44. Kenzo
CHAPTER 44
KENZO
And we’re right back to where this started with Jay cuffed to a table in a holding cell. The back room of Samurai Castle is a concrete cage surrounding us, and it’s claustrophobic with all of us in there. Tomo and Cherry lean against the back wall, their lips curling in disgust. Ronin takes his place by their side, and Dice’s knuckles are blistered and red. If we were back in Dice’s dungeon, there’d be a lot more blood, but fists means he’s being hasty. Jay must be pissing him off.
Jay’s face is black and blue, with one eye swollen shut, and his kanji-marked hand twitching back and forth. “And here comes my favorite son-in-law,” he says, laughing and coughing with each word. “Come give me a hug.”
I ignore him.
“He’s a prick,” Cherry mutters.
Tomo grimaces. “He won’t say shit.”
“Where’s Niko?” I ask.
Tomo lifts his shoulders slightly. Niko’s never been one to follow orders, and though Tomo always claims it shows true leadership skills, I know it grates on Tomo. In Tokyo, Niko would have been beaten into submission until he followed the oyabun without any question, but Tomo refuses to follow in his old boss’s footsteps. Tomo may be selfish, but family means more to him than traditions. In that way, Tomo is making his own path too.
But that means Niko, even though he was the one pressuring me into taking care of business, is absent, and that irritates me. But not as much as seeing that smug, brown-and-gray-haired son of a bitch sitting in front of me.
“What?” Jay says in Dice’s direction. “You don’t like the way I stare, do you? Scared of what I might see? Fucking freak.”
Dice lunges across the table, choking Jay until he wheezes. I ignore them, flipping through the footage on the camera until I find what I’m searching for.
His niece’s red face. Tears running down her cheeks. Plastic shreds around her neck.
Dice lets go, and Jay focuses his good eye on the footage, blinking until he realizes who it is. Then he laughs.
I close my eyes as Jay’s laughter ricochets through the concrete room. Dice punches him in the eye again. Adrenaline buzzes through my body. If I truly kept to my word, I’d make sure my family didn’t touch him, but in this case, I relish in being a liar, a manipulative sōkaiya, a backstabbing asshole who doesn’t deserve Vi, just as much as Jay doesn’t deserve her.
In fact, after what his niece went through, I want Jay to feel pain. If that makes me a liar, then so fucking be it.
“Who’s your client?” I ask.
“If you don’t know by now, then I guess you’re fucked,” Jay cackles.
Dice raises his brow at me, exchanging a silent look. I don’t know exactly what Dice has planned, but I nod. He takes out his knife and stabs it into Jay’s thigh. Jay howls like a dog, but it’s a non-lethal spot. He won’t die from it, but it will fucking hurt.
Once the agony cools, Jay looks at me with a grin.
“You couldn’t get it out of Vi, could you?” He licks his bloody lips. “You’re in love with her, a pathetic little puppy dog. You can’t hurt your master, can you? That’s what we were banking on, you fucking idiot.”
Everything inside of me boils red. Maybe I am in love with Vi. What’s done is done. I can’t change that.
But we need those words out of his mouth.
“Did the Ito-gumi hire you?” I ask.
Dice swings toward Ronin, his fist still gripping the bloody knife, ready to strike. Jay laughs again. Tomo and Cherry face Ronin too.
“Ito-gumi?” Tomo asks. “Did they send you too, Ronin?”
Ronin lifts his hands in a show of defense. But Dice takes another step forward, his anger aimed at Ronin.
“I came here because I’m not going to watch Akio destroy decades of honor,” Ronin says, his voice strong. “A low-life kumicho deserves no respect.”
“You think we’re better than Akio?” Tomo snarls. “If we have to, we’ll kill you right now. Did you or did you not know Akio hired the Petruses to spy on us?”
The room is completely still. Even Jay is quiet, his eyes wide as he gawks at us. Ronin licks his lips, his nose twitching.
“I heard about a wedding. But Akio and I haven’t seen eye to eye in years,” Ronin says. “I refuse to serve an oyabun who doesn’t deserve another breath.”
“That’s low,” Tomo laughs, wiping his mouth. “But it doesn’t mean shit if you’re lying.”
Dice throws a punch, knocking Ronin in the cheek, but Ronin doesn’t retaliate. My jaw drops; I wouldn’t fight Dice either—he’s a fucking boulder—but I’m shocked Ronin isn’t defending himself. Cherry moves forward, her fists flying. I shove Dice into the wall, and then pull Ronin aside until Cherry’s off of him too.
I stand in front of Ronin, blocking him from their attacks. He may be an outsider, but he didn’t question my decisions when it came to Vi. And so far, he’s kept his word. He could have told everyone about me fucking her in the warehouse or told them I left her unguarded, but he hasn’t. I have to defend him.
“He’s our family,” I say, repeating Dice and Tomo’s words from before. “He’s not our enemy.”
Dice wipes a hand across his cheek, and Cherry crosses her arms in front of her chest. Ronin’s lip is bloody, and his cheek is slightly swollen. Dice landed a good punch. I half-smile at that.
“You want to prove yourself?” I ask Ronin, going right back into business. “Tell the Ito-gumi we know they sent spies, and if they want our guns, they’re going to have to meet our new prices.” I turn to Tomo for approval, and he nods deeply. “Fuck it. Tell them we don’t need their Shabu-8. We’ll get a new cook out here. A better cook. We don’t need them.”
“What will it be called this time? Shabu-9?” Jay cuts in.
I sneer, and Dice immediately rams the back of his elbow into Jay’s face.
“Can you do that, brother?” I ask, turning back to Ronin.
The word “brother” hangs in the air.
“I’ll make it happen,” Ronin says.
Tomo clears his throat. “Wait for Niko. He’ll sit in on the conversation,” he says. Tomo dips his chin at me. “You need to take care of Jay and Vi. They may be your legal family, but they’ve betrayed us, Kenzo. There’s only one honorable way to fix this.”
A weight settles on my chest, my insides shuddering. I couldn’t give a fuck less if Vi’s “uncle” dies. But when it comes to her?
It kills me.
She’s a bad con artist, but she’s believed in Jay’s lies her whole life. I can’t kill her for that. But the Endo-kai has been my only family since I was a kid, and this is an order from my oyabun. I took a blood oath and exchanged cups of sake, knowing I would always, always obey Tomo. You put the oyabun’s word above everything else.
But Tomo is just as careful with his words as I am. He never said I had to kill them, just that there’s only one honorable way to fix this. It’s almost like he knows my position and sympathizes with it. Tomo has a shady past of his own, especially before he split off from the Ito-gumi and started the Endo-kai. He knows what it’s like to disobey an order when it comes to a woman.
I can’t kill Vi, but I can make this work. I’ll end this. There’s no other choice.
“I will,” I say.
I nod at Dice. Dice removes Jay from the table, then binds Jay’s wrists, and hands me the rest of the rope. I lead Jay through the back stairwells, out of the resort, and into the midday sun.