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)
“And then?”
“And then the guest pops it.” I mimed a soft tap with an invisible spoon. “And the smoke spills out over the drink like it was hiding. Like it was never there—until it is.”
Super pleased, Hiro exhaled. “That’s Daisuke.”
“Good.”
“How the hell do you know this?”
“I dated a bartender in college. He worked for this Michelin star restaurant. He would always sneak me in the back at night and do different private presentations.”
“Interesting.”
“He has his own chain of high-end bars now. Three locations in New York. Doing really well for himself." I shrugged. "We're still cool. He actually sends me videos sometimes—new cocktails he's working on, breakdowns of his techniques, that kind of thing."
Hiro watched me. "You should tell him to stop."
I blinked. "Why? It's friendly. We dated many years ago."
"You wouldn’t want him to send a friendly video and then the Dragon visit him."
The words landed flat.
Final.
A shiver ran through me. “No. I wouldn’t want that.”
I made a mental note to text Jamison later. The Dragon would not be visiting anyone on my behalf.
Hiro moved on. “Next is Toma.”
“True.” I shoved my discomfort away and flipped the page. Next, I thought of Toma. Both sides of his head were shaved, leaving a single unruly strip of bright purple hair running down the center like a wild flame. “Hmm. My guess is that Toma kills in a loud way.”
“Correct. Why do you say that?"
"Everything about him is loud, right? The tattoos, the purple hair, the way he talks."
"You've met him once and you read him well."
“I was searching for spies last night when I was sizing the Claws up, but that reading came through easily for Toma. So why is he so loud?”
"He grew up in a house with eleven siblings. Somewhere in the middle—not the oldest, not the youngest, not the smartest, not the cutest. Just. . .there."
My chest ached. "So, he made himself impossible to ignore?"
"Yeah. Plus, his father used to lock the kids in the basement when he drank. No light. No food. Sometimes for days." Hiro's voice flattened. "Toma learned to scream louder than anyone. Learned that if he made enough noise, someone might come. Someone might hear."
I stopped drawing.
"When he kills, he wants you to hear him coming. Wants you to know exactly what's about to happen." Hiro made a crushing gesture with his fist. "No silence. No shadows. Just noise and destruction and the absolute certainty that Toma was there."
I sat with that for a moment.
The loud hair.
The louder personality.
All of it suddenly made brutal sense.
"His drink needs to perform. It has to announce itself." I began to draw a skull-shaped glass. "What if we do a drink that changes? Like, violently. In front of you."
"How?"
"Butterfly pea flower makes things purple. But when you add citrus, it transforms. Goes from deep violet to bright magenta right before your eyes." I started writing ingredients. "So the bartender brings it out purple—dark, moody, like it's hiding something. Then they squeeze lime into it at the table."
"And it changes."
"Oh yeah. The color shifts. Then we light the surface on fire." I grinned. "Impossible to ignore."
Hiro nodded slowly. "That's Toma."
"Whiskey base because he seems like a whiskey guy.”
“He is.”
“We could do jalapeño syrup for heat, black salt rim. And we'll call it. . .Purple Riot."
“Mmmm. Tasty. The Fangs are going to be jealous.”
“They won’t be jealous because they’ll get to try the drinks too.”
“The cocktail party is only for the Claws.”
“Yes.”
“We’re being nice by letting the Dragon and Roar come.”
“That’s really nice of y’all.” I chuckled. “But still, we are letting the Fangs try the drinks during dinner and do not argue with me about this.”
“Fine.” Hiro pursed his lips.
“So now, it’s the twins right?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmm.” I glanced at the window and realized the light had shifted—we'd been at this for over an hour. My shoulders ached from hunching over the sketchpad, but I didn't want to stop.
I thought about Aki and Yuki. Perfect mirrors in slim black suits. Slicked-back hair. And identical scars on their chins.
I looked at Hiro. "How do the twins kill?"
"Like one person in two bodies."
I stopped drawing. "What do you mean?"
"They don't communicate. They don't signal. They don't even look at each other. They just move. Together. Always together. Like they're sharing the same brain."
"That sounds amazing."
"It makes me think that. . .twins can feel each other's pain."
I tried to picture it.
"Aki is fire. Loud. Aggressive. In your face. He makes you think he's the only threat—makes you focus everything on stopping him." Hiro's hands moved as he spoke. "And while you're dealing with the inferno in front of you, Yuki is smoke. Circling. Patient. Waiting for the opening his brother creates. You won't see him until his blade is already in your back."
"So. . .Yuki is the real danger?"
"They're both blades. They just cut from different angles."