3. The Dragons Question
Chapter three
The Dragon's Question
Nyomi
What could he want to ask me?
The question stalked the edges of my mind like a predator. I was terrified to hear it. Maybe he’d ask for a piece of me I hadn’t offered anyone before.
“Kenji. . .”
He exhaled once, a sharp breath from somewhere deep. Then he spoke, “Will you please come back to my place this evening?”
I blinked.
The words weren’t shocking.
The way he said them was.
Please.
Not a command.
Not an expectation.
A respectable request.
From a man who didn’t ask. From a man who commanded entire underworld cities by simply showing up.
He could have said, you’re coming home with me.
He could have said, it’s time.
He could have snapped his fingers and I probably would’ve followed him.
But instead. . .he said. . . please.
I couldn’t even respond right away. My lips parted, but the words didn’t come. Not because I didn’t have anything to say. But because everything in me was already screaming the answer.
Yes.
Yes, I’ll come back with you.
Yes, I want to see where you sleep, where you think, where you become human enough to rest.
Yes, I want to know what your sheets smell like. What your voice sounds like in the morning.
But saying yes wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was knowing that once I stepped foot in Kenji Sato’s private world, I might never be able to leave. Some part of me already understood the truth. This question wasn’t just about tonight.
This was about forever .
And I hadn’t even unwrapped the damned gift yet.
I let my fingers graze the black matte paper on my lap. The pink bow looked even more fragile now.
What did he give me? And why. . .am I so nervous to surrender to him?
Suddenly, an explosion split through the air like a god slamming his fist against the sky, and I didn’t even flinch.
My heartbeat didn’t stutter, my breath didn’t catch.
I was already growing numb to the orchestra of violence that scored his world, each boom and blaze another verse in the dark lullaby I was probably going to learn to sleep through.
I took a breath.
My hand reached out to him.
It hovered just above his cheek, not quite touching, but close enough to feel the heat of him.
His steady, molten stare stayed locked on me.
“Kenji. . .if I come to your place tonight, will you. . .let me leave the next night?”
His eyes flickered. Something shifted in the air between us, and then he spoke, “No.”
One word.
It was sharp as a cracked bone and just as final.
He leaned forward with his hands still resting on his thighs like a warrior kneeling at an altar. “But that’s not the question you should have asked me.”
“What should I have asked you?”
“Whether you say yes or not, will I let you go at all?”
“And. . .will you?”
“No.” He licked his lips. “It doesn’t matter if you say yes or no. I just want you to say yes.”
My bottom lip quivered. “You. . .lowered to your knees and asked me nicely to come with you, knowing that you would trap me to you regardless?”
“My Roar thinks I should be polite about caging you.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think that you will say yes tonight, not because I asked, not because you are scared, but because your body already craves it.”
My nipples stiffened.
“I also think you’ll say yes because the hunger between us isn’t casual. It’s chemical. And, you’re just as ruined by wanting me as I am by needing you.”
Lust blazed through my body.
“And. . .”
I widened my eyes.
“I think that once I have you in my space, I’ll craft a kingdom around your pleasure—so decadent, so tender, so addictive—that freedom won’t even tempt you. In fact, for you, leaving would feel like self-destruction.”
I gulped. “So. . .you would build me a paradise disguised as a prison?”
“An opulent one with gold bars, diamond locks, and a bed shaped from your moans. You’ll thank me for never finding the key.”
Those sentences wrapped around my ribs and tightened like a corset. I was both flattered and afraid. Both turned on and tempted to run.
“Tora. . .you must say yes. . .I’ve kneeled before no man. No God. No boss. And definitely no other woman. But for you, I dropped like I was made to live at your feet.”
My heart boomed in my ears.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, staring at him.
Time fractured.
A breath became a mile.
God.
He made obsession sound like shelter.
Possession sound like praise.
The pink bow on the box in my lap trembled, and I realized my hands were shaking.
And for one moment. . .I wondered what it would be like if I didn’t say yes and he actually let me walk away from him. What would life look like without Kenji Sato?
I imagined it all. The empty mornings. The silence that would ache. I saw the other men. Safe ones. Smiling ones. Ones who'd never kneel for me. Who'd never set the world on fire just to keep me warm. Who'd never bleed for my yes.
I saw a version of myself that looked fine from the outside, but she was dim inside. Hollow in the ways that mattered.
And I hated her. That future, that world, that lifeless shell of me.
Fuck. . .
I wasn’t made for mild. I was made for madness. And Kenji was the only man who’d ever looked at me like I was both the fire and the altar it burned on.
“Tora, will you say yes?”
I put my attention back on him and knew that I wasn’t just answering a question. I was surrendering a version of myself that existed before him—one who believed love couldn’t coexist with danger.
Still. . .for him. . .I was willing to let that part of me go too.
I trembled. “Yes.”
His breath left him in a rush as if my yes had rewritten the story of his life in real time.
