Azami pressed her lips together and then slowly nodded. “I prefer to allow you to believe that I’m beautiful. I suppose sooner or later you’ll have to know that isn’t true at all.” Her smile was brief and a little wistful. “You made me feel beautiful.”
Sam sat up, and then waited a moment for the room to right itself and the flash of pain moving through his abdomen to fade. He tugged on her hand to pull her close to the bed until she either had to tip over or sit on the bed. “You are beautiful, Azami.”
She raised a tentative hand to her hair. It was the first time she looked truly vulnerable. “It isn’t real.”
He sank his fingers into the thick mass of hair, his fingers curling into a fist, crushing strands in his palm. “This is no wig, honey. I can tell the difference between real hair and a wig.” Her hair felt like pure silk.
A faint smile curved her mouth even as she swallowed hard. Sam kept one anchored in her hair, the other pressing her palm to his chest.
“Tell me.” Clearly she didn’t want to. Her revelation had to be a matter of pride with her. A woman’s pride, not a samurai warrior’s pride. He understood that very clearly just by the way her gaze wavered for just a split second. She was Azami Yoshiie, a trained samurai, and she didn’t falter long, but he caught the tiny hesitation just before her chin lifted and her eyes locked on his.
“The color, I dye it. I’ve already gone gray, or at least, in my case, white. My hair turned white when I was a child—around three.”
Rage burst through him, hot and bright, a volcanic emotion that shook him as nothing else ever had. Three years old.
“How long did that monster have you?” he asked, his voice low because it was the only way he could control it.
Azami didn’t deny the obvious. She shrugged. “I was eight when my heart gave out and he threw me out. He put me in a box and shipped me to Japan. His men took me to an alley in a part of the city where the sex trades were and they tossed me out like a piece of garbage. I suppose to Whitney I was. He always said I was useless, and eventually my body just refused to hold up to his experiments.”
He wanted to drag her into his arms and shelter her, just as he had the small child she’d been. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” He meant it too. “Is that when your father found you?”
She nodded. “I was skinny, my body a mass of ugly scars and my heart trying to decide if it would function or give up.” A tiny smile broke through, an affectionate memory she found amusing. “My father shaved my head in the hopes my hair would come back black. It came back streaked. I look a bit like a skunk unless I dye it.”
He found the memory more heartbreaking than entertaining, but he smiled just the same because he could see she needed him to feel that same delight in her reminiscence of her father. “I’ve always found skunks to be quite beautiful,” he admitted, sincerity lending his voice a solemn tone. He inhaled. “And you smell amazing, unlike a skunk.”
Genuine laughter reached her eyes. “I don’t know, Sam. I think a skunk’s smell might be pretty amazing.”
He ran a finger down her face, lingering on her soft lips. “Why didn’t you tell me about Whitney?”
“Lily. I wasn’t certain if she was working with her father.”
“Did you come to kill her?”
She pulled back, frowning at him.
“I could understand if that had been your intention, Azami,” he admitted. She hadn’t tried to lie about being that child to him and he was fairly certain she wouldn’t lie about this.
“No, she wanted to purchase one of our satellites. I had turned down her father. I had to meet her and decide whose side she was on.”
Sam believed her. “Has Whitney contacted you since he . . .” He trailed off, not wanting to say the words. It had to hurt, being discarded, even though Whitney was a monster. He was the only parent the orphan girls had known. He’d collected them from orphanages when they were mere infants.
“Threw me into the streets?” she finished for him. There was no bitterness in her voice. “It was the best thing that could have happened to me. My father loved me and taught me how to believe in myself—and believe in the world again. He gave me an honorable code and a way to make a difference. I had nearly fifteen years with a man who respected life and fought evil. He gave me every opportunity and showed me that, although many doors might be closed to me, there were other honorable paths for me to follow.”
Sam frowned. He heard that hurt, wistful note in her voice when she’d said, “many doors might be closed to me.” What did she long for?
The pad of his thumb slid over her lips. “How can any door be closed to you, Azami?”
That threw her—just for a moment he saw that sudden insecurity and it shocked him. Azami was a woman of confidence. She was intelligent and a skilled warrior. What could she long for that could be unattainable to her? Every protective instinct he had welled up. His hand curled tighter in her hair. White hair? What would that be like for a child of Asian descent? To be so traumatized that even the hair on her head betrayed her?
“Azami, I want to know. Show me the worst you have.” He could only hope his expression stood for him, the sincerity of his voice. He leaned forward to press his forehead against hers. “I don’t know your world or your cultures. I know this is too fast and you don’t trust it, but we fit. You and me. We fit together perfectly. When you’re in my mind, there’s no loneliness, only warmth and security. We have this one chance and everything around us doesn’t matter. Together we can do anything at all. Accomplish anything. I know it. I can’t explain it, but I know it to be truth. Show me. Let me be the one to show you that you can have everything you want with me.”
“You don’t know me, Sam. I’m not the woman you think I am.”
He lifted her head with his fingers beneath her chin and looked her in the eyes. “I attended a meeting today with my team. There were three people connected to Whitney’s pipeline to the White House who supposedly died in accidents. I don’t think they were accidents. You have every reason, just as we do, to try to stop Whitney. You can teleport, you’re highly skilled with weapons, including a blowgun, and if someone told me to take a shot in the dark as to who might be responsible for those deaths … Well, honey, my money would be on you.”
She didn’t blink, and he admired her all the more for that expressionless serenity she faced adversity with. She reached out with both hands and framed his face, all the while looking him in the eyes. “Do you wish to know the truth for yourself or for your team?”