5. Vi
CHAPTER 5
VI
“You told him what? ” I gasp.
“Calm down, Vi,” my cousin mumbles, but it doesn’t stop me. He’s not the one who woke up to being detained by yakuza soldiers.
“It’s bad enough they treated me like I was the one who touched the kanbu’s wife, but now the man I’m supposed to marry thinks I’m a virgin?”
Uncle Jay smiles sheepishly at me as he leans back on the headboard. He’s puffy and blue, the red cut on his face still swollen, and I swear I want to punch those jerks myself for what they did to him.
I won’t though. Because if it was up to me, we wouldn’t have agreed to take on a job targeting the yakuza.
The freaking yakuza.
But what do I know? I’m just the researcher. Not the con artist.
My cousin, Patrick, laughs. “What? It’s not like he told them you’re an aeronautical engineer.”
“But a virgin? ” I ask. “Why is that even necessary?”
Patrick squeezes my shoulder. “You can handle it. Don’t worry, Vi.”
He walks over to the motel bathroom. I rub my shoulder until his touch evaporates, then I plop down on the edge of Uncle Jay’s bed.
“Easy for you to say,” I mumble. “You’re not marrying the guy.”
“Well,” Uncle Jay interrupts. “I guess you have to pass his test first.”
“A test? What does that mean?”
“You’re going to a gala tonight.”
“A gala?”
No one says anything. I guess the gala is the easiest hurdle when you consider the last few hours, and I try not to think about how unnerving it was to sit in the cell, thinking they had killed Uncle Jay while I waited for my own fate. At one point, I was sure I was going to be executed, just like Uncle Jay, but the weird part is they didn’t even touch me.
Once they released Jay, he was escorted by some soldiers to retrieve me from my cell. And they didn’t even let me take off the blindfold until I was in the casino, almost like they didn’t want me to see anything, a concern born out of some strange need to keep me calm, I guess.
Was my future husband—no, he’s only my date for the gala right now—was my date the reason they let me go? Did he release me because he wants me to feel comfortable with him? Or did my comfort not matter at all when it came to those decisions? Was it standard yakuza protocol?
The answers don’t matter, and apparently neither do my concerns when it comes to dating and marrying a member of an organized crime group.
I bite my nails, and Uncle Jay turns on the television. A commercial about lip injections fills the room. Patrick scrubs the bristles of his toothbrush across his teeth, and Uncle Jay sinks into the pillows. His hand is thickly bandaged, it’s like he’s part mummy. Uncle Jay purposefully put his arm around the yakuza kanbu’s wife, knowing it would get him closer to the big boss. But getting a permanent scar for something small is one giant red flag, and yet, we’re still pursuing this job.
“This is for our foreign client, right? Are they Japanese too?” I ask. I’m running on a hunch; for safety reasons, Uncle Jay is the only one who has spoken with this client. He grunts, dismissing my concerns, so I ask a different question. “How much are we getting for this again?”
“Enough to get your dream house,” Uncle Jay says.
Dream house. That seems… fast.
“On the beach?” I check.
Patrick spits out his toothpaste. A dribble of foamy liquid drips down his chin.
“You’re eyeing the one in Santa Monica, right?” he asks, our eyes locking in the mirror. “Let’s just say we can buy the neighbor’s house too.”
I rub my forehead. I’m not a virgin, nor am I a con artist, but this is our biggest job yet. Why can’t the yakuza man like men? Patrick is so much better at this. A sack of potatoes can lie better than I can.
“And what if I don’t pass?” I ask, crossing my arms. I gesture at Uncle Jay. “What happens to you?”
He holds up his bandaged hand. “They made their mark,” he says. “We’re even.”
He gets up slowly, then comes and sits on the edge of the bed with me. In the bathroom, Patrick picks through his hair, his blond curls perfectly arranged. Uncle Jay puts an arm around me.
“I don’t want to do this to you,” he says quietly. “I tried to offer Patrick.”
“Really?”
He nods. “But we need this, Vi. This is going to change everything. And besides.” He sinks down. “I know you can do this. You only have to pretend to be a virgin until you do the deed. You can do it tonight if you want.” His blue eyes peer into mine, and there’s no way I can tell him “no.” Not after everything he’s done for me. “You can do this. We need you to do this, sweetheart. For our family. For us. ”
He puts his bandaged hand on my shoulder. A shot of hatred spikes through me. It’s not like Uncle Jay hurt the yakuza wife. He only put his arm around her, like he’s doing to me right now!
“But who the hell cuts their name into your skin as punishment?” I snap.
Uncle Jay chuckles. “Your future husband helped with the last part.”
I want to scream, but I force myself to look off to the side. It makes me hate my potential husband already, and I don’t even know his name.
Usually, we stay in nicer places—due to the courtesy of Uncle Jay and Patrick’s most recent “friend,” someone I’ve researched so we know exactly who we’re dealing with—but now, we’re pretending to be poor and broke. The carpet is stained with black spots, and the purple damask wallpaper is peeling behind the television. Even this motel seems like a trap.
And it’s not like the yakuza has a social media profile I can research. The biggest yakuza in Japan apparently distributes a magazine to its members, but it’s in Japanese, and that’s not what we’re dealing with here in Vegas. This is the Endo-kai mafia, rumored to own Samurai Castle Resort if I back out now, the pain will be for nothing. I can’t have that. Not when he took me in when I was a little girl. Not when he saved me from the foster care system.
He never had to take care of me, but he did. I owe him.
“We don’t ask you for much,” Patrick says right before he turns on the shower. He’s right. I’m usually tucked away in high-end hotel rooms while I click through social media profiles, finding our next target. I’m always safe while they’re out doing the heavy work, earning our money.
I sigh. “What do I have to do, anyway?”
“He’s sending some stylists in a few minutes,” Uncle Jay says, wincing at the pain. “That should be fun.”
“Like right now?”
Someone knocks on the door, shaking the whole motel room. I freeze. Patrick’s already in the shower, so I look at Uncle Jay, hoping he’ll answer it.
“He’s sending a makeup artist. Not some soldiers,” he says. “Go on. You’re a big girl. They aren’t going to bite.”
My heart pounds in my throat, but I swallow it down and walk a few steps over to the door. My chest is heavy as I reach for the handle.
I’m not doing this for my future husband.
I’m doing this for my family.