Chapter 29
Rei Kurosaki
I came home today after two long months of avoiding this place like it was poison. The door felt like a dead sentence when I pushed it open. I did not know why I felt that way.
I had texted my mom back the night before.
Finally. After weeks of ignoring her half-hearted messages, I had given in and said I was coming home.
She had replied with something vague and polite, the way she always did when she remembered I existed.
I thought she would be here. I wanted her to be here, even if I hated myself for still craving that. But the place was silent.
My chest tightened as I stepped further in.
“Mom?”
“Mom, you here?”
Nothing.
My heart started beating faster. Something felt off. I called again, louder this time, switching to the language I had not used in a year.
“Okaasan?”
Still nothing.
“Okaasan? Where are you?”
Then I saw him.
Daniel stood by the marble island. Fucking hell. He had to be here. Of course he was.
My scowl hit instantly. “Where’s Mom?”
“She isn’t home,” he said smoothly.
I did not want to stay. I turned toward the door without another word, already regretting stepping foot in this place. “Then I’ll come another time.”
I reached for the handle. It did not budge. I yanked on the door again, harder this time. Nothing. Locked tight.
I spun around fast.
Daniel was pointing a gun at me.
My eyes widened. Fear slammed into me.
“What the hell are you doing?” The words came out trembling in a panic I could not hide.
He tilted his head slightly. “Sit down, Rei.”
I did not want to. But the fear was bigger than my pride right now. I was scared. Really fucking scared. So I moved slowly and sat down.
Is he going to kill me?
Daniel lowered the gun a fraction but kept it ready, then sat across from me in the armchair like we were about to have a civilized conversation. One leg crossed over the other. Completely at ease while my heart tried to beat its way out of my chest.
“Your mother hasn’t been texting you,” he said. “It was really foolish of you to think she would, when she has me to distract her.”
Of course. How could I have been so stupid?
“Your mother thought you were at Marco’s.
Even though it has been two months since you last set foot in this place, she did not care how long you stayed away.
She has always been like that. When you are here, she smiles and plays the perfect mother.
But the second you walk out that door, you cease to exist to her.
She is too busy with her distractions. With me. ”
I had believed her. Texted back the night before like some pathetic kid still starving for scraps of attention after everything.
I had still held onto the stupid, childish hope that Mom gave a shit.
That maybe this time she would actually want to see me.
But no. She was too wrapped up in Daniel’s lies and whatever the fuck he was doing to distract her to even notice I had been gone for months.
I felt small. Pathetic. Ashamed for ever thinking I mattered beyond being the son she could parade when it suited her and forget the rest of the time.
“Why? What the hell are you trying to do here? Pointing a gun at me in my own home like this. What’s the fucking point?”
He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.
“In three months, you turn twenty. And when that day comes, everything changes. The entire Kurosaki empire your father built before he died. It all transfers to you. Everything currently sitting under your mother’s name becomes yours the moment you hit that birthday.
I cannot let that happen. I have spent so long positioning myself here, marrying into this family.
You are going to steal it all from under me the second you are of age. I will not allow it.”
I felt my blood turning cold, but at the same time I was connecting dots I had tried to ignore.
The inheritance. I had known it was coming.
It was buried in legal papers and family meetings I had never wanted to sit through.
For now everything was under Mom’s name, but the companies, the fortune, the real power.
It all went to me when I turned twenty. Three months.
He was scared I would take it all from him.
Scared I would cut him out the way he deserved.
Originally it was supposed to all go to Kento, but Kento had always been distant, even with my dad, and had made it clear he did not want anything involving the family business.
So my dad made me the heir. I did not particularly want to do it either, but when he asked me when I was young, I did not say no.
I loved him and I did not want both of his sons to refuse him.
I swallowed hard, the gun still a black hole in my vision, and pushed back even though my voice cracked. “And you are going to kill me to stop that? Do you really think you can get away with it? People will notice. Kento will come for you. The lawyers will—”
He chuckled, like I had said something amusing.
“Your mother is easily managed. She already believes whatever story I feed her. As for the lawyers and the rest of them… accidents happen in families like ours. Tragic suicides. Mental breaks that no one questions when the heir has been spiraling for months. It is all very believable.”
I stared at him, fear twisting tighter in my gut, but underneath it something else was starting to click.
As he talked about killing me, about stopping me from taking what was mine, my mind flashed back to things that had happened over the last few months.
Daniel. He had hired that man to drug me.
He had arranged it. And the dead fingers showing up in my locker at school.
Those grotesque, rotting things that had made me gag and run to the bathroom to throw up.
Those were not random harassment either.
He had put them there. Or had someone do it.
He wanted to terrorize me publicly so that I would either kill myself or get declared unfit.
