9. Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Chi
It’s time for me to stand up and talk to Mara and Cas. I feel the alcohol hanging out in my bloodstream, giving me added motivation and numbness for the task ahead, but I also finally feel like I can function for more than a few minutes without breaking down. I think of it as harnessing the power of the Green Lantern ring through sheer willpower. Green Lantern knows the obstacle he faces will affect far more than himself. Well, my obstacle has already affected more than myself. I’m not doing this for me, because if I were, I’d stay in bed crying. But I can suck up my pain and gather my willpower to get revenge for my father and Daiki. To find out who did this so that I can kill them. Perhaps it’s not as selfless as saving humanity, but it’s my cross to bear. And it might be the only thing holding me together right now, so I’m going to ride the wave, like Andy told me to.
I finally get up on my own two shaky legs. I’m relatively certain I haven’t used them for days, and if I have, Andy has had to help me walk on them. I feel the fire in my gut growing stronger with every step I put in front of the other, even if we’re just going to the living room to discuss our next moves with Cas and Mara.
They are both sitting on the couch watching TV when we come in, tangled up together. She lies back on his chest and he puts his arms around her protectively, dangling a Twizzler in her face as she tries to snatch it out of his hand. I almost laugh at the irony; she seems to be living the kind of easy life that she probably thought I was living just a few months ago. I guess in a lot of ways, I was.
I almost start heaving out cries again, but I tighten up internally, and only a few leak out. “Hey guys. Want to talk for a bit?”
They’re so engrossed in their activities on the couch that they haven’t even realized that we’ve come into the living room. Cas doesn’t move his arms from her shoulders, but Mara squirms into a sitting position.
She looks terrified, eyes wide and breathing quickened, as she scans my face. This girl fought on a mafia battlefield, but she’s afraid of my grief. As always, her slight social awkwardness charms me, and it even makes me feel the slightest pang of comfort at the familiarity of it. At least I’m not completely alone in this world. At least I have familiar lifelines to grab a hold of, no matter how far adrift I feel.
“Chi, you look…” she gulps, knowing she’s about to lie, “better?”
I just take the false comment in stride. “Thanks,” I reply, my voice gritty and coarse.
“We need to talk about next steps,” Andy says in a monotone. I just know he’s trying to cover up for his worry. His worry that his next words are going to break me. I want to say they won’t, but I can’t be certain. I don’t feel certain of anything anymore.
“We need to have the funeral.” He says it in a clipped, focused voice, but he avoids my gaze. “The guards have already given the story; somehow an armed man got through security and ran into Akio’s private suite, shooting him and Daiki before fleeing from the guards. No one knows the level of security Akio has or all the crazy shit those fuckers needed to pull to get through that security. And no one needs to know. No one needs to know what happened.”
“How did you get Chi out of there and free from questioning?” Mara asks in a bewildered tone.
“I just told them she wasn’t there. That she was with me the entire time.”
Cas takes over the questions now, focusing on the more practical ones. “What are we going to do with her during the funeral? She has to go.”
“We’ll just have to make sure she’s completely protected. Make sure we’re with her every step of the way. When we leave, we’ll have a diversion, and then have Oxy make sure we’re not being followed until we get to the safehouse.”
They’re talking about me like I’m not here, and to be fair, I don’t feel like I really am. I feel like I’m some kind of wraith, just floating through the conversation. But I need to push myself to be a part of this. If I want justice, and to ever have a shot at being the Yakuza queen my father always wanted me to be, I need to push through my grief and step out of the shadows.
“We’ll have to invite my mom and my brother,” I mention, trying to push my words out as more of a full-voiced utterance than the thin whisper it comes out as. “We’ll have to talk to them.”
Andy finally shoots me an uneasy side-long glance. “Oh yeah?” he asks casually, although I’m certain he knew this anyway.
“Obviously,” I say harshly, trying to get my sluggish thoughts together. “Now that my father is gone, I need to step into his role. He still works with them behind the scenes sometimes in Japan, and I know I’ll need to have a closer working relationship with them.” The more I speak, the more familiar this role and these words feel.
