After I change into a pantsuit and release my hair so it falls to my shoulders, I head to the hall.
Akira is already waiting at the entrance of my wing.
He’s wearing a yukata with a men’s kimono that has his family’s crest embroidered on either side of his chest on top of it. This type of fine-quality traditional wear costs a small fortune, but he’s more comfortable in these clothes indoors. I think it has something to do with how he was raised in Kyoto.
Another thing he lied to me about in the letters. Akira isn’t from Tokyo.
“Ready?” He offers me his hand.
I take it. “Are they already here?”
“Yes, they’ve been waiting. Good to keep them on their toes, don’t you think?”
“You’re the only one who believes keeping a Yakuza leader on his toes is a good thing.”
“Not the only one since you’re right there with me, my dear wife.”
I scoff and he smiles as we go into the dining room. It has an ancient design where everyone is seated on the floor and has a small table in front of them full of premium side dishes.
Sure enough, our guests for the night are seated and waiting.
Kai, Ren, and my father.
The same father that I spent my stupid childhood and teenage years fantasizing about finding.
The same father I had countless fights with my mom about.
Abe Hitori.
Aka the leader of the New York City branch of the Yakuza and a man even more dangerous than Mom could have ever warned me about.
The man who can blow the only thread keeping me alive to bloody pieces.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” Akira says in Japanese as we bow in greeting and take our seats opposite them.
Akira and I speak only in Japanese when we’re around each other.
“It’s okay. We haven’t waited long.” My father pours himself a drink and watches me from above the rim of his glass.
He’s not tall, but he has a piercing stare that’s meant to bring those who oppose him to their knees. My father is the epitome of a charismatic man who knows what he wants and how to get it.
Even if it means crushing his own family in the process.
“May I compliment the way you look, Mrs. Mori?” Kai’s calm attention is on me and I wish I could throw a glass at his face.
That man is not only Dad’s second-in-command/trustee/strategist, but he’s also the one who metaphorically twisted my arm.
He acts silently and without drawing much attention to himself or his beloved boss.
Kai and I share a dark past, though, which is part of the reason why I thought he was familiar.
“No, you can’t,” I say coyly, then take a drink.
Ren scoffs, laughing silently, and while I hate everyone in my father’s organization, Ren might be the one at the top of the pyramid.
He’s cunning and puts different masks on throughout the day. Sometimes, he tries to be friendly whenever we meet, calling what he did ‘a job,’ but I’ll never forgive him for what happened seven years ago.
At the sound of his scoffing, something my husband considers juvenile and tasteless, he stares at Ren. Instead of just lowering his head like Akira expects of people, the younger man glares back. It’s a full-on glare, as if he doesn’t like Akira to tell him when to scoff and when not to.
They’ve always had some sort of weird communication, even though they don’t really work together.
Kai tips his glass of sake in my direction as if drinking to me. He likes acting in that mighty way, as if he’s better than everyone else and doesn’t hold grudges. As if he’s too old for such nonsense. He recently turned thirty-five, but he seems as old as Father sometimes.
“How’s business?” My father asks Akira, to which my husband nods.
“Good. It’s growing.”
“Will you be staying in the States for a bit?”
“Yes. We need to stay here until I get the new branch up and running and Naomi takes care of her own business.”
“I can’t work from Japan forever,” I say. “Unfortunately.”
“Yes, yes.” My father pretends to act nonchalant as he takes a bite of his favorite fish. “Let Kai know if you need anything, Mori-san. We’re here for you.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Of course they’re there for him. Because he’s also there for my father.
After all, he married me off to Akira because it fits his business ventures. It was either that or not get the chance to say goodbye to my mom.
That, among other things he shackled me with until I couldn’t move anymore.
While I was having naive thoughts about reuniting with my father, he was plotting to sell me off to the highest bidder.
Akira wanted to marry me ‘for reasons,’ as he likes to say, which are basically our secret. And Father had to make that union happen.
Becoming in-laws with the Mori clan is an honor that can’t be accomplished by just anyone, let alone someone with a criminal background, such as my father.
Akira’s family hates me and refuses to meet me for those reasons, but Father couldn’t care less as long as his business is up and running, thanks to Akira’s help.
My husband takes a leisurely sip of his sake. “Instead of Kai, I want Ren.”
The latter freezes with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. Ren, who I eventually discovered is around my age, loves his freedom more than anything.
So the thought of working with a control freak like Akira must be blasphemous to him.
“Kai is my most efficient man,” my father points out the obvious.
“No offense, but that makes him boring. Ren, however, is reckless and could use some discipline.” There’s a smirk on Akira’s lips as he speaks.
Father laughs, a deep-bellied one. “As you wish.”
Ren places his chopsticks down. “No.”
“Did you just tell me no?” my father hisses.
His younger lieutenant faces him on his knees. “I want to stay with you, Boss.”
“If Mori-san wants you, he’ll get you.”
Ren glares at Akira, who smirks. “It’s decided then. Let me go get the present I brought for you from Japan, Hitori-san.”
“You didn’t have to,” Father says in a fake way.
“Of course I did.” Akira stands with the graciousness of a warrior and beckons Ren. “Come help me.”
“Don’t you have servants?”
Before Father can reprimand him for talking back, Akira’s voice hardens. “What’s the need for servants when there’s you? Get up.”
Ren grinds his teeth and curses under his breath before he jerks up and follows Akira out of the room.
As soon as the door slides closed behind them, I speak to Father without looking at him, “He’s getting you premium ginseng herbals. Act surprised.”
“That is very generous.”
“You don’t deserve it,” I mutter.
“What did you just say, Naomi?”
