Revenge: An Alpha Billionaire Romance by Lauren Landish Read Free Book Online

ignore them either. “So what's it say?”
    “Aiko Mori was born in 1972 in Chikuhoku village in Nagano Prefecture, Japan,” Darcy says. Her memory for this kind of thing is nearly flawless, and I'm one hundred percent sure all the details she's reciting are correct, despite the fact she isn't reading them off a file or anything. “In 1992, once she was legally considered an adult in Japan, she moved to the United States to pursue a career as a pastry chef, apparently a very popular career choice for Japanese girls.” She pauses to take a bite from her beignet before continuing.
    “Her parents had a little bit of money since her father was the president of a construction company that had some government contracts in the village, so they granted her wish to study at the New Orleans School of Cooking. Aiko wanted to learn how to make French and Creole desserts in particular. Soon after coming here, she met Peter DeLaCoeur and started having an affair with him since he was already married to Margaret, as you know. No one's sure of the exact length of the affair, but it continued for a while, even after Jackson's birth, since his half-sister Andrea DeLaCoeur was born two years after Jackson.
    “What happened to Aiko?” I ask quietly, but I suspect I already know the answer to the question.
    “After Andrea's birth, she was registered as Peter's biological daughter, which is a rarity given his indiscretions. This fact will be relevant eventually in the story. Aiko returned to Japan and took Andrea with her. Her parents had moved to Osaka while Aiko had been away. Apparently her father's business had improved, and he was now working out of the larger city or something—my friends didn't dig too deep into that. But what they did find was evidence that Aiko was shamed by her parents for having a haafu daughter out of wedlock, and that the gaijin was obviously playing her.” Darcy pauses and finishes her beignet, but this time she manages to avoid getting powdered sugar up her nose.
    “Aiko refuted those claims of course, saying they were in love, but when she called him and asked him to talk with her parents, he laughed at her and told her she was lucky he'd at least acknowledged Andrea as his own daughter. That's Mrs. Mori's words, by the way. So Aiko, distraught over the rejection from her lover...”
    Darcy's voice fails, and I'm touched. She might be an anarchist, a hacktivist, and more than willing to try and take down the rich and powerful who she blames for her family's death in Hurricane Katrina, but she's also never lost that sense of optimism about the world that's been ripped out of me. Still, I need to know. “How'd she do it?”
    “Jumped off her parents’ apartment building,” Darcy finally gets out. “She left a note behind saying that she apologized for being such a bad daughter and horrible mother.”
    It's my turn to blink, the grief-stricken look on Darcy's face touching even my heart. “What happened next?”
    “Her parents tried to keep Andrea, but Peter DeLaCoeur had her kidnapped and returned to the United States. Since he was legally on record as her biological father, the American courts sided with him. The Japanese courts sided with the Moris, but it didn't help them since Japan hadn't signed the Hague Abduction Convention yet. Andrea's been raised in her father's house ever since.”
    I shake my head, shocked. “And why aren't we releasing this right away?”
    “You know why,” Darcy says. She pulls a paper bag out from her purse and wraps the beignet inside before placing it all back in her purse for later. She always saves her second beignet for Jeff. “Come on, walk with me.”
    We get up and make our way through the French Quarter. It's only mid-morning, so it's nowhere near as busy as it'll get tonight. The St. Louis Cathedral is relatively quiet at the moment, which feels out of place here in the portion of the city best known for sin. “Remember the first rules I taught you