43. Kenzo
CHAPTER 43
KENZO
The next morning, Ronin is silent as we go up the elevator to the penthouse. I use my phone to unlock the door, but before I twist the knob, I turn to him.
“I’ll get you a key,” I say.
We’ve had our fair share of problems, but lately, I’m too tired to even think about why I shouldn’t trust Ronin. The yubitsume may be a scam, but cutting off your finger is an enormous commitment. How much is Vi willing to do to get what she wants? Marry a man? That’s pretty extreme too.
But the fact is Ronin was right about Vi from the beginning. Hell, my instincts were right too, but I thought it was an innocent lie. A game to play. Not a vicious trap. Maybe I need to give her credit for that.
Ronin bows his head in thanks, and we enter the penthouse. Vi shuffles in one of the back rooms. I can take her by myself, but with my dick already twitching at her scent, I know myself. If someone isn’t here, I’ll fuck her when I’m supposed to punish her, and I can’t keep doing that anymore.
She keeps choosing Jay over me. It fucking breaks me. I would never hurt her like he does.
Maybe I am jealous. I want her loyalty.
Vi swings around toward us, her eyes widening at me, then flicking to Ronin. She grabs a book off of the nightstand and throws it at us. Ronin deflects the book toward the wall, and I grab her. She’s no match for my strength, but she gives one hell of a struggle, and my cock pulses. I wrangle her until I’m able to present her wrists to Ronin. He cuffs her, and we put a canvas bag over her head.
The room fills with screams. It breaks me to be doing this, but I have to make Vi listen to my side of the story. Ronin’s expression is blank, unfazed by her torment. The media must be wrong; there must be more violence in Tokyo than they’d like us to believe. Maybe that’s a story meant to save face for the yakuza.
“Staff and neighbors?” Ronin asks.
No one is going to do anything if they see her, but if they do, it won’t help her anyway. The sheriff is on our payroll.
“If they see, we’ll kill ‘em,” I say. Ronin’s brows press together, but then he nods, and we’re back to work.
Luckily, the concierge is out on break. No one sees us.
We throw Vi into the back of one of Samurai Corporation’s work vans. Vi thrashes like a wild animal, but once the engine hums to life, she stills. A knot at the bottom of my stomach rolls around, growing into a huge fucking ball.
I don’t like this. Ronin, even if he is biologically Tomo’s son, is still a stranger to me. Just because there are certain rules in Japan, doesn’t mean he follows those rules. Hell, he cut off his own finger to leave his original gang. I trust him with some things, sure, but I don’t want him around her.
But I have to keep him with me. He’s earning his trust, and I need him to hold me accountable. I need to focus. This is for the Endo-kai. Nothing else matters.
The maintenance site is two huge warehouses on the outskirts of Henderson, a city just outside of Las Vegas. It’s gray and bleak. The first building is actually for maintenance: supplies, offices, meeting rooms. But the second building has two sections. The front of it hosts a laundry facility; the back is for the yakuza.
We clear out the staff doing honest work in the front of the building, then bring Vi to the back section. We tie her arms and feet to a chair.
Once that’s done, Ronin leans against the wall and smokes a cigarette. Every surface is gray—the walls, the ceiling, the floor—and the lighting is terrible, but I set up a video camera anyway. The red light flicks on, and I shift the lens until it’s aimed at the canvas bag over her head. I pull it off, and Vi blinks. I stand to the side of the camera with a plastic bag in my hand.
She’s just a liar, I tell myself. She means nothing.
“Give. Me. A. Name,” I say.
“Fuck you,” she snarls.
I slap the plastic bag over her head, keeping it sealed around her neck. She jerks around, the thin film of plastic sucking in and out of her mouth. Part of me wants her to bite it—to make herself a hole. I want her to keep fighting.
But I shove those feelings down. This is for the Endo-kai. They are my family. It’s them over everything else. If she’s a liar, then liars have to pay.
Finally, I let go, tearing the bag off of her head. She gasps, sucking in that sweet, sweet air.
“Use two bags next time in case she bites through,” Ronin says. Sick bastard. I brought him here to keep me in check like this. At the same time, I want him to shut the fuck up too. I know what I’m doing.
But he’s right, and I know it. I grab a second bag, layering them inside of each other. This time, I bend down, putting my mouth against her ear.
“I’m going to ask you again,” I say. “Who are you working for?”
“Go fuck your?—”
The bags swallow her head, and this time, I tie it at the base of her neck. Inside, her head twists, and the plastic shimmies as if whipping against the wind, but the movement is smaller this time. Panic builds, and she struggles, pulling at the bindings, her skin purple and red against the rope. Her legs spread as she bucks, trying to get the thing off any way she can, even if it kills her.
And I can’t fucking take it anymore.
