Chapter 11 #2
The woman Reiko presumed to be her father’s secretary finally turned her attention to Reiko and made a very strange face.
It looked like she was trying to hold in a laugh and yet at the same time was absolutely horrified.
She folded both arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes in a glare.
“You thought I would fall for that? Without even offering proof? I’ve worked in this office for four years, honey.
Mr. Matsunaga has no daughter.” She snapped out an arm, pointing past them.
“Now leave immediately or I’ll call security. ”
Reiko sucked in a breath. She really shouldn’t have been surprised that the secretary who’d replaced the one who’d gone behind her father’s back in reaching out to her had been kept in the dark about her existence. But it seemed like that didn’t add up to him calling her over for a meeting.
Not if the meeting was honest.
The secretary’s expression melted into a glare at their lack of instantaneous movement and she turned toward her desk.
“You don’t want to do that,” Santino said, the subtlest of warnings lacing his tone.
She froze and glanced back at them. “And why not?”
Reiko angled her gaze up at him, too. Mostly because his face was much more appealing to look at than the secretary who kept glaring at her and denying her existence simultaneously.
The grin on his face was not the warm and seductive one she was familiar with. It was strange how different such a similar expression could be. “Maybe you should just tell your boss Santino Guerra’s in his lobby, and this is the only time I walk peacefully through the front door.”
“S-Santino … Guerra?” The secretary’s face had drained of color when Reiko looked her way again.
The woman moved a hand up to the base of her throat, heaved a breath, and said, “Yes, of course, Mr. Guerra. Please give me just a moment.” She rushed back around her desk and picked up the phone.
Her next words were hushed and spoken in hurried Japanese, but the lobby itself was quiet, so Reiko had no trouble understanding her.
Santino leaned down until his lips were beside her ear. “All I got from that was ‘sorry’. What’s she saying, beautiful?”
Reiko bit back a smile. When he’d said he’d learn the language, she had assumed he’d meant he would be starting from zero. Apparently, she had been wrong. She whispered back, “She’s apologizing for her interruptive call and informing him that you’re here. And getting lectured, I think.”
The secretary hung up while she was speaking, and Santino straightened once Reiko’s explanation was done.
Not ten seconds later, the inner office door—a semi-invisible design on the far wall—flew open and Reiko’s brother stepped out. He was wide-eyed and almost frenzied looking. It wasn’t an expression Reiko ever remembered seeing on him before. But then, she hadn’t seen him in a very long time.
He came up short, his eyes snapping from Santino to her and his nostrils flaring. “What is this?”
The secretary leaned over her computer. “Ah, th-this is—”
Hiroto shot out a hand to silence her, never taking his glare from Reiko.
Reiko offered him a smile he didn’t deserve.
“Ohayō, otōto.” It was the greeting she’d once always given him, and it felt poetic to offer on what she had decided—regardless of everything else—would be the last time they communicated.
No matter what Santino chose to do with her brother, she was done with him and his annual guilt, too.
Hiroto’s lips curled up in a sneer. “I see you’ve found nerve.
How repulsive.” His expression fell as quickly as it had appeared and he shifted his stare to Santino as if Santino weren’t literally holding her.
“Mr. Guerra, apologies.” He stepped slightly aside and motioned to the office. “My father has time for you now.”
“Hn. How gracious.” Santino moved them forward as one.
Hiroto again held out his arm, this time with his extended palm practically in Reiko’s face. “Just you, sir. This filth is not allowed.”
Both of her eyebrows shot up. Reiko was a bit surprised he was being so openly hateful.
Santino reacted as if he’d seen it coming.
He latched onto Hiroto’s extended wrist and spun Hiroto bodily until her brother was on Santino’s opposite side, arm twisted behind him, almost as if they were dancing.
Santino spoke in a firm but controlled tone that carried over Hiroto’s startled, yelping outcry.
“No, little brother, we will all three be going inside. I’m calling a family meeting, and if you’re smart, you’ll watch your fucking mouth. ”
He gave Hiroto a shove, causing Hiroto to stumble in ahead of them, then guided her with him at a calm pace.
Armando’s presence fell away from their backs a moment before the door clicked shut, and Reiko realized he would be staying outside.
Santino didn’t seem startled or bothered, so she chose not to question the choice.
