Chapter 24 The Serpent’s Strike
Chapter twenty-four
The Serpent’s Strike
Kenji
The spy tried to send a message about my Heart.
While I'd been kissing Nyomi in the water. While we'd been wrapped up in each other, tasting salt and sunshine. While we'd been resting, sharpening our blades in the forge of paradise.
The spy hadn't rested at all.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. We'd made the decision to pause, to take this moment for ourselves before the hunt began.
Strategic rest.
Necessary recovery.
But the spy had used that same time to work.
Rage burned through me.
Reo cleared his throat. “Of course the message to your father was intercepted.”
Luckily, my hackers were already in place, already cutting every transmission before it reached my father.
But the spy didn't know that. The spy thought their messages were getting through. And that made them even more dangerous.
"They sent the message from where?" The question came out sharper than I’d intended.
Reo's jaw clenched. "This time. . .the spy sent the message from inside the mansion."
The world tilted. The sunlight over the sand lost its warmth. Every shadow in my home turned suspect.
Not the East near the villas.
Not the outer perimeter of the mansion.
Not some guard station at the edge of the compound.
But right inside my fucking home.
"The location?"
“Inside Nyomi’s office.”
The words carved through me.
That room wasn’t just her workspace—it was her refuge. The place where she wrote, researched, recorded her thoughts. I’d given her this space so her brilliant mind’s desires could be protected and supported.
This son of a bitch had gone through it.
Touched her things.
Rifled through her notes and drafts like a scavenger picking at a saint’s bones.
This wasn’t just spying. This was trying to understand her, dissect her, weaponize her words against me.
My vision darkened at the thought.
I fisted my hands and spoke through clenched teeth, “And the footage on who went in there?”
“Erased.”
“Who was monitoring the cameras?”
Reo’s expression hardened. “When I arrived at the security room, all three men were already dead.”
The words hit like a blade sliding under my ribs. “Dead?”
“Execution style. No struggle. Whoever did it knew what they were doing—one bullet each, straight through the eye, and the footage wiped clean.”
My mind ran the data automatically.
Whoever sent that message didn’t have time to leave the office, cross the mansion, and kill three armed men while my Fangs, Claws, and Roar were inside.
Something like this had to happen fast, in less than five minutes.
And those three guards—no alarms, no panic. They’d let the killer walk right up to them. Which meant they knew the face that ended them.
To erase footage that fast, they’d need Reo’s clearance level or mine.
Someone had given it to them. How?
The timing and precision meant this was a job for at least two operatives.
My stomach twisted. “The spy isn’t working alone. We’re not dealing with a single snake. There’s a nest.”
Reo’s jaw tightened. “Agreed. One person sent the message. Another erased the proof—and they both knew exactly when you’d be distracted.”
The Dragon stirred under my skin, scales scraping bone.
Ice flooded my veins.
This was a person who lived under my roof and breathed my air.
A person close enough to move through the mansion without raising suspicion.
One I possibly trusted.
"The snake is in the inner circle, main staff, or guards."
"Yes." Reo's hand tightened around his phone. "But there's something else."
I waited, every muscle in my body going rigid.
"The signal patterns suggest even more coordination." His voice was clinical now, detached. The only way he could deliver this news. "I think there could be more than two. Maybe three, but possibly four working together."
Four.
Four people in my organization, feeding information to my father.
Four sets of eyes watching my every move.
Four voices trying to report back to the Fox.
Trying.
Not succeeding.
Because my hackers were intercepting everything.
Thank God the hackers’ existence was only known to Reo, Hiro, Nyomi, and me. Even better, their base was on a nearby secret island.
Reo sighed. "We have to find them all.”
I didn’t even recognize my own voice. "Show me the message."
Reo's thumb moved across his phone screen, and then he turned it toward me.
I looked.
Then the photo loaded, and my heart stopped.
Nyomi.
In the hallway outside her office. Guards flanked her. She was smiling at something, completely relaxed, completely unaware.
The angle was wrong.
Too low.
Too tight.
Shot from around a corner or perhaps through a barely opened door.
Someone was hiding.
Someone was watching.
Someone was hunting my Tiger.
My hands started to shake.
“The spy tried to send that picture to your father, but it doesn’t end there.” Reo swiped to the next photo.
It loaded.
Nyomi leaving the kitchen, the food cart visible behind her with the breakfast trays. She was laughing, probably at something Hiro had said.
Her face was lit up with joy.
The angle on this photo made my stomach turn. I could see the edge of a door in the frame. The spy had been peeking through a crack, watching her, waiting for the perfect moment to capture her face.
This traitor had been in my house this morning. In my kitchen. Watching my Tiger be vulnerable, safe, and completely fucking unaware that she was being hunted.
"Kenji—"
“Any more messages?”
“Yes.”
“Show me.” My voice was barely human. The Dragon was speaking now.
He swiped again.
This next photo was closer. A shot of Nyomi's face, captured mid-laugh. Her eyes crinkled at the corners. Her mouth open.
So beautiful.
So alive.
So exposed.
The caption beneath made my vision tunnel:
Kenji's Tiger. Many are now calling her, the Dragon’s Heart. Right now, this is his biggest weakness.
My breath stopped.
The intimacy of it was a violation that made me want to rip the piece of shit apart with my bare hands.