I pry my fingers into the plastic, ripping a hole into the two layers, but before she can even gasp, I press my lips to hers, swallowing her air. I can barely see her mouth and nose, but her body trembles at my touch. Maybe it’s the adrenaline, the will to survive, knowing if she plays along, I’ll be more likely to let her go. But I don’t care. I force my tongue inside of her mouth, and she bites me, finally using her teeth against me. I moan at the sharp pain, wrapping my hand around her throat. She surrenders to me then, her tongue swimming against mine, and I feel myself letting go too.
Fuck it all.
I grab my knife and cut off the rope at her ankles, leaving her arms still tied to the chair, then I pull off her jeans. Ronin is back against the wall somewhere. Vi pants in that precious air, knowing it might be her last. Her legs shake, and when I unzip my pants, she kicks forward, aiming for my balls. She misses and hits my leg instead, then wails in sorrow, in fright, in self-pity, and I stroke my cock. She’s so fucking beautiful and stubborn, and all I want is her. Her knees are spread as far as they can go, her naked cunt sliding against the chair.
“You like being filmed, slut?” I ask, tilting my head toward the camera. “You like knowing my brother is watching you?” Her bagged head shifts to Ronin, then back to me, her bottom lip quivering. I step closer, bending down to her ear. The torn plastic bag crinkles against me. “You think he wants to fuck you right now? I bet he does. I bet he’s waiting for me to give him permission to fuck you unconscious. But I don’t share, do I, baby?”
Her lips drop open, and I shove my tongue inside of her, keeping my eyes open and focused on her. Her nostrils flare, but she kisses me back. I break it off, looking down at her.
“God, you’re pathetic,” I say, rubbing my dick. “All you want is to come, but I need more than that, Vi.”
I stroke the exposed part of her mouth with the back of my fingertips, shushing her, and finally, she stills. The broken bag is still around her neck and head, and through the mouth hole, I can see a tear running down her cheek.
My dick softens for a second. This isn’t a tear of overwhelming pleasure. It’s a real fucking sadness.
“Do you love me?” she whispers.
Everything inside of me tenses.
Love? She’s asking about love right now?
You’re in love with her, aren’t you? You’re protecting her, Niko had said.
I can’t take this anymore.
I lift her hips high off of the seat and thrust inside of her, slamming my mouth against hers so she can’t speak. I can’t take her words anymore—not about love. Her pussy clenches around me as she wheezes through her nose. I can’t think straight. She’s got to be screwing with me, using those words about love to confuse me until I question my every move, and damn it, it’s working. It’s fucking working. My dick is hard while my brain tries to focus on my only goal. On the Endo-kai. On my loyalty to the family that raised me. But there’s nothing left inside of me except for want. Need.
I need Vi.
I dig inside of the bag’s hole again, ripping it wider, and those blue eyes penetrate me to my core. Damp red hair clings to her forehead, soaked from fearful sweat, and she’s so fucking beautiful, it’s irritating. She may be a criminal like me, but she’s not just that. She cares about her family, and she’s loyal to a fault, and I hate it, hate it so much that her piece of shit uncle gets her loyalty, and not me.
Her stormy blue eyes fill to the brim, about to break, and I know she needs to hear me say it. To give her reassurance. To tell her it’ll be alright. That I love her. I always have.
But I can’t give her that. I encase her throat with one hand, the other tangled in her hair and rubbing against the torn plastic bags, and I kiss her. I take everything in: her sweat and her burnt-sugar body spray, mixed with the dusty concrete of the warehouse; the fragments of the bag still wreathed around her head; her trembling body against me; her orange freckled skin; her warmth—god, her warmth. She’s comfort in the flesh, and I hate it all.
Her pussy squeezes my dick in a familiar rhythm—she’s going to come like a geyser around me, and it’s all I can take. She gushes around me, and I come too, filling her up with my seed, making sure she sees everything inside me.
I briefly wonder if she’s on birth control, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. The Endo-kai is my only concern right now.
I zip up my pants, then step back. She’s half-naked, her body covered in sweat, her pussy dripping with come. To call her “disheveled” would be doing her a disservice: she’s destroyed. I hope I never forget what she looks like at this moment: a tragically beautiful mess.
My wife.
Ronin adjusts against the wall, a new cigarette smoldering between his lips, a few butts at his feet. He glances at me, but he never lets his eyes stray to her body. He’s respectful; I’ll give him that. I’d be looking if I were in his position.
So much for having Ronin keep me in line.
Now that sex is out of our systems, we can focus on the real problems between us. I snap around to Vi.
“Who is paying you?” I ask Vi.
“Just kill me,” she whimpers in defeat.
Is she serious, or is she mocking me?
I howl up at the ceiling. I can’t kill her. I won’t. I refuse.
There’s only one thing I can do.
I scrub through the audio file on the phone until I find what I want. Jay’s voice fills the room. I turn up the volume until the tinny recording of his words echoes between the concrete walls.