She wasn’t familiar with her father’s office, of course. She’d never seen the inside of it. And it may have been her mood, but she wasn’t overly impressed. He’d done a tacky job of layering Japanese décor over pre-existing, Western-modernist architectural design.
Hiroto had backpedaled all the way to the far side of their father’s desk, where he stood, rubbing his arm and glaring silently.
Her father sat back in his worn leather chair, a familiar, severe frown bending his lips.
He’d lost a fair amount of hair since Reiko had seen him last, but he seemed to be embracing the look.
It was so well-structured, in fact, that she suspected he was exaggerating it.
Was he still calling himself a “corporate samurai”?
It was hard to keep a straight face at the thought.
Osamu threaded his fingers together low over his lap. “You’ve disobeyed me, Reiko.” He spoke the words like a solemn lord on the precipice of ordering an execution. Then his gaze finally left her, the glare softening to something more cautious. “And what’s this? I’d heard you were fired.”
“Relieved of her former position,” Santino countered, his tone misleadingly light.
“Reiko was very surprised to get that text from you this morning, but she said you mentioned being worried about her future. So, I thought it’d be best if we came together and let you see for yourself that her future is secure.
” He lifted his hand from the small of her back to curl his entire arm around her shoulders, keeping her tight at his side and dangling the tips of his fingers just a little lower than was decent on her chest. “In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s fucking shining. ”
Reiko hadn’t known it was possible to put such a terrifying threat into such optimistic, arguably brightly said words.
But he’d done it. There was an undercurrent in Santino’s tone that built the more he spoke, taking his message from faux-casual to lethal and scathingly poignant without ever obligating him to speak of violence or lower his voice at all.
If the man ever wanted to work behind the scenes, he’d make a killing in voice acting.
So, there was no rational explanation for the utterly inappropriate way her own body had responded while he spoke. Thank goodness she could get away with holding still for the next several seconds.
Her father’s eyes widened, but he didn’t find his voice fast enough to cover up Hiroto’s inelegant stammering.
He cleared his throat roughly and spoke over his son’s nonsense in a hard, accusatory tone.
“I do not know what you’re speaking of.” Osamu’s glare cut back to her.
“I’ve not communicated with that disappointment in thirteen years. ”
Hiroto took a half-step forward. “Mr. Guerra, if you’ve not come here to discuss business with my father, I’m afraid you’ll need to leave. My father is a busy man and has no time for games.”
Santino flicked the wrist of his free hand with less courtesy than he’d used to dismiss the maid the day before. “Overindulged dimwits should keep their yaps shut if they don’t want to be punished.”
Osamu surged to his feet, palms slamming on his desk. “How dare you—”
“Aren’t you the funny one?” Santino cut in, his hand dipping into a pocket as a low buzzing reached Reiko’s ears.
“Everyone in this room knows you told Reiko you were expecting—no, my bad, that you were demanding—she come see you this morning.” He swept his thumb across the screen of his phone while he spoke, barely seeming to glance at the display.
Reiko couldn’t see it at all from her angle.
Then he turned it wholly around, facing outward.
“This is the driver you sent to collect her, isn’t it?
” He clicked his tongue in a clear message of disapproval.
“Lousy choice, Pops. Wanna bet I could find the tag on that cheap-ass rental suit this punk’s wearing if I zoomed it in? ”
Reiko swept her gaze between the extended phone and her abusive relatives, watching as Hiroto went paler than she could remember and her father flushed with anger. She recognized that flush. It had never failed to precede an outburst that hurt her.
Osamu’s hands balled into fists, everything about his outward expression going hard. “I’ve never seen that man before, nor do I have any idea what you’re speaking of. As I said—”
“Yeah, I’m not interested in your bullshit,” Santino interrupted. He pulled his arm in and tapped a couple times on the screen again. “Let’s just clear this right up, then, shall we? Since we’re all here.”
Hiroto puffed. “What nonsense are you babbling?”
Ringing filled the air as Santino sent out a call, on speaker. While it rang, he said, “Oh, just proving a point.”
Whatever either might have said in response was cut off when the line connected. It took Reiko a moment to place the voice, but she recalled his name even as it fell from Santino’s lips. The man on the phone was Marco, and he’d sat outside her apartment for most of the previous day.
“Marco, put our guest on the line. I need a word.”
