30. Kenzo
CHAPTER 30
KENZO
At the penthouse, Vi is mixing up a storm in the kitchen. It reeks of flowers and cinnamon, and though I’m positive the candles will be great, right now, a headache stirs between my temples.
She moves her reddish-orange hair off of her forehead, then resumes pouring the wax into a glass container. Amusement lingers on her face the whole time, and my heart stops.
“Hey,” Vi says. “Didn’t realize you were going to be home. I would’ve made you lunch.”
I want to believe her, so I wrap my arms around her waist and kiss her neck. Perhaps she’s playing me. Pretending like she’s the housewife of my dreams. Maybe candle-making is an alibi to get her out of snooping. The door was open to my office the day after our wedding. Even if I left it unlocked, I’d never leave the door open. She was definitely in there.
“You okay?” she asks, reading my mood. I put on a fake smile. I’ve got no proof, so there’s no reason to be on her case yet.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “I’m not the one who lost a cousin.”
“I told Uncle Jay,” she says. She sniffles. She fucking sniffles. My gut sinks. Even if it’s a fake performance, it breaks me. I don’t regret what I did, but I still wish I could take away that pain from her. To go back in time and kill Patrick long before we ever met.
“I told him Patrick got caught stealing Shabu-8. He’s convinced we’re next.”
It may be a lie to make me sympathize with her, but I can’t stop myself from shaking my head in disbelief. Why do I care so much about her? She’s just supposed to be my stand-in date for social events. An arranged marriage. Not my chosen wife.
I’m sorry he raped you, I want to say. That he pretended to protect you. That he manipulated you into thinking that raping you was okay. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you long before your uncle walked into our casino.
“You’re safe,” I whisper. “I’m sorry it hurt you.”
“Patrick was an idiot,” she says nervously, her eyes fixed on the candles in front of her. “But you don’t get to choose your family.”
Those words hang in the air. I understand where she’s coming from. Her parents were killed, and she’s lucky Jay took care of her. Hell, I’m lucky she wasn’t put into a better home, because then, we wouldn’t be here right now. She wouldn’t be my wife.
She’d probably be better off with some straight businessman, making babies and living in the dream home she’s always wanted.
But Jay brought me his niece. At the very least, I can thank him for that.
“I had a good home,” I say out of the blue.
She wipes out the double boiler with a paper towel, the partially cooled wax collecting on the quilted surface.
“Huh?” she asks.
“Back in Los Angeles. With my biological parents,” I say, scratching the back of my neck. “But I didn’t want to be a doctor. Or an engineer. Didn’t want to be a lawyer. I didn’t even want to go to school. But my parents put everything into my academic future. Private tutors. Violin lessons. Extracurriculars I didn’t care about. I started sneaking out as soon as I could. Stole shit. Got into fights.”
I settle into a seat at the dining table and put my head in my hands. Looking back, I know I was an ungrateful idiot for doing that to them, but as a kid, my entire world was run by instinct and desires. If I’m being honest, my world still is. I’ve just got more perspective now.
“They’re better off without me,” I say. Still are.
“You weren’t, like, sold into the yakuza, were you?” she asks.
I laugh. “You think we do child trafficking?”
“I don’t know what the Endo-kai is capable of.”
“Fair enough,” I say, though it’s slightly insulting. If Tomo had heard her, he’d be pissed, so I’m glad it’s just us right now. Vi twists open a new bottle of fragrance oil.
“What happened?” she finally asks.
And suddenly, I’m in those memories, staring up at my old middle school. All looming brick and failure. A lump forms in my throat.
“There was this early admittance exam for middle schoolers to take classes at the university. With special permissions, I could have taken classes at UCLA,” I explain. I laugh; it seems so stupid now. “But I hadn’t studied, and with the little amount of free time I had, I didn’t want to spend it in college. I wanted to be on my own.”
I wring the back of my neck. I was such a spoiled brat back then, and it took me years to figure that out. By then, I was already part of the yakuza. Luckily, Tomo has always worked with me. He knows I can’t stay still. It’s why he’s given me multiple jobs.
And it’s not like my parents would take me back anyway.
“I hitchhiked to Vegas,” I explain. “It was a long ride.”
Vi gives a half-smile from the kitchen. “I bet.”
“I ended up outside of this little casino Tomo used to run protection rackets for. If it had been any of the wakashu —yakuza soldiers, that is—I would’ve gotten the shit kicked out of me.” I chuckle, remembering the way Tomo looked at me like I was a cold, dirty mouse trapped in a cage, crying for help. “But because it was Tomo, I got a bed and a house to clean. ‘Work it off,’ he had said. He didn’t even question whether or not I’d accept his offer.”
“And did you?”
I nod. “He took care of me from then on.”
That was when I met Dice, Cherry, and Niko. Dice was adopted into the family like I was, and Tomo had Niko with another woman, which makes Cherry the only child technically born within wedlock.
But Tomo and Gracie still raised all four of us like we were their own blood.
