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)
Seconds later, the twins caught up with me.
One twin was bleeding from his shoulder and his cheekbone was swelling purple, but his jaw was set.
The other twin’s throat was already bruising where the man had choked him, a dark band forming across his skin.
But neither of them slowed.
The hallway curved.
Twisted.
Passed a series of locked doors with numbers on them.
Private rooms.
The air smelled like old perfume and cigarette smoke.
A door opened to my left.
A man stepped out, saw us, and reached for his gun.
I shot him in the chest before he cleared the holster.
The fire caught the doorframe.
I rushed on.
Where are you?
I stopped running where the hallway split and looked left, then right.
Come on, you son of a bitch!
I listened.
Nothing.
Akiro's footsteps were gone. He'd made it out.
“Fuck!” I slammed my fist into the wall.
The plaster cracked. My knuckles split open, and blood smeared across the peeling gold wallpaper.
“Maybe this will help.” One of the twins pulled something out of their pocket. “I found this when we were on the stairs.”
I holstered my guns and looked at his hand. “A phone.”
“Could be Akiro's phone.” He gave it to me.
The case was glass, not plastic.
Beneath it, sealed under a layer of hardened resin was a rose with a single, large thorn.
I dragged my thumb slowly across the back. The surface was smooth, polished — but the image beneath it felt violent.
The Glass Thorn.
"Yes." I turned it over. "This is my brother's."
The screen was frozen on a text conversation. Cracked down the center but still readable.
Akiro: Kenji and Hiro are here.
The Fox: Kill them!
Two words.
That was all my father had for his sons who had stood by his side and protected him for decades.
I shut off the phone.
The twins watched me in silence.
"But you couldn't kill us, Akiro." I stared at the dark screen. "All you could do was run."
But even as I said it, something nagged at me.
Akiro didn't fight today. He never intended to. He showed up with a weapon he barely swung and a smile he never lost. He let ten die in a theater box so he could walk down a hallway.
And then it hit me.
The mines in Yoshiwara. The cleanup crews on every level. The snipers guarding the service exit. The men waiting in the performance box. Every single layer of today had been designed to funnel us, box us in, and kill us without Akiro ever having to raise his blade.
This wasn't my father's plan.
My father would have faced us, would have made it personal, would have wanted to watch.
This had Akiro's fingerprints all over it.
The Glass Thorn.
I'd been thinking of him as a coward. A runner. A puppet on my father's string.
But puppets didn't build mazes with multiple contingencies and sacrifice men as a delaying tactic.
Akiro wasn't running from me today. He was testing his defense system. Seeing which traps worked and which didn't. Watching how we moved, how we fought, how we adapted. And the whole time taking notes.
And the only reason we were still alive was Hiroko—a variable he hadn't accounted for.
My jaw tightened.
You're not a fighter, brother, but you're something worse. You're fucking patient.
My mind was already working. If I gave this phone to my hackers, they could crack it open and go through every call and message.
They would discover every location Akiro had visited in the last six months. Cell towers. GPS data. Meeting points. Safe houses. Every place my brother had been in Japan was stored in this glass case—and wherever Akiro had been, my father wasn't far behind.
Even better—they could trace incoming calls.
The Fox was careful, but Akiro wasn't. Not careful enough to hold onto his own phone while running from me.
You still have a lot to learn, Akiro.
A wicked smile spread across my face.
This was more than a clue.
This was a map straight to my father.
Relief loosened in my chest.
And then Hiroko lying on blood-stained flowers flashed in my head, and the grief surged back.
My throat tightened.
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the hallway.
Heavy.
Fast.
The twins reached for their knives.
Reo appeared around the corner.
Bloodied.
Limping slightly.
Holding his ribs.
But upright.
"Kenji, our people arrived." Reo stopped to catch his breath. "The theater is clear on the inside and the outside."
I leaned my head to the side. "Hiro?"
"Downstairs. Alive. Pissed off. The rest of the Claws are hurt, but okay."
“Akiro ran off. Did anyone find him outside?”
“No.”
“That’s fine. We’ll catch the coward later.” I showed him Akiro’s phone as I walked toward him. "I've got what I need. Let's go."
“His phone?”
“Yes.” I gave it to Reo.
“Hmmm.” Reo looked at it. “We don’t take this back to the island. We’ll have Scales meet our hackers in Tokyo to go through it. For all we know, Akiro intentionally set it there, and there’s a tracker inside.”
“Smart. Get it done.” I walked past him.
I'm coming home, Tora.
Chapter forty