I lift my head and meet his gaze. “That you don’t deserve it.”
His lips twist. “You’re being ungrateful.”
“For what exactly? For making me into a mafia princess, forcing me to get married or else you would’ve sold off my half-sister when we’re your own fucking flesh and blood, or threatening me with never allowing me to see my mom on her deathbed? Or maybe it’s making me believe that you were a father worth waiting for all these years?”
Kai shakes his head at me as he keeps eating. Screw him and his boss.
My father slams his chopsticks on the table. “Stop being a little American bitch and lose that tone.”
“What tone? The one that tells the truth?”
“The one that disrespects me. Remember, Naomi, you need me.”
“As much as you need me. My marriage is bringing you more profit than you could’ve ever dreamed. Don’t forget that.”
“And don’t forget that you have a duty toward me.”
“Duty?” I scoff. “You don’t even know the meaning of that word. You lured my mom, knocked her up, and neglected her so you could marry for money and status. Not only did you find me for the sole reason of using me in your schemes, but even your legitimate daughter isn’t safe from your tyranny.”
“Riko is the one who chose to escape me, not the other way around.”
“Because she realized how much of a dangerous person you are. She didn’t want me to be raised in your world.”
“But you ended up in it anyway, so keep your head down, clamp those lips shut, and follow the rules.”
I open my mouth, about to give him a piece of my mind, but Akira and Ren return, carrying the box of ginseng. My father puts on a perfect show, acting flattered and happy.
After dinner, Akira suggests taking us on a tour of his pond. My father readily agrees and I take my time finishing my tea before I get up.
My husband, Dad, and Ren go out first, and I’m about to follow with Kai, but he touches my arm. I halt when he communicates with his eyes that I should stay.
He still has his hair long and tied at his nape. The sharp lines of his jaw have turned more callous, and his eyes no longer appear human. Probably due to the number of killings Father makes him do.
Oh, and his last name is Takeda, not Collins like when he impersonated being a PI seven years ago.
“What is it?” I murmur.
Kai might have thrust me into this life, but he’s been more my ally than my enemy in the last seven years.
After all, he was the one who came to save me during that red night. He was only sixteen when Dad put him there to watch me from the shadows.
Back then, when he saw Sam—my mother’s boyfriend at the time—coming at me, he didn’t hesitate to barge in and kill the bastard. It was his first kill, he told me, and it was bloody and gory and so damn messy.
According to Kai, Mom stabbed the asshole’s corpse a few times when she found me in shock with blood covering me.
Sam’s blood.
That’s why it was always the red night in my head.
It’s also when I met Father and some of his men, but I don’t remember it, because I blocked those memories out of my head.
But the moment he called me Ojou-sama again, I knew that we go way back. The familiarity struck me harder than I would have imagined.
I guess that’s why Kai and I have some sort of a hate-love relationship.
He’s an absolute dick for what happened seven years ago, but sometimes, it feels like he’s looking out for me in his own screwed-up way. I know not to take it for granted from someone as detached as he is.
“It’s about Mio.”
My breath hitches at the mention of my much younger half-sister.
I learned about her existence when my mom was dying, and I felt like I was given a chance to have another family member and do better. I’ve tried to meet with her on the rare occasion she goes to Japan, but we’re mostly on different continents and Father keeps her under a strict guard.
“What about Mio?” I ask Kai.
“He’s marrying her off to the Russian mafia.”
“What?”
“Lower your voice. You’re not supposed to find out about this.”
“He can’t marry her off. I got married so she’d stay safe.”
“His thoughts and yours are different. Both of you are assets of power that he’ll use to its fullest potential.”
“If she gets married into the Russian mafia, she’ll be eaten alive.”
“There’s that, but the bigger issue is that she’s agreeing to it.”
“She’s what?”
“You know Mio. Dutiful to a fault.”
“God. This is a disaster.”
“I agree.”
“Then tell him that.”
“He believes this to be the most logical choice to strengthen his ties with the Bratva and, therefore, won’t listen to me.”
“And you think he’ll listen to me?”
“No. Which is why you need to be careful, Ojou-sama. Don’t antagonize him.”
“If he marries her off, I won’t stand still for it.”
“Don’t tell me any details. I’m not your accomplice.”
“You’ve been my accomplice since the day you saved me, Kai.”
“Unfortunately. Maybe.”
I lean against the wall, catching my breath from all the things that have happened in the span of a day. Japan feels so much safer now. At the beginning, working from there was a challenge since Chester Couture is based in the States; I managed it well and even opened a branch in Japan so I could have something to focus on.
But now that I’m back in the States, I’m not so sure if it was a wise decision at all. Ever since I married Akira soon after Mom’s death, I’ve never thought about coming back here.
That’s a lie. But lying is better than the truth sometimes.
I straighten and face Kai. “Let’s go outside before they notice we’re gone.”
“Ojou-sama.”
“Yeah?”
“You spoke with him tonight?”
My heart skips a beat and a painful thud I thought would disappear claws its way to the surface. I don’t have to play dumb and ask who, so I nod instead.
“You survived then. You have to keep surviving by staying away from him.”
Kai thinks it’s that easy.
He believes surviving is a convenient thing that I can simply attach my mind to and it’ll follow my command.
I release a sigh. “I have to meet with him.”
“And make Akira suspicious?”
“That’s the main reason I need to do it. Akira wants to work with him and I have to prevent it.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“No! The last time you took care of something, he almost died.”
“But he didn’t die.”
“Kai…”
“Fine. Do it your way. But are you sure you can talk to him without sacrificing something in return? The man he is today is different from the quarterback you knew back then.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “I can handle him.”
Or so I like to believe.
