Chapter 46
Six weeks.
Six weeks since the gunshot echoed through the church and rewrote my storybook ending.
Six weeks since Jed fell bleeding against a holy stone, two bullets left inside his body.
Six weeks since Kaito dragged me back to New York like reclaimed property.
Six weeks since I had gotten my son back in my arms.
This wasn’t survival.
All of this was borrowed time. I survived by obedience and obedience alone. I knew from a young age how to be obedient.
How to let a white man think he controlled my every breath.
My mother was a hostess at a soaphouse. Even being a child, hidden under the booths, I saw her submit to them.
There was no other option, no ability to say no if you wanted to survive. I didn’t care about my life, but I needed my son to be safe. Something my mother taught me long ago was ‘Submission isn’t surrender, it is camouflage.’
I bent when Kaito expected me to break. I listened when he bragged and stood up for him when others wanted to see him fall.
I smiled when he paraded power in front of me, and I learned the schedules, the guard rotations, the way the men spoke when they thought women were furniture.
I learned it all, and I watched.
Every night, each whispered argument and all the coded phrases exchanged between lieutenants of the clans.
The Black Onyx Clan wasn’t as airtight as they believed, and neither was The Crimson Carrion despite their need for bloodshed. They needed each other.
Men were too arrogant to agree to share simply, and so the constant blood bath never ended.
By week three in this hell, I knew which routes were safe and where every drop was held.
By week four, I knew which man was lying about loyalty and how to break him for the truth.
By week five, I had a name—someone who fed information to both The Crimson Carrion and The Black Onyx.
A man who survived by standing in the middle of two blades and never flinching from either.
By week six, I made contact with the ghost, and now I was ready to meet him. My last night of illusioned safety was falling apart, shattering my heart.
None of this mattered.
It was only about him.
Jujiro.
My son.
I got too used to his smiles. Every second of the six weeks was spent with stolen morning giggles and games. Hours spent learning the shape of his brilliance, and the way he slept curled up like a panda bear.
He dreamed aloud.
His words always whispered in my arms, unfinished and fragile. I had six weeks of pretending I wasn’t memorizing him for his absence. I toyed with his pale blond hair with shaking fingers, telling myself this was my only option.
You can’t live in a storybook knowing there is a dragon at the end waiting to burn everything you love.
I told him stories every night, stories where monsters were clever but mothers were braver and kept the sweet prince safe.
Tonight…I am the monster instead.
The compound slept heavily, arrogant, as I picked up Jujiro from his slumber.
Kaito trusted routine more than locks, and my docile obedience allowed me to move around freely.
I wrapped a blanket around my son. He looked like a sumi-e painting.
It was beautiful, encasing him in beauty when the world felt too dark.
He sensed something like small toddlers always do. His small hands clutched my sleeve as we moved through corridors I’d counted a hundred times in my head, routing to the second my destination.
Outside, the night swallowed us whole, and I reprimanded myself to keep moving forward and not turn back.
This is for him, not you. Be strong, because you can’t lose both of them.
The black van waited where I’d been told it would be, and beside a figure stood in a dark coat, with darker eyes.
There was no insignia, and no questions or greetings were spoken. The door to the van opened, and I swallowed my sadness.
This was real, so I needed to be strong…for him. Jujiro began to cry, and his small sound, so thin and terrified, broke my chest open wide.
I felt like someone had struck me.
Yet again, I had to say goodbye.
Yet again, I was losing the only thing that mattered to me.
I knelt down, pressing my forehead to his, breathing him in like oxygen I needed for the rest of the road ahead.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, kissing his wet cheeks, his trembling mouth, and his brow. “My presence brings you nothing but danger, my love.”
He shook his head, his sobs turning frantic, fists tight in my shirt. “Mommy. No. Don’t leave me.”
I almost didn’t let go of his little hand as the figure took him away from my grip.
“I love you,” I said, forcing the words to stay steady. “I love you so much, Jujiro. Please, let my sacrifice bring you life and peace.”
His tiny hold broke from mine, and my heart shattered as the doors closed.
The moment the van drove away, and I couldn’t hear his soft cries any longer, something vital tore loose inside me.
Jujiro screamed my name as they disappeared into the dark, and I stayed kneeling long after the night swallowed them both.
I didn’t cry until I was alone.
This was the cost of his survival.
This is how he stays alive.
“I’m sorry. “ I wailed to the broken black sky. “I tried to save you…and now I’ve lost you both.”