Chapter 31
Thirty-One
I t’s been two weeks since I found Evaline naked and bloody and running for her life in the middle of swampland. Two weeks since I found out we are expecting a child. And two weeks since my mother was taken to my warehouse on the outer limits of the city where I’ve cut the throats of more enemies than I can count.
Vitali and Adrian stand at my side as I take in the woman who is chained to the wall of one of my torture rooms. Her cheeks are sallow and her skin pale. She looks old and broken. Tears stain her face. She has red-rimmed eyes, and there are deep infected wounds on her ankles and wrists. Wounds we won’t be treating.
“ Okaasan .” I spit the word out. She lifts her head to look at me, her hard eyes glaring at me. They don’t hold the power they used to. Not now, when she is weak and nothing more than a pitiful pile of shit and piss.
“You are no son of mine,” she hisses. “To betray me so. It is not right.”
“You. Stole. My. Wife!” I lunge forward, roaring in her face. “My wife! You tried to have her sold overseas. When that didn’t work, you found her in Las Vegas and tried to have her raped and beaten. But you failed again. Then you had her kidnapped and tortured. My wife, who is carrying my child.”
My mother’s eyes widen in horror. “Your child?”
I nod.
Her lips turn up in a sneer, and she spits at my feet. “A child who carries the blood of a murderer.”
And this is what it all comes down to.
“Is that why you had Father killed?” I question, my jaw clenching, teeth grinding. “Because he refused to kill Charity LaMontagne?”
“A life for a life,” she spits. “He was soft. Too soft to lead the Yakuza. He wanted to expand into real estate and make the family more legit. I didn’t spend years plotting to be at his side to be the wife of a weak man.”
“Is that why you killed Yumiko?” I ask her. If my mother’s face could pale any further, she’d be a ghost. “Yumiko Taho was set to marry my father six months before he married you. But she disappeared from the face of the earth, never to be seen again.”
“Yumiko would have made the organization soft,” she sneers. “My family has been sacrificing for the Yakuza since long before your father took over. We kept tradition alive and thriving. Our goal was to bring honor and tradition wherever we went. To be the killing hand of the Yakuza.”
How have I never realized what a zealot my mother is?
The Yakuza she is speaking of doesn’t exist any longer. Not even in Japan. Although none of the organization could ever completely go legit, there are many factions that are starting to transition away as more and more sanctions are being slammed down.
“Did you set it up?” Adrian hisses. “The attack in New York? Did you plan it?”
My mother smirks.
“I didn’t need to,” she assures us sweetly. “Your fathers attracted the wrong attention. All I did was ensure they would be in the same place at the same time. There are some powerful enemies out there, boys. And you’ve barely scratched the surface.”
Adrian shakes his head and laughs.
“She doesn’t know anything,” he scoffs. “We should just shoot her and be done with it.”
Panic rises in my mother’s eyes.
“I have knowledge,” she assures us, her gaze turning on Vitali. “Your uncle didn’t take advantage of your father’s weakness. He created it.”
Vitali steps forward, crouching before her. “What do you mean?”
“ Taglia una testa e un’altra prenderà il suo posto .”
Something in Vitali’s expression shifts.
“Where did you hear that?”
My mother’s lips curl into a smug smirk, her eyes gleaming with twisted pleasure.
“From the man who spilled your father’s blood and stole your crown.” She cackles, her voice filled with malice. “You think that we haven’t controlled everything about you three? That we just left you all alone to build power?” Another chilling laugh echoes through the room. “Never. Every move you have made, we’ve been watching and waiting for.”
The three of us exchange a worried glance, our minds racing with fear and confusion.
“For what?” I finally manage to ask, my voice trembling.
A sinister grin spreads across my mother’s face, transforming her from the loving figure I once knew into a twisted version of herself, like a joker in a deck of cards, broken and mad.
“For the moment we take what is rightfully ours,” she declares, her tone dripping with malice and triumph. The weight of her words hangs heavy in the air, filling me with dread and despair as I realize that my own mother has been plotting against me this entire time.