranged documents in the sequence he’d spent three weeks perfecting: dated sketchbooks first. Authentication reports, second. The Meridian-to-Mercer paper trail, third. Crane’s signed testimony fourth. Hana’s pattern analysis fifth. Each piece placed with the precision of a surgeon laying out instruments.

Reo stood at the door. Scanning. He’d been scanning since they arrived—exits, windows, the hallway beyond. His henley was black today, which Nari had learned meant business. The bruised knuckles from last week’s gym session had faded. New ones would follow.

Hana sat at the far end, headphones around her neck, laptop open to her spreadsheet. Quiet. Ready. The composure she’d built since the production room had calcified into armor, and she wore it well.

Suki occupied the chair at the head of the table. She had announced her attendance that morning over the phone with four words—“I’m coming. Dress code?”—and arrived in a tailored gray suit with a jade pendant that had been Hideo’s last birthday gift. She sat with her hands folded, her tea untouched, her eyes holding a patience that could have cut glass.