Chapter 35
Iknew Bishop Matthews was one of them the moment the veil slipped from his sheep’s clothing and the true wolf shone through. Kaito got to him. He had to have. Or maybe he was always a monster the minute I came here.
I didn’t leave with Jedidiah when we left the manor. I couldn’t shake the Bishop’s eyes from my back.
“Get back home. I will see you soon, Mortifera.”
I took a taxi, but it wasn’t the parish I was heading to.
I needed answers.
How many villains were in my damn story?
“Some wolves are closer than they appear, my child. Be careful which ones you let escape, or you could end up with the bullet in your neck.”
Damn Bishop.
Damn Priest.
Damn Kaito.
Damn Wolf.
Damn everyone!
I couldn’t stop shaking, no matter how far I got from the manor. That wasn’t spiritual advice. That was a threat.
Maybe I had been living like I was free, but I needed to remember I was still captive. With the threat hanging over my head, I understood something I had been avoiding for weeks:
The Crimson Carrion was still here, not fragmented and certainly not dead.
They were embedded in every step I have taken.
Bishop Matthews was not a shepherd who allowed me to learn the gospel. He was part of them.
He was the infrastructure I had never seen clearly until now.
I didn’t tell Jed about my discovery, to do that would have left too many questions I wasn’t ready to answer, and I could tell he was already alarmed by his own conclusions. We both saw the mask slip and the true predator reveal its teeth.
Had Jed known all along?
Is he part of this, too?
No.
It couldn’t be because if I said it out loud, it would make everything real.
And mostly because a huge part of me, the small, fragile, and selfish part, wanted to pretend we were just two broken people finding each other in a quiet town.
A world without collateral damage, and we were not just some pieces on an unwinnable chessboard.
We were human. It was that simple.
Despite how much I told myself this, I had lived too long inside The Crimson Carrion’s shadow and lost so much blood to not recognize the temperature shift before a strike.
This was a war.
I had to play this right and go to my enemy.
If I didn’t, I would be struck down before I ever reached the gates. I arrived at Kaito’s hotel, half expecting him to have left and found a new place, but he didn’t.
He wants me to know where he is.
His hotel room window looked right outside to the street. I knew because I had seen the view for myself. Kaito was waiting for me like the last piece of shit he was. The door opened before I knocked, proving my point. He was watching.
“Didn’t have you penciled in so soon, doll,” he said.
“I need to speak to you.”
His gaze moved slowly over me, bored and assessing.
“You look frightened.” He was laughing at me. “Hmm. Yeah. I heard something about a ‘big bad wolf’ out there. Better be careful, Sayuri. Wouldn’t want you getting hurt before you get to hold your pup.”
The mention of Jujiro had my blood chilling, like ice in my veins.
“I’m not afraid.”
He stepped aside anyway, plopping down on his lounger.
I entered the room and immediately looked for my son.
He still wasn’t here.
Where is my baby?
The air inside the room smelled weirdly sterile. The scent of his cologne and the blood were gone. There were no takeout bags around, no linen smell…nothing.
“You involved the Bishop,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
“You involved the Bishop,” he replied evenly.
“I got your message, Kaito. Please stop. We had a deal, and you gave me two weeks.”
“What message do you think you understand? Refresh my memory. I have had a really long night with a feisty whore, so I need it spelled out for me.”
My throat tightened—that poor girl.
“Stop it.”
He said nothing.
“This isn’t about me. It’s about Jedidiah.”
He laughed without humor.
“Isn’t it always about your little fuck stick?”
“We have a deal, Kaito,” I said. “Stop threatening him. How do you expect me to seduce a man you are scaring? You want me to fail. Jedidiah doesn’t know anything, and these games are pushing us apart.”
Kaito walked toward the kitchen island and poured whiskey into a glass.
The sound of it felt louder than it should have, and I winced.
