Chapter 3
Found 見つかる
Ryu
“I need to speak to your wives.” I say to my cousins and brother. Especially my fucking brother. Traitors all of them.
“Iie,” Akchiro says with cold finally.
I can feel Takashi bristling beside me.
“They will tell us where our fucking wives are.” Takashi grits.
Closing my eyes I sigh. All subtlety is lost on that one.
“Or what?” Kiyoshi finally turns from looking out into the garden where his wife Krie, Flower and Hishashi’s wife, Taylor are all seated having a picnic, like they didn’t just help our wives poison us and escape.
“Calling them “fucking wives” may be the reason they left. It’s happened to us all. Though mine only did so under duress, isn’t that right, brother?” He cuts a look over to Kiyoshi with no malice for his older brother.
“Motherfucker, you almost killed her.” Kiyoshi deadpans with no heat. I can tell they have obviously worked this out between themselves.
“And like all of you, we would like them back.” I say with a calm I don’t feel.
“Then I guess you’d better get started. You have every available Takeda resource at your disposal.” Akchiro informs us with the cool authority of The Takeda. We all hold power, but he is the head of the family by right and blood.
“Though not our wives. Flower is due to give birth soon and I will not have her upset.” He continues as if she wasn’t healthy enough to orchestrate this entire coup.
“This is fucked-up,” Takashi hisses. My twin’s face mirrors mine identically. Only the high flush on his jaw gives away his agitation, whereas I’m maintaining a tenuous stranglehold on mine.
“Sympathies,” Kiyoshi says, “However, our wives’ — delicate conditions notwithstanding — are our concerns. If they share with us the whereabouts of Bridget and Ev, we will of course share them with you.”
“Now, what would be the fun in that?” The Guardian chimes in out of nowhere, mischief laced in every word.
This motherfucker, I swear. I wished Hisashi could lobotomize his ass into thin air.
“Hunt them. If you can’t find them perhaps better men who are not so weak as to not be able to keep their wives. ”
Takashi nearly lunges towards him, but I grab him.
“Arigatō, cousins, brother.” Barely bowing as a fuck you too, I wait for Takashi to follow before dragging him out of the room.
“What now?” he demands, as I start towards the guest room I had been given.
“We hack the ladies’ phones, of course. I think six months’ worth of data will suffice.
We received the invitations three months ago.
Knowing Flower as we do, we know she’s as meticulous as Akchiro.
I’m sure she planned it all, then brought in the other women to firm up the details when they got here.
Since she wasn’t thinking of running away from Akchiro, she was probably a little less careful. ”
“This is our only chance to before everyone leaves to hack into their phones. I have everything we need in the library.” Takashi agrees as a feral smile creases his face. “We’ll have to work fast.”
Our principal job at Takeda is cybersecurity and defense. It takes the best hackers to beat hackers, and there is not a tech system in the world that we cannot infiltrate.
Once we settle in opposite one another — the way we’ve always worked since we were toddlers — we waste no time breaking into our sister-in-law’s phone and that of her cousins.
Okasaan, told us often this is how we show up in the ultrasound, always facing each other. Mirroring the other we make light work out of a task that should take hours.
In short order, we find the encrypted group chat they used.
“Ahh, here we go.” Seeing that the planning goes back further than I realized.
“They’ve been plotting a while.” I muse.
“At least eight months. Too bad it’s all for nothing.” My twin chuckles, showing the locations of rentals made in various countries.
“There are at least ten here. They must have stepped in when Prosper went on hiatus.” Looking at the addresses, I make copies of the locations.
Frustration eats at me. I want Ev back now. I was tempted to tell my brother she’s very likely pregnant.
Though he sympathizes, I’m sure he’d only encourage me to hurry.
It’s not quiet. The wind doesn’t get caught in a net. As my father used to say when he spoke about a fruitless task. No, we will find them.
“Ten is doable.” Our gazes meet in determination.
“What are you going to do when you find her?” Lounging back in the chair, he crosses one leg over the other, anchoring it.
“Punish her.” I steeple my hands beneath my chin and nod to him. “You?”
“The same. What if Ev’s pregnant?” His stare is steady.
