Chapter 23 When Paradise Bleeds
Chapter twenty-three
When Paradise Bleeds
Kenji
Reo’s helicopter rotors had already stopped by the time I reached it.
I glanced over my shoulder one last time.
Nyomi remained on the blanket, but now her bikini top was retied. Those deep brown eyes—eyes I'd lost myself in for hours today—tracked my barefoot path across the burning sand.
A silent conversation passed between us.
She knew.
Just like I knew.
The mirage of our escape was dissolving like sea foam.
Reo emerged from the aircraft as I approached, and the visual struck me with cinematic clarity.
Him in a tailored black suit—pressed and immaculate despite the humidity—while I stood in swim trunks with salt water still drying on my skin and Nyomi's bite mark throbbing on my shoulder.
His polished dress shoes sank into my imported white sand.
Black leather against pristine white.
An ink stain spreading across the page.
The contrast almost burned my eyes. It was a visual metaphor I couldn’t escape—duty arriving to reclaim me from pleasure.
By the time I stopped a few feet from him, all traces of arousal had vanished. My cock had gone completely soft, tucked back into my swim trunks.
The Dragon clamped back onto me—claws sinking into my shoulders first, then deeper, puncturing muscle. Scales scraped down my ribs one by one, each ridge catching bone.
Fire crawled up my throat, thick and choking, until the taste of salt water and Nyomi's skin burned away completely. Its crushing weight settled across my shoulder blades, familiar and suffocating.
Responsibility drowned the salt-and-sex haze from my mind, replacing pleasure with the cold clarity of threat assessment.
My spine straightened.
My jaw set.
Kenji, the lover dissolved, and only the Dragon remained.
I don’t know what he’ll say. I just know that I will kill the person.
Reo’s tie fluttered, caught in the dying wind of the blades. There, he waited in silence for a few seconds, and his face carried that careful neutrality he wore when delivering news he knew I wouldn't want to hear.
Damn it.
He looked past me toward the ocean, jaw flexing once, then again. A bead of sweat slid down his temple even though the wind had cooled.
The longer he stayed silent, the more I knew I didn’t want him to speak.
He was afraid—of the words themselves.
But beneath that expression, I also saw exhaustion. Dark crescents hung beneath his eyes, and his jaw appeared tight, possibly from nights spent chewing through strategy instead of getting sleep.
How long has it been since he’d gotten 8 hours of sleep? Two days? Three?
I frowned. "You look like shit."
"Thank you." His mouth twitched. "You look relaxed. I'm about to ruin that."
"I know."
The ocean breeze carried the scent of salt and flowers between us. Behind us, the uguisu called its three-note song.
Ho-ho-kekyo.
The sound that once brought me peace now felt like a countdown.
Reo still hadn’t said the bad news.
That alone told me everything. If it were urgent—if blood were spilling or someone was dead—he would have opened with it.
But this. . .this was the kind of news a man rehearsed in his head, the kind that stuck to the back of his throat and refused to come out.
My stomach tightened.
Whatever it was, it would change everything.
Reo straightened slightly. "First, I'll tell you this. . .”
That phrasing alone told me the story was bad. My Roar always started with good news when he was afraid of what came next. He liked to pad the blow, soften the blade.
My pulse quickened anyway.
Reo sighed. “Hiro is sleeping."
My chest tightened, but with warmth, not dread. "He's actually sleeping?"
"In his bed. In his room. He's been asleep for four hours now." Reo's expression softened. "Your Tiger fed him breakfast this morning. The Eggs Benedict was exceptional. That hollandaise sauce. . ."
Reo lifted a hand to his lips, fingers curling just so, and with a satisfying smacking sound, he performed a chef's kiss. "The sauce was absolutely divine."
The significance of the gesture wasn't lost on me. Reo rarely praised anything with such enthusiasm.
A spark of pride ignited within me.
The sauce was damned good.
My mind hitched on the thought. I imagined the sauce, warm and creamy, trickling down the curve of my Tiger’s bare breasts, pooling around the stiff peaks of her nipples. The thought was scandalous, obscene, a welcome perversion.