Fortunately, my father hadn't received any of these messages. My hackers had intercepted everything before it reached him.
But the spy knew she'd burrowed so deep into my heart that I'd claimed her with a word that meant everything.
And the spy was trying to tell my father.
Trying to hand him the perfect weapon to destroy me.
Cold terror crashed through me.
For all my father knew, all his spies were dead or captured. He might be sitting in his bunker beneath Tokyo wondering why he'd lost contact with his entire network hidden within mine.
But the moment he found out about Nyomi—the moment he learned I'd claimed a woman, loved her, given her my heart—he'd come for her just like he'd come for Nura.
And he would kill her with no mercy.
My hands were shaking so badly I wasn't sure I could hold the phone if Reo handed it to me. “Did the spy try to send more?”
“Yes. There were more texts.”
"Keep. Going."
He swiped to the message thread.
She moves freely through mansion. Four-guard detail but patterns are predictable. She spent over an hour in kitchen with Hiro this morning. Cooking. Teaching him. She's comfortable here. Trusts everyone. No combat training visible. She doesn't see threats.
Reo cleared his throat again, which told me there was more.
“Show me.”
He swiped to the next message.
Do I tell them to kill her or take her? I need instructions soon. They say the window may be closing.
The words hit me like physical blows.
I sneered and repeated the words back. “Do I tell them. Not ‘should I kill her.’ Not ‘should I take her.’ Do I tell them.”
“That points to at least three. The person who sent the message and two more people, but I still think it is four.”
"That’s a good guess. Too much coordination for three." My mind was racing, fitting pieces together. "Someone's organizing them. Giving orders. Directing multiple people, but it’s not the person who sent the message."
"You don’t think so?”
“No.” I directed my gaze back to the message. “The phrasing was strange. Not professional. Not the cold, calculated language of a trained operative. It was uncertain. Almost. . .seeking approval.”
Do I tell them to kill her or take her?
Like a child asking permission. Like somebody young, inexperienced, unsure of their authority. A person who needed direction from the Fox before they could direct others. Someone who'd been groomed for this their entire life but still wasn't quite confident enough to make the call themselves.
My stomach turned.
Hina. . .if this is you. . .the pain that you will experience. . .the screams. . .
Reo said nothing, but his silence was answer enough.
We were probably both thinking the same thing.
Hina.
Four years old when she came to me. Raised in my household. Educated. Protected. Loved. And possibly groomed by my father the entire time.
The message sat on the screen, damning, intimate, and terrifying all at once. The spy had been close enough to know my new nickname for Nyomi. Close enough to watch her cook with Hiro. Close enough to photograph her when she felt safe.
And the guards wouldn’t think to get rid of the person because they were part of my family.
"There's one more message." Reo swiped to the final one.
We’re not sure if you're receiving these messages. They need confirmation that you're getting our reports. Please respond.
The desperation in those words was almost palpable.
The spies were starting to panic.
Starting to realize something was wrong.
"They don't know we're intercepting." I lifted my view to him. "They think the messages are going through, but they're not getting responses."
"Exactly." His expression was grim. "Which gives us a window."
"How long?"
"Twenty-four hours." Reo's jaw clenched. "Maybe less. When they don't get confirmation, when they realize the Fox isn't responding to any of their reports. . ."
"They'll act independently." The realization hit me like ice water. "They'll stop waiting for orders and make the call themselves. They’ll fucking do what they think my father would want."
"Yes."
Twenty-four hours before the spies decided to take matters into their own hands.
Twenty-four hours before the spies in my household stopped asking permission and just put a bullet in Nyomi's head or dragged her away screaming.
"Where was Kiko today?" I forced the question out past the rage building in my throat.
“You banned her from the mansion, so she never came back. Still. . .we have people watching her. She and her entourage were in her villa all day."
"You're sure?"
"Positive. She's not directly involved in this message transmitting, but. . .she always could be part of the four."
One suspect, possibly eliminated.
But that just narrowed it down to the people I saw every day. People who belonged in my house. People who could move through hallways and peek around corners without anyone questioning their presence.
People I trusted.
"They're not just watching her, Kenji." Reo's voice was quiet. "They're hunting her."
“I know.” I looked back toward the blanket where Nyomi waited. She'd stood up now, arms wrapped around herself, watching us. Even from this distance, I could see the tension in her shoulders.
She knew something was wrong.
My Tiger.
My beautiful, brave Tiger who'd walked into my world with nothing but courage and a fucking recorder. Who'd earned the respect of my Fangs and Claws. Who'd made my Roar smile and my brother sleep.
Someone wanted to kill her, possibly multiple people. And they were getting desperate enough to act without orders.
"We need to get you both back." Reo's voice cut through my thoughts. "Now."
I faced him. "I know."
"Unfortunately, your romantic break is over. We need to strategize with the Claws and Fangs."
"Agreed."
"And we need your Tiger to start hunting tonight, not tomorrow."
I checked Nyomi one more time. She'd taken a step towards us, sensing the shift.
Always so perceptive.
Always reading the currents beneath the surface.
She was about to become the hunter instead of the hunted.
And God help whoever had sent those photos.
"Give me five minutes." My voice came out flat and emotionless. "I need to tell her."
Reo studied my face. "What will you say?"
"Everything. She needs to know what she's walking into."
"And then?"
I headed away and didn't look back. "Then my Tiger hunts."