You find some rich couple or a rich loner, Jay’s voice says. I don’t know, but someone who’s got it all, right? But they’re lonely. Childless. Something like that. You become their long-lost relative and get them to take out a life insurance policy and put everything in your name. Those fuckers die, and you move on with cash in hand. Let their ashes rot in the funeral parlor. No one gives a damn. Easy as apple pie.
Panic fills Vi’s eyes again as she tries to find a way out. She even stares at Ronin, but he doesn’t move. He won’t save her. It’s not his place to.
And I can’t keep saving her anymore.
The recording gets to the part I want her to hear, and I crouch down between her bare legs, holding up the phone so she can see the details of the file: John’s Town Resort & Casino, the recording date last night.
Vivian, my voice chimes in.
Jay continues: I thought I had it in the bag since her parents were so fucking loaded, but maybe it’s better this way. I don’t think I could have lived with a kid’s death hanging in my conscience. Plus, she was listed before me, which means if she was living, then I had to take care of her.
Tears rush down Vi’s cheeks, and my skin itches. I’m a fucking prick. None of the shit I’ve done to her—the plastic bag, the zapper in darkness, finger-fucking her in public—none of that compares to this. This recording is going to break her, and for a split second, I wish I could take it back. To let her believe in her family. In her lies.
My body fills with weight, my throat sore. This is the right thing to do. She needs to hear it.
But she doesn’t deserve the pain.
She’s a good girl, you know? Jay says in the recording. Always does what I say.
Her head hangs low as I click off the recording. The tears keep coming, but she stays silent, and that disturbs me even more. I lift her chin until she’s looking at me. I expect her to bite or thrash her head out of my grip, to fight with that spark I love so much, but she does nothing. Like she’s slowly giving up.
Broken.
I set out for this, but my stomach is in knots. I’ve done worse to CEOs and company owners, but this? This is tearing me apart.
Still, I force myself to say these next words. I have to put the yakuza first. “Who are you and Jay working for?”
She blinks, but her lips don’t move. I run my hands over my face. I need this to be over with. I can stand her tears when we’re fucking, when it’s fear or overwhelming bliss, but when it’s pure sorrow? It’s like each tear has the superpower to drain me of my strength. I’m weak, and all I want is to rip her from those ropes and hold her. To tell her Jay may have lied and used her, but I’m here, and I will never do that to her.
But I’ve already done worse. She doesn’t even have her lies anymore. And I know she and Niko are right. I am lying to myself. I’m lying to my family. Vi is supposed to be dead, but she’s not, and I can’t keep lying anymore. I need a name.
I pick up my phone, clicking through until I find Dice’s number. I use my last resort, hoping it gets something—anything—out of Vi.
“If you don’t tell me a name, Jay dies,” I say.
Her posture sags lower, her eyes down at her feet.
“It’s a foreign client,” she whispers, and her voice is so quiet, I almost don’t hear her. “I think they’re from Japan too. But I don’t know. Jay’s the only one who has direct contact with them.”
My stomach drops. Ronin sneers, and my thoughts jump to the Ito-gumi. Shit. Maybe Ronin’s in on it too.
But why would they pay Vi to infiltrate our gang, when Ronin is clearly capable of that himself?
Right now, Ronin doesn’t matter to me. Vi does.
Vi looks down at her lap. My heart is so damn tight, I can feel every pulse. The plastic bag torture didn’t break her. Fucking didn’t hurt her at all. Not even hearing Jay’s confession about the truth behind her parents’ death broke her. The only reason she’s finally giving us information is because Jay’s life is on the line. Nothing can change her loyalty toward him. Not even hearing the truth.
I find her jeans and help her into them. She moves her hips just enough to get dressed. Her legs are free, but she’s still bound to the chair. My throat aches, and I angle toward the door.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” I say. “You wouldn’t want your uncle to get hurt now.”
Her eyes flicker up, finally meeting mine. “You made a promise?—”
“I promised I wouldn’t hurt him,” I say, pointing to my chest. “I never said anything about my family.”
It’s a loophole, but it still makes me a liar. And I hate it. Her lips curl, but I can see the hatred in her eyes.
I grab the camera, then turn off the lights. Ronin and I go through a side exit, leaving Vi alone in the darkness.
Ronin taps the exterior of the building. “You want me to stay here?”
I shake my head. We’ve got business with the rest of the Endo-kai now. Whatever this is with Vi, it may have something to do with the Ito-gumi. But recently, I’ve started to like Ronin, and I want proof from Jay it’s the Ito-gumi before we make any decisions. For that interrogation, Ronin needs to come with me, in case he’s involved. I can’t let him run.
But most of all, I want Vi to have a chance to live. And she can’t do that if Ronin is here.
She has to run away.