Because It Is My Blood (Birthright #2)(76)

I shook my head.

“She asks about you every time I see her.”

I shook my head again. “She’s just being nice.”

Natty and I rode up in the elevator. When we got to our floor, the door was slightly ajar.

I held out my arm. “Stay,” I told Natty. I took my machete out from under my coat.

Natty’s eyes grew wide. “Maybe we should run?” she whispered.

I was not a person who ran. I ordered her to stay in the hallway, in the area where the fire escape was. “If you hear me scream, I want you to go down the stairs as fast as you can. Run to Win’s house. Don’t talk to anyone until you get there.”

Natty nodded.

At that moment, the front door swung wide open.

Standing there was a ghost.

I felt like I was losing my mind.

“Annie,” the ghost said, and then he put his arms around me.

The ghost was made of flesh and bone.

“Leo,” I said. “Leo, Leo.” My head began to throb, and I couldn’t breathe. I grabbed at his cheeks and his arms, pinching and poking him to make sure he was real. “But how?” I mumbled. “How?” I looked into Leo’s light blue eyes. I pulled his wavy black hair. I buried my face in his chest to smell him.

“I faked my death so I could come back to New York,” Leo said.

“You what?” It was such an extraordinary thing for him to say.

“I was so homesick, Annie. I missed you and Natty so much. And I was bored, too. I couldn’t stay there anymore. Please don’t be mad.”

I was really having trouble breathing. I was on the verge of passing out.

“Oh, Leo, you shouldn’t have.” This was going to cause more problems for me than I could even begin to imagine, but still my heart was full. “Natty!” I yelled. “Come here!”

Natty emerged from the fire-stairs door. “Leo?” she asked. And then Natty fainted.

Leo and I picked her up and brought her inside.

In the living room were Simon Green and a Japanese girl I didn’t recognize.

I glowered at Simon. “What are you doing here?”

“He helped me plan everything,” Leo said. “I contacted Simon Green in the fall after Yuji Ono said you were going away. I didn’t want Natty to be all alone.”

That meant that the hit on Leo had been a fake? And yet I knew that the hits on Natty and me had been real. Why coordinate a fake hit on the same day as two real hits? What did this mean?

I sat down on our couch. “Simon, why didn’t you tell me that Leo was alive?”

Simon took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. “I suppose because I didn’t think you’d believe me. Not with the awful coincidence of the attempted murders of you and Natty. I realized that Sophia had somehow become aware of Leo’s and my plan and had used that fact to her advantage.”

The Japanese girl smiled pleasantly at me. Though she was clearly a woman, she was about the size of a child, with no breasts to speak of and limbs like twigs. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Who are you?”

“This is Noriko,” Leo said. “She doesn’t speak much English yet but she’s learning. She is Yuji Ono’s niece. And she is also my wife.”

“You’re married?” This was too much to process. “Leo?”

Noriko held out her hand. On it was a single silver band.

Natty woke up. “Leo?” she asked. “Leo?” Natty had begun to cry.

“Oh, Natty, please don’t.” Leo wiped her tears on his sleeve. He sat down next to her on the couch, and they held each other for the longest time.

I stood to give them some space. Although I was overjoyed to find that Leo was still alive, I could not afford to be overcome in this moment. I had too many things to figure out. I walked to the balcony, and Simon Green sidled up next to me. “You must see, Anya, that I never could have planned anything that would have hurt you or Natty or Leo.”

“Sophia Bitter says that you helped her plan the poisonings,” I told him.

“I did not!”

“Why would she say that if it weren’t true?”

“She’s a liar, Anya, and I suppose she was just trying to cover her bases. Point fingers at whomever she thought was vulnerable.”

I looked into Simon Green’s eyes, eyes like Leo’s and Daddy’s. “Who are you?” I whispered.

“I don’t know for sure, Annie. But I can tell you what I have come to believe.” He took my hand. “I believe that I am your half brother. I believe that is why your father provided for my care.”

“Does he know?” I indicated Leo.

Simon Green shook his head. “No. You are the head of this family, and it is your decision when to tell Leo and Natty.”

I told him I appreciated that. “So why did Leo know to go to you about faking his own death?”

“He didn’t come to me.” Simon Green said that he had started making plans to get Leo out of Japan as soon as he had found out that I had refused Yuji Ono’s proposal. “I didn’t think it would be safe for him there anymore.”

I wondered if I had somehow misunderstood what Leo had said to me—Leo had explicitly stated that he had decided to fake his own death, hadn’t he?