“You sure about that?” he said carefully, swirling the ice around in the amber liquid. “That he has nothing to do with this. You are smart, Sayuri. Part of why you were sold to us is your wit and knowledge of our product. Funny considering you can’t even recognize what’s right in front of you.”
“Yes, I am sure, He doesn’t know anything. He is just trying to survive.”
There was a pause, and Kaito smiled with such malicious joy that I felt ill.
“Sayuri. Why do you think your little priest ran so far away from home?”
My name landed softly, yet the question made me jolt.
“Jedidiah betrayed his family. That night, my brother was killed in cold blood. That wasn’t saving some whore on the street, that was a man seeing power and opportunity.”
I waited for him to continue.
What the hell did he mean…power and opportunity?
No, he saved me from Jayce, but then he ran when he heard the cops…
“Jedidiah Franklin was part of our darling rivals, The Black Onyx Clan.”
The room didn’t move, but I felt my world tilt. Something inside me crumbled.
“What…?”
“New York chapter. Lower rank grunt pusher doing a run. I did some research into your claim. Turns out you were right. Ten years ago, your boy was there. He killed his gang’s opposing leader and ran like a little bitch.”
I stared at him, unable to comprehend what he was saying.
“No…”
“Yes. Did you really think some stranger would give a shit about you?”
I did…
“That’s not possible. Jedidiah was…he…I.”
“You think you were the only one who ran from their Masters? Guess again, darling. The holy fuck bailed when he saw his mom get ganked for starting a war.”
The words scraped down my spine.
“He’s a good man…he came here to…to be good.”
“He became a priest to hide the fact that he’s a killer. You’ve been protecting your fucking holy man, thinking he was an innocent little sheep when, baby, you fell for a wolf. A man no different than me or my fucking brother. Different blood. Same breed.”
My breathing went shallow, and I felt my heart pound so hard it pulsed in my ears.
“He saved me. He tried…it wasn’t about power. He is a good man. He…lost his mother trying to be good,” I said weakly.
Kaito’s eyes darkened.
“He chose to run and let his mother die.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not possible.”
“You are in love with the very thing you hate. The reason you haven’t held your son since he was born and the blood you have on your hands.”
My stomach turned violently, and bile rose like a burning fire up my throat.
“No,” I repeated. “No, he would have told me.”
“Oh yeah, like you told him the truth about yourself? Match made in heaven, you two. Both delusional liars.”
Silence.
A new horror bloomed, and I couldn’t push it down.
“Don’t blame yourself, Sayuri.” Kaito continued. “You were so desperate for love.”
My chest tightened.
“You were bound to fall for anyone.”
The alleyway.
The blood.
Jayce.
Jedidiah.
The night everything burned around me. It was replaying in my mind, but the story changed. I wasn’t staring at a hero who was scared of defeating a villain.
I was collateral.
He didn’t leave me there for fear of being caught. He left because he didn’t care.
I felt so cold.
“You’re lying. You have to be.”
Kaito leaned closer and licked a tear falling down my cheek. I didn’t even flinch.
“Go ask Prince Charming then. Go see if I’m lying, Sayuri. And when he tells you the truth, don’t come crying to me.”
“Why would you tell me this?” I whispered.
“Because you came here to beg for his life, and that just puts us off schedule.”
My vision blurred, and the tears fell harder.
“He is not collateral damage in this fucking deal, is he…” I said. “I am. I always was.”
“He is a liability and a mistake that needs correcting.”
“He doesn’t know who I am.”
“So you think.”
I shook my head.
“You’re twisting this. You are trying to use me, warping the truth to fit your narrative.”
“Am I? Guess you’ll find out, babe.” His voice lowered. “Did he ever tell you about the little boy he met?”
Silence.
“No? Hmm, that’s interesting. Thought he told you everything. Must have slipped his mind to tell you he introduced himself to your darling son.”
My pulse roared. He…met Jujiro?
How? When? Why didn’t he say anything?
“No…”
“Did he ever tell you about the woman he saved on the street?”