Andy nods. “Yeah, of course. It’s just… we really don’t know where the danger will come from.”
I shake my head as the cold numbness of freezing out any possible feelings for my mother or brother sweeps over me. I’ve done it for years, and I’m good at it. “If it’s them, maybe we’ll be able to get something out of them. We can invite them to stay in the main house. Bug every room in their suite.”
Andy shakes his head now as a negative on my plan. “I think that’s a pretty bad idea, especially since there’s a chance it could be them. They might try something.”
“You think they’ll try something themselves? Get their own hands dirty? I don’t think so.”
Andy seems shocked that I’d even consider having my mother and brother anywhere near me right now. “But they’ll be inside, Chi. They’ll have access—”
I put up a hand to stop him. “We’ll put guards on them day and night. Honestly, I’d be shocked if they even agreed to stay within the estate without some serious persuasion.”
“Guards are what got us into this mess in the first place,” Andy points out.
“We’ll use our own. Only the guys from our organization,” Cas offers.
I nod at him and continue. “No one’s going to test us again so soon, anyway. Even if they did, we’re in a better position now that Oxy knows exactly what they did.”
Andy breathes out in frustration, seeming annoyed that Mara and Cas are agreeing to this plan without the same apprehensions he has. “Chi, stop it. You can’t stay in that mansion with them in the room next door. If this was their doing, it would just be asking for them to slip something into a drink or come quietly knocking at your door to ‘speak with you privately’ before you go to sleep.”
All I do is roll my eyes at this. My expression and body don’t move an inch. “I’m telling you, they won’t try anything if they’re in the house where we can keep a closer eye on them. But if they come to stay with us for just one night and I die right after my father, don’t you think that’ll look a little suspicious to all of the politicians and wealthy businessmen who work with them?”
Andy sighs and shakes his head again. “I don’t like it.”
I finally move my shoulders up and down in a shrug — the least amount of movement necessary to show I’m disinterested in his feelings. “I don’t really care. It’s not only helpful for us to keep an eye on them; it’s imperative for us to squeeze as much information out of them as we can.”
Andy sticks his hand through his hair. “They’ll stay on the other side of the estate. We’ll use the right Side A entrance closest to your suite, and they’ll use the grand entrance only. We do everything separately. Unless we want to interrogate them.”
This sounds satisfactory to me, so I say nothing.
Cas chimes in next. “After the funeral, what will you do, Chi? Are you still planning… what do you want to do about your Omiai ?”
I hadn’t even thought of this part of it — the implications that my father’s murder will have on that complicated and significant event in my life. I could see a version of me feeling relieved, free of the confines of a relationship that I never wanted pushed onto me by forces out of my control. But as it is, the version of me that exists right now, knows that I have no choice. I have to do this to preserve my father’s wishes for me. To preserve what my life would have been with his guidance. Now that I don’t have him anymore, all I have is the memory of what he wanted, and I will stick to that as closely as possible. But I think he would understand if I needed to take a break.
“I’ll have to extend the engagement another couple of months at least,” I say miserably. “I’m sure Asuka will wait for me, but if he won’t, I guess I’ll just have to find the next easy target to get married off to.”
Mara visibly winces. “Jeez, Chi,” she mumbles.
I love Mara, but I feel my insides clench at those two little words. I have a reason for everything I do, and just because she wouldn’t do the same doesn’t mean she should judge me.
I shoot my gaze to hers. “What, Mara? Do you have some problem with me following the path my dead father set for me?”
As if she didn’t realize she’d said this out loud, her mouth drops open and her huge eyes widen. I almost hate this innocent gaze of hers right now. It just reminds me of who I am; what I’ve had to become.
“I didn’t mean anything… It’s just that I’m worried that you’re jumping into things that are… I mean, I don’t want you to bite off more than you can chew.”