It’s hard to avoid the similarities of my history and Vi’s. Just like Tomo raised me, Jay had gladly stepped into the role of raising Vi. And while her parents were killed, I left my biological parents back in Los Angeles by choice, but Tomo and Gracie stepped into that parental role as soon as I needed them. At twelve years old, I had no idea how much I needed them. I’m grateful Tomo found me.
“Anyway, I get it,” I say. “When you said sometimes you hurt your family, even if you don’t want to? I understand that. A little too well, actually.”
I scrub a hand over my face. Vi had said those words referring to Patrick, and I hate putting myself in the same position as him, but I want to relate to her right now, to show her I know where she’s coming from. That she’s better than me.
“I was an ungrateful son, but I still think it was the best thing for all of us,” I say.
Vi pauses her movements, keeping her eyes on her hands. I swallow a lump in my throat. I shouldn’t be telling her this—she can use it against me or the Endo-kai—but it’s already out.
“I still send them money,” I say quietly. “Don’t know if they actually cash the money orders, but in my mind, that money is theirs. And I’ve got a couple of people in L.A. who keep tabs on them for me.”
Vi comes over and puts a hand around my shoulder, and I hold her palm tight against me. I hate it, but I’m attached to her. Whether it’s with mafia secrets or my own stupid history, I don’t want to be careful around her.
“Sometimes, you do get to choose your family,” I say. It’s like I’m begging her to choose the Endo-kai, to choose me. And maybe I am. If that means I have to be the bigger man and accept Jay too, then I’ll consider it. For her.
I’ll do anything as long as I don’t have to fulfill my duty of killing her.
She returns to the kitchen and fiddles with her supplies again. I must have said something wrong. I push my chair back, but I don’t move. She organizes the materials, and I try to figure out what I said to make her retreat back to her candles.
“My uncle is nervous,” she says. “He thinks we’re next.”
We. He thinks I’d kill him and Vi?
I shake my head. “He’s got nothing to worry about.”
“Try telling him that.” A few more seconds pass, and then she jumps up, her face lighting up like the Strip at nighttime. “Hey! What if we had a family dinner? Jay can get to know your family, and you’ll get to know him. It’ll be good for all of us.”
There’s a twinkle in her eye, a genuine hopefulness. Even if Jay is a piece of shit, I want to make her happy.
“Like a real family,” I say.
She bobs her head with excitement. “Do you want kids?”
I gawk at her, completely stunned she’d jump to kids after what I’ve put her through. After the secrets I told her. When she knows I’m part of the yakuza.
She lifts her shoulders with a playful grin. “I know we’re not at that point, but I don’t know. I guess I always dreamed about it. Having my own family. Somewhere where I can make my kids feel safe. Just like you make me feel safe.”
There’s a dreaminess in her eyes, and my heart beats for her. Oil stains dot on her apron, and there’s a smear of dye on her cheek. She tucks hair behind her ear, and I fucking melt. Everything about her is perfect.
“Your own kid?” I ask. “Biological?”
“Maybe! Or adoption. Actually, yeah.” She laughs and wipes her nose. “That’s what I want. I want to give someone a home, like Uncle Jay did for me. Like what Tomo did for you.”
I nod. That makes sense. Kids don’t get to choose their family, but as parents, we can choose for them. And we can choose to give them safety and comfort. A home. Like Vi wants.
“What about you?” she asks.
I had never thought about getting married until recently, and having kids hasn’t been on my radar until this moment. I guess I had always assumed I would get married and have kids, because that’s how society dictates our lives. But because of the Endo-kai, a family isn’t something I’ve had on my to-do list. Being in the yakuza is having an extended family beyond blood, and that goes for your kids too. I don’t know if it’s right to bring a child into this criminal world.
But it’s an option. If Vi wants it.
For a moment, I imagine filling her up with my come and giving her that family, but that’s not what she wants. I may be impulsive and greedy, but I can still listen. And if Vi wants a family of adopted children, how can I resist giving that to her?
I don’t think about the future, and yet I want to give Vi everything she wants.
“Adopting sounds nice,” I say.
She burrows her face into my chest, that burnt sugar scent somehow breaking through the fragrance oils and going straight to my head. A smile brightens her face, and I swear to god, warmth and lightness grip me, forcing me down to my knees. I want to make her smile like that every day.
Then it dawns on me: we’re sitting and talking. Maybe it’s due to my own reckless behavior, but I’ve never had that with a woman before. That’s the kind of hold she has on me: Vi makes me slow down. And I don’t even notice.
“Even if we have a kid, I can never leave the Endo-kai,” I say, hoping she understands. Any kids we have will be involved in the yakuza for life, just like Vi and me.
“Of course you can’t,” Vi says. “That’s your family.”
My family.
Vi knows what the Endo-kai means to me, and she accepts it. Just like she wants me to accept her uncle.
I want to do the same for her.
“About that family dinner,” I say. “So your uncle, Tomo, Mama, and all of us fucked-up yakuza kids?”
She nods, and I put my arm around her. There are options, but sushi is always my go-to choice, especially for family gatherings.
“Does your uncle eat fish?” I ask.
She shrugs. “He’ll basically eat anything.”
I wink at her. “Then we’ve got a party to plan.”