“No…”
My body froze.
“Hmm. Prophet indeed. Lies all for the greater good.”
“Why?”
My heart stopped waiting for his answer.
“Giving you your son would make you leave him. He doesn’t want that. What’s a whore good for if it runs off its leash?”
The words detonated inside me, and I staggered backward.
“That’s not true…it can’t be..he didn’t know about Jujiro…I…”
“Go ask him yourself. Did you meet a little boy? Were you in a gang? Easy questions, really.”
“He’s a priest…”
“Once a mafia man, always a mafia man, baby. You should know that.”
The pieces fell together violently in my mind. The way Jed reacted when I mentioned his past and the pain from his mother.
All his guilt, the anger, the burning…
He…knew.
“You’re lying,” I whispered again. “You have to be.”
“You came to ruin him, seduce the priest. Instead, you fell for your own tricks.” Kaito’s voice was almost gentle.
Tears burned my eyes.
“He loves me.”
“Yes. And you love him. Your true enemy.”
Silence.
“I came here to beg you not to hurt him,” I said hoarsely.
Kaito set his glass down and laughed. “Change your mind?”
I didn’t answer.
“It’s too late, anyway,” Kaito smirked.
The words landed like lead, and I swallowed.
“What do you mean it’s too late? Kaito, what did you do?”
Kaito smiled and roughly ushered me to the door. “Go home to your priest, Sayuri. Consider this your warning.”
My knees nearly gave out as he pushed me out the door.
“What does that mean!”
Slam.
He didn’t answer me. Instead, the door slammed closed. My heart pounded, half thinking of pounding on the door to demand answers.
“You made him part of this!” I hollered into the hall. “You’re the ones who—” A dark whisper filled my mind, the words cruel.
No, you did.
The drive back to the parish house in the taxi was a blur.
Jed was Onyx. Jed killed my husband for power? Jed saved me…or hadn’t he? Jed didn’t know.
Or he did?
My mind couldn’t hold all of it at once. I barely registered the parish house as it came into view. The snow was too thick, and the driver dropped me off a few yards away to avoid getting stuck.
I walked forward, letting the cold sober me and my damning thoughts.
The snow.
Red.
So much blood.
My pulse exploded in my ears, and I staggered, and the Bishop’s words hummed in my ear.
“Perhaps another hunter should be the one to put it down.”
No.
No no no no—
Jed.
I ran. I didn’t think. I just took off as fast as my feet would carry me. The snow was soaked in pools of blood, thick streaks across the steps, and bloody bootprints circling the house. More blood, handprints smeared across the door.
“Jed!”
Silence.
“Jujiro?”
No. No. No. No. Please. No.
The door creaked open, and I was afraid to enter.
So much blood.
It was overwhelming, the scent of iron overpowering, and streaks trailed down the hallway.
This was too much. No one could survive this.
My breathing turned ragged as the memories of Majorie assaulted me, and the blood flashed on my hands.
Not again.
No. Please.
The alleyway flickered in my mind.
Stop. Please.
Jayce’s body was face down in a pool of his own blood, blending with my own. I followed the trail up the stairs. They led to the bedroom and underneath the covers. My hands trembled as I reached the duvet.
Please.
Please let him be alive.
Please don’t let me find my son.
Don’t let me find Jed.
Please let them be safe.
Taking a deep breath, I ripped the sheets off, and a scream tore through my soul.
It was not a body.
It was a message.
The wolf’s head stared back at me, severed and placed carefully on the bed. Its mouth was frozen in a feared and pained snarl. The torture it had to have endured, one eye was gouged out.
And in the other was Kaito’s warning. A photograph was stabbed into the socket with a knife. It was of Jedidiah and me. Jedidiah’s face was pinned through the eye socket with the blade. The weapon was buried deep, but the message was unmistakable.
You were meant to kill.
You failed.
So we did.
We will kill him next if you don’t obey.
Be the hunter.
Or become the prey.