I soften my gaze just slightly. I know this is the truth after everything she has done for me, relinquishing her own comfort to be here with me, but I’m still annoyed. “I can chew it all, Mara. Trust me.”
Her lips turn down into a frown as she studies my face, but she sighs and nods anyway.
Cas makes sure she’s okay, before continuing on with the conversation. “Well, what’s the move then? We can help make sure you’re safe during your requested time away from the Omiai , but what will you use it for?”
“I can set you up with Dr. Byrne,” Mara chirps up directly after Cas’s question. She’s very vocal about therapy, and I know she’s referring to her therapist.
“Thanks, Mara, but I won’t have the time. I’ll need to go to Japan.”
Andy’s head whips toward mine now. “You’re going to spend the extra time in the same place you were going to be forced to go to anyway?”
“Do you think we’re magically going to figure out who did this? Even if it is my brother or my mother and we get some sort of round-about confession from them on camera while they’re here, do you think that’s the end of it? We’ll need to make a plan. We’ll need to see what kind of ripple effects wiping them off the face of the earth will make.”
I see Mara wince again out of the corner of my eye. I know she’s probably just thinking about her own family issues, but it’s still fucking annoying. This is what I have to do, whether I get all emotional about it or just pull up my big girl pants and do it. Crying my eyes out for the past few days hasn’t done anything, so I need to try and channel my anger into something useful.
“What do you expect to find out in Japan?” Cas asks me after a preoccupied glance at Mara. He begins rubbing her back, and I have to laugh watching this hardened career criminal trying so hard to make someone else feel better. It’s almost antithetical to everything he stands for.
“Well, that’s where you two come in,” I say, pointing to Andy. “I’d like you to come with me. I don’t expect you to stay for two months straight, but I’ll be doing some research and pulling every string I can there to figure out what happened, so any time there’s a threat I’ll—“
“There’s no way I’d let you stay in Japan without me right now; are you insane?” Andy steps closer to me and my eyes flick to his. They burn into me already. For all the avoidance of my gaze he was doing before, he makes up for it now. “I’ll stay, at least until we find who planned this and kill them.”
There’s a slight throb in my cold, dead chest. I ignore it but accept Andy’s offer. I’m not stupid enough to think I won’t need his protection. “Fine.”
Mara looks behind her at Cas expectantly. He seems to read her mind. “We’ll follow after you, Chi. We might not be able to come right away, but we’ll help as much as we can.”
I stare blankly ahead of me and nod. “Thank you.”
“And that reminds me,” Cas says, even as I catch the glance that Andy darts his way, clearly saying without words: Don’t bring it up. But Cas is no good at following orders, and he says what he wants anyway. “We need to talk about what we were told. What those guys said during torture.”
I actually feel something inside myself come alive. I want to hear more. “How did you kill them?”
Andy’s eyes travel slowly to mine. He looks a little uneasy, and after my response to his gift of their eyeballs, I understand why. But I liked it, and I want to hear every detail.
“Cas chopped their heads off with an ax.” At my eager gaze, he seems encouraged and continues. “It got stuck on the spinal cord and he had to chop a few times. Both of them were still moving, so they were still alive. I’m not sure, but I like to think they could feel it.”
I feel my lips turn up in the corners as I face him head on. “Me too.”
Cas sighs from the couch. “Well, this is all really sweet guys, but we still have to talk about what those fuckers said during their torture.”
Information. I want everything I can hear — suddenly I need to solve this murder and it’s all I can think about. “What did they say? Did they give you anything?”
Cas nudges his cell phone from his pocket, one arm still holding Mara to him like a steel rod. “I don’t know. Maybe you can tell us.” He holds his phone up and plays it.
The ghostly voice of the dead man that Andy and Cas tortured earlier comes through the phone. “ Kyouka suigetsu ,” it says. I know what it means immediately, but I wait until the recording is done.
“Say the name of the organization, too,” Andy says.
“ Kantoku … Kantoku-sha .”
“ Kyouka suigetsu …. Kantoku sha ,” Andy says. He then tries to get the man to speak again before the recording turns off.