Tantalizing.
Arousing.
My tongue ached to make this happen in real life.
Reo pulled me out of my thoughts. "I've had your chef's version dozens of times, but hers was different. Lighter. More lemon. The balance was perfect."
“Okay. Okay.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s quite enough.”
A bitter taste of resentment seeped into my mouth.
They were all partaking in the buffet of her affection, her care, her skills. All things reserved just for me, my exclusive rights, were now being greedily spread around my household like limited rations in a war camp.
I pulled in a deep breath, tasting the salt air, feeling it fill my lungs, trying to calm the wildfire that was suddenly roaring in my chest.
It was irrational, this anger.
But, I didn’t care.
Reo cleared his throat. "Anyway. . .the guards reported that Hiro ate everything on his plate. Everything. One of them swears he even licked the plate clean, though I can't confirm that personally."
Despite my jealousy, my lips twitched. That sounded exactly like something Hiro would do with food that good.
This was good and bad. Good that he had some semblance of joy during his grief. Bad because now my brother would double down on wanting to share Nyomi.
I sighed.
"After Hiro finished eating, he went upstairs." Reo's voice warmed with relief. "He was so full of food and exhausted that he didn't even shut his door.”
I blinked.
“I was told that Hiro just collapsed onto his bed. The guards on the floor reported that they could hear him snoring seconds later. Deep. Steady snoring. The kind that means real sleep, not that half-awake state he's been stuck in for. . .too long."
Pride surged through me.
Tora. . .Did you do that?
My beautiful, impossible Tiger who could walk into a kitchen with my broken, grief-shattered little brother and somehow piece him back together with food and her presence.
She'd healed him with one breakfast. Given him what we couldn't give him in weeks of trying.
Thank you, Tora.
But right behind the pride came something smaller, pettier. Something I wasn't proud of but couldn't suppress.
More jealousy.
Again.
Hiro had gotten hours with her. Hours of her laughter, her attention, her nurturing warmth.
She'd taught him things.
Fed him.
Healed him.
Reo had gotten to taste her cooking, to experience the magic of her hollandaise sauce.
My guards had gotten banana bread with her little drawings on the bento boxes.
Everyone was getting pieces of my Tiger, and I was stuck here in paradise feeling like a petulant child because I wanted to hoard every moment of her for myself.
Fuck. Will this feeling ever go away?
I was being ridiculous. I knew it. But the jealousy sat in my chest anyway, big, hot, and incapable of being ignored.
Reo smiled. "Nyomi has a gift."
“And that gift is mine.”
Reo’s smile widened. “I was told by your guards that you lifted the food ban this morning.”
My Roar was stalling.
And I was letting him.
Because if Reo was afraid to say the bad news aloud, then maybe, for a few more seconds, the world was still fine.
I played his game. “My Tiger and I are still discussing the matter of her sharing her food. Don’t get too excited.”
“Noted.”
And again Reo remained quiet on the true reason he had come.
The Dragon inside me stirred, sensing the shift before my mind did. The air felt heavier, charged. My instincts screamed that the horizon was about to darken, but not yet.
Not this second.
Whatever was coming had claws, and Reo was buying me the last few calm breaths I’d get before they raked through my world.
I considered earlier today. "You sent my personal Scales to the island."
Reo nodded. “I did.”
I kept my voice level, but I also made sure he heard the edge. "This was supposed to be private. Just me and Nyomi. Why the fuck would you send Yuki, Mami, and Hina here?"
The smile left Reo’s face. "To test her."
Heat flared in my chest, instant and vicious. "Don't. Ever. Test. My Tiger."
Reo didn't flinch, but his hands came up slightly in surrender and respect. "I apologize. I wanted to see if Nyomi stays alert even when she thinks she doesn't need to be. If her instincts are always on, even in paradise."
"That's not your call to make."
"You're right. It isn’t." He held my gaze. "But I also had another reason."
I waited.
"I've been suspicious of your Scales." His voice dropped. "Since Paris. Nothing solid. Just. . .small things. Questions they shouldn't ask. Knowledge they shouldn't have. But I wasn't sure if any of them could actually be the spy."
