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)
Fuck.
The floor was slick. I looked down and saw blood pooled in the low spots of the stone.
Dark and thick.
Some of it old and nearly black. Some of it fresh enough to reflect the dim overhead lights.
The walls were splattered—big and small handprints, drag marks, long smears where something had been pulled across the surface.
Steel tables lined the far wall.
Drains beneath them.
Hoses coiled on hooks.
And there were men in the room.
One was hunched over a body on the nearest table. A woman. Her skin was gray. Her eyes were open and staring at nothing. Her jaw hung slack. And the man's hips were moving, his hands gripping her thighs, spreading them wider while he grunted into her neck like she was still there.
Like she could still feel him.
She couldn't.
She'd been dead long enough that the bruising on her body had turned yellow at the edges.
Further in, another man sat in a chair with a body draped across his lap. He was stroking her hair. Talking to her. Whispering things I couldn't hear and didn't want to. His other hand moved between her legs with a slow, casual rhythm, like they had all the time in the world.
They did.
She wasn't going anywhere.
The smell was overwhelming—copper, decay, and acrid chemical scents that burned my nostrils.
Formaldehyde.
They were preserving them just enough to keep them usable.
I heard groans, moans, and the wet slap of flesh against something that should have been in the ground a long time ago.
My stomach turned.
I'd seen evil. I'd done evil. But this was something else. This was a depth of depravity that made me understand why they called this place the Depths.
It wasn't just underground. It was the bottom of what human beings were capable of.
I kept my eyes forward and kept moving.
If I had the fucking time. . .
Clearly thinking the same thing, Hiro raised his gun to shoot one man.
I touched his arm. “No, Hiro.”
Hiro frowned and glanced at me. "We should kill these sickos."
"Can't waste bullets. We'll get them next time."
“Promise?”
“Yes. We’ll figure it out.”
If this is what the Council is allowing, it might be time to bomb the Depths and end the Council.
A minute later, we burst through the other side and into another hallway.
This one was cleaner.
Quieter.
Hiroko led us to an elevator at the end of the corridor. "This is a service elevator that will take us up out of the depths.”
“Good.” Reo looked at it. “Where will we end up at?”
“Backstage at the Kabuki-za theater. There’s a hidden panel backstage. We’ll arrive there."
Reo pressed into the microphone. “Team C get to Kabuki-za theater. Team D ready the helicopters.”
Two men responded over the mic, “Yes, sir.”
She pressed the button, and we waited.
I could still hear gunfire in the distance as adrenaline pumped hot through my veins.
Reo sighed. “Kabuki-za has a secret entrance and exit too?”
She nodded.
“Where is it?”
“The entrance is in a theater box. The exit is on the other side of the backstage space.”
Reo frowned. “Close to this service entrance, like on the roof?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
I glanced at Reo. "What's on your mind?"
"If the Fox planned this, would he have known that we would have to go up this way?"
Hiroko nodded slowly. "Possibly. They've got the mines over there to blow us up. They've got the cleanup crew to make sure we don't go back the way we came. The theater could be one spot."
Hiro quirked his brows. "Do we go up or not?"
Everyone looked at me.
I thought about it, weighed the options, and calculated the risks. "To stay in Yoshiwara now would be suicidal. If the Fox is smart, which he has proven once again, he's probably got cleanup crews on every level. That's what I would do. We have to get the fuck out of here which means. . .we have to risk the theater."
Hiroko looked at her watch. "There could be a theater performance right now. So if they do have people there backstage, it should be a small amount."
"Okay. Let's risk the theater." Reo bobbed his head. “Plus, we have back up on the way.”
Reo turned to Hiroko’s men. “You now are first line with the remaining Scales.”
“No.” I shook my head. “They stay next to her.”
“We need the coverage for you.” Reo gestured for them to go.
They headed over to stand by the Scales.
Hiro eyed me as if waiting for me to disagree with Reo’s judgement. With the bomb and close call of our deaths, I knew he would be on edge and not willing to be light with my protection.
The elevator doors opened, and we piled in.
The doors closed, and the elevator started moving up.
No one spoke.
I could hear breathing. The hum of the elevator cables. My own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
I looked down at my guns.
I hadn't fired a single bullet.
Not one.
My Claws had killed with their hands. My Scales had died from a mine. I'd given orders, made calls, triggered a kill box. But these two silver guns—the ones my Tiger had bled for—hadn't spoken once.