“The same. There are many ways to exact punishment, even brutal ones, without hurting a fetus.” My chest aches at the words I utter, and my mouth sours just thinking of how fucking reckless she’s being with her and our child’s safety.
“What of Bridget? Is there a possibility that she’s pregnant?”He already shaking his head no.
“She stocked up on birth control long before I brought her to stay with me. I let her keep them, thinking to give her time to adjust. I always felt that was why Flower ran — because of all the changes in such a short period of time. That was a hundredfold truer for Bridget and Ev. Still —” he blows out a breath.
I wait, knowing my brother needs time to get his shit together.
His rage is legendary. Few people know how to calm the tsunami of emotion that blazes inside him.
I’ve been doing it since before birth. Then there was Bridget.
I wonder if she knows how she soothed him.
Or did she just ignore it like Ev thawing my ice and walking away to leave me in a frigid tundra, knowing she could be carrying my child?
“I thought we were making strides.” Looking up and I see the pain in my brother’s eyes. I know it mirrors my own. If he didn’t love her, I’d have no qualms about snapping her neck, and I know he’d do the same for me.
“Well, let’s allocate the tasks by location. If I find yours I’ll let you know. We won’t be in contact with the others until we have our wives safe in undisclosed locations.”
“Hai, that way there won’t be any leaks. Not that Akchiro, Kiyoshi or Hisashi would tell — that damned Monster though…”
“He’s do it just for his own amusement.” I say drily.
3 Months later… Honolulu, Hawaii
I stand back in the shadows of the bungalow watching my wife wave to the driver as she waves off his help with a gentle smile then gets the bags from her grocery shopping juggling them in her arms as she makes her way up the slope of the drive to the front door.
The bags swing as if carrying them is no effort at all.
Seeing her having to carry bags, seeing her taking a ride without proper security chafes.
My nostrils flare as I exhale in exasperation.
My neck is stiff from searching for her to return.
Counting every blasted second it took for her to return.
He doesn’t back up but leans out watching her ass as she walks away. She doesn’t turn, but I can tell from the cringe on her face that he made her feel uncomfortable about what he’s doing. He’ll die tonight for the disrespect.
I step further back as she approaches, so she doesn’t see me. For someone being on the run, and in hiding, her situational awareness is awful. Her entire safety posture is trash. She’s not even periodically had the house searched. If she had, she’d have found that she’d had an unexpected visitor.
Turning, I go to the edge of the balcony, hop onto the stone support and pull myself into the attic window — my temporary home as I finalize the plans I’ve implemented for my errant little wife.
The room is a little warm but faces south so it doesn’t get direct sunlight but a steady ocean breeze most nights and an amazing view.
Hawaii is a haven and a paradise with its ocean views and soothing trade winds. The sunrise welcomes you in the morning, and when it sets in the evening, you see nature in all its magnificence.
I understand why Flower chose this place to give Ev the time to come to terms with her circumstances then determine a path forward.
It’s the last place I would think of Ev ever going.
I’d have thought she’d go back to her home of Mississippi — not for safety reasons but for the succor of her family.
Though putting them in my path would not be a wise course of action.
My wife is clever if not as careful as I wish.
All the women who’ve found themselves entangled with a Takeda know there’s nothing that can stop us when we are determined to have them.
Not family. There is no authority we cannot bring to heel.
Flower loves my brother deeply. The same can be said for Krie and Taylor.
None of them are na?ve enough to think that Takashi and I won’t annihilate anyone, including their precious families.
Going over to the array of screens, I watch as she puts her parcels on the counter, then put away her various groceries.
My mouth hardens when she takes out the tampons, sitting them on the counter.
Though I arrived a few short weeks after her, I was still casing the place and hacking into the security system when she went to the doctor and came back no longer pregnant.
Later, I found the bill for the appointment.
Seeing D & C knowing it’s often done early in a pregnancy to re-establish a menstrual cycle gutted me.
Not knowing the circumstances, I can only assume she didn’t want any connection to me in the future.
My pretty little wife is in for a rude awakening because not only will she be linked to me, she will be in every way.
As soon as I have her back, I’m filling her up with my seed and keeping her in that state until she is big with my child.
She starts her dinner. The ahi tuna and salad seem to be her favorite. She eats it a couple of times a week. Tonight she even added a baked potato and a dessert of poi.