So he could keep the fortune. Keep the power. I felt sick.
My vision tunneled for a second, the gun blurring in front of me while memories I had tried to bury came back.
If Dimitri had not held me in his house for so many weeks, he would have probably tried terrorizing me at home too.
Daniel kept talking, proud of how elegant his original plan had been.
“Originally, I wanted to take a gentler approach. You are already mentally fucked, aren’t you?
If I pushed around a little, you would do me the favor of either killing yourself or being declared mentally incapable of leading anything.
It would have been clean. Just another unstable heir who could not handle the pressure of his legacy.
No one would have questioned it. Your mother would have grieved in public and moved on in private. And I would have had everything.”
It felt like he was pouring acid on open wounds.
Daniel leaned forward slightly, gun still steady in his hand, eyes flat and empty. “But that Russian boyfriend of yours has been ruining my plans.”
He leaned back in the armchair.
“He took you,” he said, “and I had no way to get to you while you were hiding behind his walls. That mansion of his is locked down like a fortress. I really thought texting you from your mother’s phone would not work.
I figured you were smarter than that. But after some pushing…
here you are. You came crawling back after all. ”
He smiled, satisfied.
“It was difficult, you know. I obviously could not reach you where Dimitri keeps you. So getting you here was the only option I had. I also knew you would not bring him with you.”
My hands were shaking in my lap. I forced my voice out anyway.
“There are bodyguards outside,” I said quickly. “If they hear a gunshot, they will come running. You will not even make it out the front door.”
Daniel’s smile did not fade.
“Who says I will use a gun?”
He stood up and walked over to the marble island. I heard the sound of a drawer opening. When he turned back around, he was holding a large kitchen knife.
He sat down again, this time with the knife resting on his knee instead of the gun.
“This is just in case of an emergency,” he said, waving the gun in the air. “If you try something stupid.”
I was shaking so hard I could barely breathe.
“You will not get away with this. Even if you kill me… Kento will—”
“Kento will what?” Daniel cut in, laughing. “You think he gives a shit about you? He is barely around. When was the last time that brother of yours even looked at you? He shows up when it is convenient, and disappears again.”
I opened my mouth, but what was I supposed to say? He was right.
I had no one.
But then something crossed my mind.
Blue eyes.
Dimitri’s eyes.
I thought about the way he looked at me when he thought I was not paying attention. The way he woke up before the sun just to find a flower for my hair. The way he cooked for me even when he was exhausted. The way his voice softened when I had nightmares, the way he held me.
He cared about me, right?
He could not just be playing. He could not.
Could he?
My eyes burned. Tears welled up before I could stop them.
I hated how fast they came. I hated that I was crying in front of Daniel, but I could not hold them back.
The thought of never seeing Dimitri again.
Never hearing him call me “little fairy.” Never feeling his arms around me when the panic gripped me. It made me so scared.
I did not know what came after death. I did not believe in anything nice waiting on the other side. But if there was nothing… I did not want to disappear from the only place that Dimitri was.
“Dimitri…” I whispered. “He… he would care. He would come for me. He—”
Daniel laughed.
“You think he cares about you?”
I looked up through blurry eyes.
Daniel’s smile was cruel.
“He has been protective, sure. But that is because he sees you as property. A pretty little thing he has claimed. Once that property is destroyed, you will hold no meaning to him. Do you really think a man like Dimitri Morozov is going to mourn some boy he fucked a few times? He will be annoyed that someone took his toy. That is all. He will move on. Find someone else to break and rebuild the way he likes. And you?” Daniel leaned in slightly, eyes empty.
“You will be nothing worth remembering.”
My chest felt like it was caving in. More tears spilled over. I wiped at my face with shaking hands, but they kept coming.
I thought about the bathtub last night. The way he played with my fingers under the water. The way he kissed the top of my head when he thought I was asleep.
He was not gentle with the world. But he had been gentle with me.
“You’re wrong.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow, clearly amused.
“Oh?”
I wiped my face again, even though fresh tears kept coming.
“You are wrong. He is not like that. You do not know him.”
My voice cracked again, but I kept going.
“And if I die… he will know it was you. And he will not let it go. He will come for you. And when he does…” I looked Daniel straight in the eyes, voice trembling but fierce, “you are going to wish you had fucking died.”
Daniel stared at me.
Then he smiled again.
“We’ll see,” he said softly. “We’ll see how much your Russian boyfriend really cares when your body turns up in a river somewhere. Or maybe I will make it look like you finally gave up and jumped. Wouldn’t that be poetic?”
He stood up and took a step closer. I instinctively pressed back against the couch.
Daniel stopped right in front of me, looking down.
Dimitri would come.
He had to.