Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 115388 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115388 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
“Sure. Tons of stories about the BDSM scene have probably been told but guess what. You haven’t told yours. And that matters. People think books have to be original but they don’t. They just have to be true to the author. What readers want—what humans crave—isn’t novelty. It’s perspective. It’s voice. It’s the soul behind the story.”
Her brows lifted. “Interesting.”
I leaned forward. “Humans will never stop watching the same love and action stories unfold on screen over and over. We will never stop listening to songs about heartbreak, celebration, or love over and over. We will never stop reading about power, grief, pleasure, and longing over and over. What changes? The directors. The actors. The singers. The authors. And why won’t we get tired of the same stories from different perspectives? Because we are ravenous for connection. For meaning. For more.”
She was very still now, her tea cooling in her hands.
I kept going. “I believe a large part of our purpose on this Earth is tied to storytelling. To witness and be witnessed. So if you have a story to tell—whether it’s been told a thousand times or never at all—you should write it. Because it hasn’t been told by you. And that makes all the difference. Humans need it. We crave it.”
A slow silence passed between us.
Then, Ms. Hiroko set her cup down. "You will help me write my story?"
“I will. It sounds like it would be an absolute blast.”
“Then, I want your name on it. You would know how to get it in stores.”
“My agent would put together the necessary paperwork for us and honestly. . .she will have publishers salivating over the pitch. This would be an easy sale for the both of us.”
Her expression brightened. “When we are done, I want my story to live in bookstores. I want women to see it and know they are allowed to want more. I want them to know that softness and power can live in the same breath. That we were never meant to just endure—we were meant to rule.”
“All that will happen and more,” a laugh bubbled out of me. “Are you prepared to be on camera? To be interviewed? To sit at book signings with me and make grown women cry?”
She didn’t hesitate, “I’ve made prime ministers cry in ropes. I think I’m ready.”
“Perfect.”
Her eyes glistened but I didn’t think it was tears. It might have been joy.
She nodded. “Tomorrow night, you may have my entire club. All levels. Staff included. I will personally assist you with making your beast kneel.”
“Thank you,” I gave her a slight bow. “And then next week, we will begin your memoir.”
I’d come to Tokyo chasing one story.
The underworld.
The shadows.
The unspoken truth of power and pleasure.
Specifically, the kind carved by men. Bought by men. Brutalized by men.
My pitch had been clear: “Expose Tokyo’s underground sex industry through the lens of the Yakuza—the men who built it, bought it, and burned anyone who dared look too long.”
That had been my angle.
But now, as I stared across the table at a woman like Ms. Hiroko—who could command a room without ever raising her voice, who could make billionaires kneel with a glance—I realized I’d been wrong.
There was another story pulsing beneath the one I’d come for.
One even more dangerous.
One even more necessary.
This wasn’t just about men and what they did in the dark.
This was about women.
The ones who dared to take the whip in hand.
The ones who built sanctuaries in neon-lit cities and taught gods how to fall to their knees.
This was a story of women unearthing a power the world told them to bury.
And suddenly, I knew.
This was the book.
Not just some exposé on gang-controlled pleasure markets. This would be about the women who ruled the empire behind the curtain. The real architects of desire. The queens of the underground.
Ms. Hiroko took a slow sip of tea and looked at me.
Damn. We’re about to make a lot of money.
We talked more about the book plans, then the date’s steps, and finished lots of tea. Once she left, all I could think about was the fact that I was really going to do this with Kenji, and it terrified me.
Can I really make him kneel? And is this fucking crazy?
Chapter twenty-two
The Dragon Above It All
Kenji
War, when done right, wasn’t a brawl. It was flight. A hunt from above. The spread of wings—hungry, slow, spiraling.
Then the drop.
The moment before oblivion.
War was fiery breath—held tight in my chest, heating, until I exhaled and burned the world with my flames.
In this war with my father, I would not be a courageous soldier or mighty colonel.
I would be the dragon above it all.
This morning, I had returned to Japan with three planes full of death. One touched down in Chiba, one at a private airstrip near Saitama, and the last, an abandoned air hangar near the rice fields of Tochigi.