Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 112(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 112(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
She laughs. “Gotta keep telling myself that you aren’t a facade, and I should realize that. I keep letting myself drift into my dream. That you’re my Tatsun. I keep forgetting Greece.”
I let out a cleansing breath. “What are you inferring?”
“That you’re supposed to be an alluring simulation. Not the real bad guy. But everything about you screams that you are the ultimate bad guy.”
I lift my brow. “What in my character has given you the—”
“The murdering and—and this.” She stops in her tracks, glancing around, arms wide. “I’ve been abducted and taken to a different country. You’ve allowed me to roam your opulent grounds. You’ve given me a grand tour, but I’m a friggen captive!”
I tell myself that Ryann’s passions speak for her. That I should give her a moment to calm down.
“First, I’ve never murdered anyone whose behavior did not warrant it.”
“Tatsun—whatever his name is, was—did not do anything!”
“Second, I defended you, Ryann! His conduct required punishment.” The boy who hadn’t saved his mother speaks up and asserts himself. It’s as if I have forgotten the years, my character, and my entire reputation.
“I didn’t ev—”
I take a deep, calming breath. “Third, shall we finish the tour?”
“Why?”
“Because.” I stop abruptly. I don’t usually speak without fully fleshing out my thoughts. If I say, “Because the life that is now ahead of you is better than anything you can imagine back home,” well, that’s callous. It’s arrogant, not like a man removing the threat from her life.
I, Ryoichi Ziatso, only meant to remove the threat from your life!
The threat is dead—that’s the rational part. The one who aligns with the House of Tatchan, the yakuza, we simply aren’t spiteful people. We prefer order and a sense of community.
“Ryoichi, you have betrayed my faith!” Her hand twines around the katana’s handle, tugging it from the bridge floor. “You don’t believe me. You don’t believe in me. What was it you said to me in that elevator, huh?”
I glare at the vicious tip of the blade a fraction away from the center of my chest. My tone never wavers, never ascends in anger. Nor do I lower my voice lethally. “I gave you my word, Ryann.”
“Sure did.” The tip slices linen from my flesh, leaving a thin trail of blood. “Ryoichi, you said I could take your life if you betrayed my faith. You promised never to hurt me. You did.”
My palms press over the flat of the katana. “Ryann, if I have caused you any harm—”
“You do not believe me. You won’t listen.”
No, I don’t. You’re confused. Same as my mother was.
I feel the eyes of my people on us. They’re virtually invisible yet there. Some on rooftops. Others are just inside the doors, and more underlings are hidden behind the wooden posts of various bridges.
All await my response.
Because at any moment, Ryann may snuff out my life.
“I know it appears that way, Ryann. We have a lot of ground to cover.”
“What?” She almost drops the katana but then holds steady. “I don’t understand.”
My mother hadn’t either. My stepfather had her wrapped around his finger. I begin to wonder how many years of hurt consumed Ryann’s light. Traded goodness for darkness.
How did she become the woman at A Touch of Essence who would not look up?
Who could not?
My mother was the same. At first, she threatened to leave. We packed our meager belongings repeatedly. Once when I was small, I remember an American missionary who brought God into my mother’s life. We were to escape with him. When we got to the edge of town, where we were supposed to meet him, authorities were dragging the man away. Christianity was frowned upon in our small village where Shinto was practiced. When we returned home, I remember my stepfather laughing coldly. It took me years to understand that he had alerted the authorities to the missionary. After that, we ceased the futile endeavor of leaving. My mother became a shell of herself, and he took her life.
I should’ve claimed his life before he stole hers.
I spin Ryann around. The katana clatters on the ground as I pin Ryann between myself and the wooden railing. I glance around. My staff could be meandering over one of the bridges across the way, leaving or arriving from another structure. But I’m overthrown by emotion.
Emotion and desire.
“After he hits you, you resume with the fun, yes?” I laugh softly against Ryann’s clamped mouth. “That’s why he waited so long to meet with you on vacation? He couldn’t look at your face until it returned to its beautiful form?”
“Ryoichi, I never met that man in my life. You are not listening!”
“Then he crawls back, and you forgive him, yes?”
“No!”
I push her dress up, hands burning over the soft skin of her stomach.
I’m acutely aware of Ryann cussing my very existence as I put as much of her breast into my mouth as I can and suckle on it. My other hand journeys down her soft abdomen, stroking the toned flesh of her thighs. I’m memorizing the roundness of her ass, squeezing tightly. “This is how he pays penance?”