“I’m just. . .nervous, Kenji.”
“You should be.”
I blinked.
A knock sounded.
Then, Eye One stepped inside. "Hiro called."
Kenji's jaw visibly tensed. “Did he?”
“Yes.” Eye One continued, "Reo told him you were in the helicopter heading away from the chaos, so—"
"Reo wants us in the helicopter now, just in case Hiro tests that story and has his people check the sky."
The Eye gave a slow nod.
Kenji rose and stood, fluid and tall, every line of his body hardening with purpose. He put his hand out to me.
I didn’t hesitate. I rose with him, careful to draw the cape around my body. My heart was racing now.
But Eye One wasn’t done. "Also, Reo wanted you to know that the traitor was the saxophone player. Apparently, he owed money to a loan shark and gave tonight’s location in exchange for fifty million yen."
Kenji sneered. "And did Reo find out who those assassins belong to?"
The Eye didn’t blink. "Your brother, Akiro."
The temperature in the room dropped. A new kind of fury pulsed from Kenji now.
"Also, Reo put Hiroko and her assistants on another helicopter," Eye One added. "They’ll be meeting you at the safe spot."
Kenji gave him a tight nod of approval.
The Eye gave a half-bow, and then vanished through the door like mist.
Kenji turned to me.
I raised an eyebrow. "The safe spot?"
“It’s time for me to go to war, Tora.”
A cold drop hit the center of my chest. “War?”
“Yes.”
“With whom?”
“My father.”
I tensed in shock.
Kenji Sato—the most powerful man I’d ever seen, the most composed, the most untouchable—was going to war with the man who made him.
“W-why are you about to go to war with your father?”
“It’s about vengeance for my brother. Safety for us, and legacy for our kids.”
Our. . .kids?
I tried to steady my voice, but it cracked anyway. “Are you ready to battle against him?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “I am.”
My heart beat harder. Faster. “That was what Paris was about, wasn’t it? You went there due to something dealing with this war?”
“Yes. I planned to discuss this all with you during dinner. . .but your surprises blew my mind. I became distracted.”
“War. You’re going to be in danger?”
He chuckled.
I frowned. “That’s not funny, Kenji.”
He tilted his head. “Tora, I am always in danger.”
It wasn’t bravado. It wasn’t drama. It was reality, etched into the lines of his body, his scars, his instincts.
Still, a thread of panic started to unravel within my core. “So what happens now?”
“Once everyone is at the safe location, the war begins.”
“And what is this. . .safe location?”
“It’s an island I own. Off the coast of Japan.
Private. Hidden. My men have villas scattered across the cliffs.
My mansion is in the center. It’s a fortress of glass, gold, and stone.
The floors are heated obsidian. There’s a private onsen fed by volcanic springs. No one gets there unless I say so.”
Jesus.
I wrestled with all of this information and then spoke, “Your Eye said that Hiroko and her assistants are going there too.”
“When my father and brother realize that the assassins didn’t get me, they will search for Hiroko so they can torture her for any information.”
“Dear God.”
“So she’ll be with us until the war is over.”
My nerves were on edge.
“Your friend will be with us too.”
“What?”
“Zo. My father may have learned of his location and would go after him next if they can’t find Hiroko. I’m sure Reo probably has men grabbing him.”
All I could imagine was Zo pissing his pants when he opened the door to Kenji’s men. “Holy shit.”
Kenji smiled. “Everything will be fine, Tora.”
“How can you guarantee that?”
“Because I am the fucking Dragon.” Then he seized my waist with both hands—no hesitation, no gentleness—just raw, unfiltered claiming . He yanked my body against his like we were two magnets that had fought too long to be apart.
And then he kissed me.
No. He obliterated me. His mouth didn’t just crash against mine. It conquered. It consumed. It tore through whatever fragile barrier I’d been pretending still stood between us.
I tasted rage and obsession. Fire and death. The promise of pleasure laced with the threat of being utterly undone.
His grip was iron, one hand curling into the base of my spine like he was anchoring me to this moment, this choice, this war . The other slid up my back, fingers fisting in my hair, tugging just enough to make me gasp.
He swallowed the sound like a starving man drinking holy water.
And inside my chest, something split open.
A slow, delicious detonation.
I swore I could feel his heartbeat pounding into mine, drumming a rhythm that only the broken or bewitched could hear.
My knees trembled.
My thighs clenched.
The heat between my legs pulsed into a drumbeat made of need.
The earlier explosion outside now meant nothing because the real one had just gone off inside me.
I kissed him back with everything I had—my panic, my longing, my surrender. And in that moment, I understood . This moment wasn’t about choosing to go with him.
It was about choosing not to live without him.
And I had chosen to stay.
Therefore, whatever battle he was about to fight, I wouldn’t be watching from a safe distance.
I would be the fire at his side.
I would be the flame that fed his war.