My blood went cold.
"I’m hoping I’m wrong. It wasn't a formal test, Kenji. I was just. . .throwing something out there and praying nothing would stick."
The implications crashed over me like a wave. Yuki. Mami. Hina. Three women who'd been with me since they were children. Three women I'd protected, educated, and treasured.
One of them might be feeding information to my father.
Reo leaned his head to the side. "Did anything come up for your Heart?"
A long pause came.
The ocean filled the silence.
Then, I forced the words out, hating them. "She flagged Hina as suspicious."
Reo's face crumbled.
I'd seen my Roar handle torture, death, betrayal from enemies without blinking. But this. . .it broke something in him.
“Hina. . .” Reo turned away from me for a few seconds and his shoulders went rigid.
I gave him the moment, watching waves crash against the shore while he fought for composure.
When he turned back, his eyes were wet. "Are you sure she said Hina?”
“Yes.”
“She's been with you since she was four years old, Kenji." His voice cracked on the number.
“I know.”
This possible betrayal pressed down on my spine, vertebra by vertebra, like a stack of cold stones.
Four years old. A little girl who'd grown up in my household, who'd learned to bow to me before she learned to write, who'd devoted her entire life to serving me.
And my father had been watching her the whole time too.
"The Fox has had access to her since she was four just like me." I said it quietly, but the words still cut.
Reo nodded slowly. "I know."
"He could have been grooming her for years. Decades."
"It's possible."
"Hina might not even have known she was his spy." I ran a hand through my damp hair. "He could have manipulated her so thoroughly that she thought she was protecting me while feeding him information.”
"Or she knows exactly what she's doing." Reo's voice went flat, his grief hardening into something colder. "Either way, it could be her. It really could be."
“Nyomi never said anything definite. She just got a feeling. My thoughts were that. . .Nyomi figured she might be hiding something.” I sighed. “My words. Not hers.”
“Hina. . .hiding something.”
We stood there, two men who'd built an empire on trust and violence, now facing the possibility that someone we cared for had betrayed us both.
The uguisu called again.
Ho-ho-kekyo.
Even the bird's song sounded mournful now.
I crossed my arms over my chest. "I trust Nyomi’s instincts. Spy or not, let’s figure out what Hina is hiding.”
Reo nodded. “We'll monitor her movements. Get proof before we act. We could be wrong."
"We could be." But his tone said he didn't believe it.
Neither did I.
I watched Reo's face—the exhaustion, the grief, the way he was barely holding himself together.
The air between us thickened. Even the ocean held its breath.
Reo had been talking—words circling, details stacking—but none of them were the thing.
The reason he’d come.
The reason his hands trembled just enough for me to notice.
I’d given him time.
Too much fucking time.
The Dragon inside me uncoiled, impatient. My pulse slowed, heavy in my throat, and the silence that followed felt like a blade hovering an inch above my skin.
My voice came out low. “That’s enough.”
Reo’s Adam’s apple bobbed once.
I undid my arms and held my hands at my side. “Whatever it is, stop walking me toward it. Just fucking say it.”
A gust of wind caught his tie again, snapping it across his chest like a flag in surrender. His eyes flicked to mine—hesitant, apologetic.
And I knew then that whatever he was about to say would scorch everything I’d just experienced on the beach.
His hand went to his pocket, pulling out his phone.
My stomach turned to stone.
The ocean sound vanished.
The fucking spy.
There was only Reo's phone screen—too bright in the afternoon sun—and the sick certainty flooding my veins.
"Kenji. . ."
"Just say it."
He looked up, meeting my eyes with the kind of steady certainty that preceded devastation. "The spy signaled again. One hour ago and. . .this time it was about your Heart."
The words hung in the air between us.
I felt Nyomi's eyes on us from the blanket. Felt the sun burning my shoulders. Felt the sand between my toes and the salt drying on my skin.
We’d been two lovers in Paradise, relishing in our new love.
But every paradise had a venomous serpent.
And ours had just opened its mouth and tried to sink its fangs into her throat.