Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 154368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 617(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 617(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Hiro rolled his neck, and I heard the crack of it even over the bass bleeding through the doors.
Hiroko's breathing had calmed and her hands weren’t shaking anymore. Her eyes were fixed on the doors like she could already see what was behind them.
I looked down at my guns and glanced one last time at my Tiger's blood on the barrels.
The doors opened, and thank God there was no army of bullets to greet us.
Good. They still don’t know we’re here.
The first thing that hit me was the smell—a nauseating cocktail of designer perfumes mingling with the animal musk of bodies.
It clung to my nostrils.
The second thing was the noise—not just music, but a primal erotic booming that crawled up through the soles of my boots and rattled my teeth, punctuated by a lustful symphony of gasps, groans, and cries.
All pleasure, pain and debauchery.
All ecstasy and agony.
The Scales kept their guns up and stepped off the elevator.
I leaned toward Hiroko. “Where’s the security?”
She shook her head. “This is the secret service entrance. There would be no need.”
“There’s always a need if there’s an entrance or exit.”
“This is a different world, Kenji. Yours runs on bullets and blood. Mine runs on money and flesh. Customers don't want to see guns everywhere. They only want to see naked bodies.”
“Hmmm.”
Reo and the Claws left.
Then, we were next.
Red lights bathed everything in a crimson glow.
Glass walls stretched in every direction, revealing shadowed figures writhing behind them. Men and women tangled together. Groups. Couples. Every position. Every act. Nothing hidden.
Except that wasn't quite right.
I stepped closer to one of the walls and studied it. The surface had a faint metallic sheen on our side—barely visible under the red light, but there. I knew that coating.
One-way glass.
Dielectric.
High-end.
The kind of glass used in interrogation rooms and luxury surveillance suites. A thin metallic film layered between panes, reflecting light back on the brighter side while letting it pass through on the darker one.
These customers were being watched from every angle and never knew it.
I looked at Hiroko. "One-way glass."
"Every room, hallway, and suite has it. There is no privacy within Yoshiwara." She kept her eyes forward as we slowly walked down the hall. "This gives the Council leverage in deals."
“Blackmail?”
“Lots of it. Politicians. CEOs. Foreign diplomats. If they get too. . .naughty down here. . .well. . .the Council ends up owning them after that."
I stopped. “Hold on.”
The whole group halted.
I stared through the glass on my left and tilted my head, watching a man slam his cock into a woman who appeared barely legal. Granted, knowing this was Yoshiwara. . .she might not have been legal at all.
I frowned.
His rhythm was aggressive. Greedy. The kind of fucking a man did when he thought no one was watching—selfish, ugly, purely for himself.
Meanwhile, her moans echoed through the glass, muffled but audible. Her performance was flawless. Mouth open. Eyes half-lidded. Nails raking down the surface.
But her gaze was dead.
She wasn't there.
The man didn't notice and didn't care. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back, exposing the long line of her throat. His hips snapped forward, burying himself deeper, and the impact sent her breasts bouncing against the glass with each savage thrust.
And that's when his neck turned just enough.
There it was.
The fox.
Dark and burned into skin, sitting right below his jaw. My father's mark on another man, branded like a dog.
My smile came slow.
One of the Fox's inner circle was balls-deep inside a Yoshiwara courtesan.
I checked the back of the room.
His gun sat on a chair.
I put my view back to him.
His pants were around his ankles, and he had absolutely no idea that twenty armed men—his enemies—were standing on the other side of the glass watching him fuck.
He was currently vulnerable.
Exposed.
Useless.
“Good call on the entrance, Hiroko." Behind me, I felt the shift.
Shoulders dropping.
Breathing slowing.
The Claws had come down that elevator expecting death, and instead they'd found a man with his pants around his ankles and his gun across the room.
I could feel the relief spreading through the group like a slow exhale.
That was good, but it wasn’t time to celebrate just yet. Relief made men careless in war.
I looked at the Claws. "Check the rooms. Tell me what you see."
The Claws spread out to other glass walls and scanned the rooms with the trained eyes of men who knew how to find a target in any setting—even one dripping in sex and red light.
I went over to the glass that Hiro stood in front of.
“Hmmm.”
Hiro looked at me. “Interesting sight. Isn’t it?”
“It is.” Two women were on their knees in front of a man sitting in a low chair. One had her mouth around his cock, her head bobbing slow and deep while his fingers tangled in her hair. The other was between the first woman's thighs from behind, her tongue working while her hand slid up the man's inner leg.