“Sure thing, Boss.” There was some shuffling, a muted curse in another male tone, and then the unfamiliar voice spoke.
“What kinda shit-fuckery is this? Hah? All I did was knock on some bitch’s door!”
Reiko pursed her lips. She didn’t doubt who the ‘bitch’ was in his scenario.
The faux-levity disappeared from Santino’s voice, a chilling aura rolling off him. “Surely you haven’t forgotten me, Sticky Fingers.”
There was a long beat of silence before the voice spoke again, a bit tighter and notably more reserved. “You know I hate that nickname.”
Santino shrugged. “Don’t blame me for your bad habits. Speaking of, let’s talk about today.”
“Like I said, all I did was—”
“Insult her again and Marco removes one of those thieving digits with the dullest butter knife he can find.” Santino paused for barely a second, his words for the phone but his glare lifting across the room. “And for good measure, he’ll have you swallow the fucking thing while it’s still bleeding.”
Hiroto gagged and turned aside, clamping a hand over his mouth as if the mere notion were too much.
Reiko couldn’t read her father’s expression at all. He’d turned completely to stone.
Santino adjusted the arm he still had over her shoulder, so that it was looped around and his hand was curled around the side of her arm rather than dangling over her breast. Still, he spoke into the phone.
“Now that we understand each other, I need you to tell me in explicit detail what you were hired to do today. Start to finish, spare no details—put emphasis on who hired you, please. Whatever money they still owe, I’ll double it for you to forget about all of this as soon as we’re done. How’s that sound?”
Sticky Fingers blew out a breath, the sound aggravated. “’s not like I give a shit about that old man or his stuck-up son. Sure. You pay me and I don’t even have to do the nasty part? Easy deal.”
A chill rolled through Reiko at his words. Nasty part.
How did that not verify all on its own that her father had tried tricking her into walking into a death trap? A literal assassination plot.
She still didn’t understand why. Why the silence wasn’t good enough anymore. Why he couldn’t forget what he claimed to despise so deeply.
“Be efficient,” Santino said, his grip tightening.
“This is ludicrous!” Osamu finally bellowed. “A phone call proves nothing!”
Sticky Fingers laughed, the sound almost cackling through the line.
“Oh, shit. Is the old samurai-wannabe dude there with you?” He took a breath.
“Okay, so, Monday, like, late, I met up with these two guys—Japanese, I guess. The old one dressed like some warlord from one of those D-Grade movies. Anyway, Old Guy barely made a sound. Just stared me down the whole time like he was somebody and made his son do all the talkin’.
Handed me half the cash up-front, with extra so I could pay for what they were askin’.
Like props. I had to fuckin’ rent a Town Car, wear a goddamn monkey suit like somebody’s already dead, and act like I drove it for a living.
They gave me a burner and promised to text instructions once I got the shit.
“So, this mornin’, I got the shit, and I was told to come pick up the target.
Some lady who looks kinda like them, but what the fuck do I know?
My job was to drive her out east, make it like I was some hosier tryin’ ta get back at my boss, and put one in her head.
He wanted pics, you know, for proof. Then I was to toss her in the river with whatever she’d brought with her.
Return the car clean, get paid, walk off. That was it, I fuckin’ swear.”
Reiko’s head was spinning by the time Sticky Fingers finally stopped talking.
It was true. Her weird, inexplicable fear had been valid. Her father had taken an actual hit out on her … the very day she’d lost her job. The anniversary of her mother’s death.
Santino’s hand dragged down to her hip—her scarred hip—as his voice broke the resulting silence. “Marco. Put our sticky-fingered friend in touch with Freddie, make sure Freddie knows I expect my promise to be honored.”
“Yes, Boss,” Marco’s voice replied.
Santino dropped his phone into his pocket and let out a heavy exhale. “Well, Pops—”
Osamu punched the side of his fist against his desktop. “Your insolence goes too far, Guerra! This is my office. How dare you speak to me in such a manner, accuse me of such a crime, or bring that”—his fist swung outward, one finger extended, toward Reiko—“into my presence!”
The harsh words spurred Reiko like the bite of a switch across her flesh. She broke from Santino’s strong and comforting embrace, marched entirely around the desk, and smacked her open palm across her wide-eyed father’s face with all the pent-up fury in her broken heart.