“He died right after that and that’s all we got. But we know what the Kantoku-sha is.”
“I’ve heard of it. The super secret overlords. My father didn’t tell me much about it, except that it was just another big organization out there. I guess I didn’t think much about it because I’ve been raised here in America. I just…” I speak my words through gritted teeth to push them out without crying. “I just didn’t think that some Japanese organization that my father never talked about would be able to touch me.” I realize how naive I sound, and I hate it.
Andy tells me the bit of information about it that he got from their prisoner and I nod. “Yes, that’s about all I know too.” I shrug. “I’ll have to look into it a little more.”
“Well, the guy was talking about Kantoku-sha as the organization, but it sounded like he was talking about a person when he said the other thing. I don’t know what it means. Kyouka suigetsu ?”
“Flowers in the mirror, moon on the water,” I say, biting my lip in thought. “It’s just a saying. It can mean many things. It’s sort of like a metaphor for things that you can see but not touch. Like, if you touch flowers in the mirror, you’re not actually touching flowers.”
“It sounded like they were talking about a person,” Cas reminds me.
“If it were a person… it would be someone subtle. Quiet, maybe. Someone who you’d least expect to do any of whatever they’re doing.”
“So they wouldn’t be who we expect,” Andy considers. “Doesn’t that just open it up to be anyone?”
I shrug. “Maybe. Do you think he’s the killer?”
“The guy we tortured was pretty annoyed when he said the name. Maybe he was lucid enough to realize he wasn’t going to be getting his money, but I don’t know. He didn’t seem to have much control and the name just slipped out.”
“Maybe he doesn’t like his employer,” Andy posits.
We consider this for a moment, until I change tack. “Okay, another question. Were these guys white or Japanese?”
“White,” Cas answers quickly.
“That’s what I thought, but the accent was just from the few words the guy spoke in the recording was good. No regional inflection detected, so whoever he was taught by was probably high society, well bred. Still, he was taught. You can tell when he speaks English that it is his first language and Japanese is not. Which indicates that he’s from America.”
Cas shifts in impatience. “Okay, so what?”
“Well, the organization has extensive reach in that case. It probably extends out of Japan and reaches into governments all over, but America’s government at the very least. This organization has a lot more influence than my father let on.”
“It also means we could be looking at many ethnicities of people who did this?” Andy puts together my thought.
I sigh. “Yeah. Although my father was always pretty adamant about the idea that they were based in Japan. And they worked in tandem with the government here.”
“So we don’t have any great leads, is what you’re saying,” Cas sums up.
“No, we don’t.”
No one says a word. No one quite knows what to say now. Luckily, I break the silence a moment later, as I feel a sharp pain and my stomach clenches. I put my hand to my midsection and wince. I guess the alcohol has finally turned on me.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I say, before turning on my heel and walking quickly to the toilet bowl. Halfway there, I gag and put my hand to my mouth. I’m pretty certain Andy knows I’m feeling sick, and he follows behind me at a close distance. I want to shut the door on him, but I can’t. I physically can’t because I make it to the bowl just in time and fling myself over it, throwing up the bit that I’ve eaten over the last day.
“Jesus Christ, it’s all red!” Andy says as he rubs my back.
“Cherry Slurpee and Twizzlers,” I rasp before throwing up again, this time far more neatly, right into the porcelain bowl.
“That is a lot of red food dye,” he says in quiet amazement.
A sob of hysterical laughter escapes me before I throw up again. When it’s over, I think I’m cleaned out, but unfortunately, the numbness has abated and I start to feel that overwhelming wave of grief engulfing me again.
“I thought it was g—gone,” I say, hiccuping out a sob. I grab my chest where my heart should be and squeeze. “Oh God, when is it going to be gone?”
Andy knows exactly what’s about to happen, and he sweeps me up into his arms with a strong hug. “It doesn’t matter when. Because I’ll be here,” he says, just before I break down for what feels like the hundredth time.