Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 104141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
A wicked smile spread across Hiro’s face. “It shocks me too, but I do have one name to satisfy all the requirements.”
I let out a long breath and turned back to my Roar. “And the men, Reo?”
"All briefed." Reo put the notebook up. "Final inspection is at oh-six-hundred tomorrow. They all are having a light dinner tonight. No alcohol after sunset. Sleep mandatory. Anyone caught up after midnight is getting thrown in the cells under the mansion."
Tomorrow night, we would walk into the Hotel Gajoen wearing demon faces, kill as many as we could, climb one hundred steps in blood, and bury my brother and the Fox.
The cart continued on.
The trees on either side of the path thinned. Then, the soft orange glow of the clinic's exterior lights appeared through the branches up ahead and the path widened as my driver slowed for the bend.
Hiro sighed. “Who do you think Kiko’s twins will belong to?”
I smiled. “Hopefully you.”
Hiro glared at me. “That’s fucked up, brother.”
“You had Kiko more than me.”
“Yeah, but you’re the Dragon. Your sperm could be stronger than mine.”
“I doubt it.”
Reo spoke, “And there is the possibility of others, including. . .the Fox.”
I tensed.
Hiro eyed me. “Could she have fucked the old man?”
“She wanted absolute power. I could see that being a possibility.”
“Then, the twins would be our brothers.”
“They would.”
“We couldn’t kill them.”
“Of course not.”
“But we can kill her?”
“As soon as she bothered my Tiger, a ticking expiration tag went to her.”
“Our Tiger.”
I rolled my eyes. “But how we kill her and when. . .must be handled just right.”
We took the bend.
The clinic came fully into view, and something looked odd.
I raised my eyebrows and Reo said what I was thinking. “There are no guards at the front door.”
Reo put his hand inside his jacket, took out his gun, and signaled the driver. "Go in slow."
Reo gestured to the guards in the cart.
The one in the back joined the one in the front.
Hiro was already sitting forward. All softness left his face as his gaze locked on the front of the clinic. "Some of her people and our people should be outside."
All of a sudden, screams erupted from inside the building.
Goddamn it.
The sounds were muffled by the clinic's walls but unmistakable. A woman was screaming and a man was shouting in Japanese. The words were too fast and too garbled to catch.
I smelled smoke next and turned my head toward the east side of the clinic.
A thin gray plume lifted above the roofline against the deepening sky.
I sneered. “Someone started a fucking fire in the clinic.”
Hiro sighed. “No doubt it was Kiko. She’ll probably do anything to prolong these results.”
My heart boomed in my ears.
The screaming inside the clinic got louder.
What the fuck is happening in there?
Chapter twenty-seven
Pandemonium
Kenji
I did not know what was happening inside the clinic, but I didn’t need to. The fire on the east side. The emptiness where my guards should have been. The screaming through the walls. None of it had to be explained to me. My body had already done the logic my mind was still catching up to.
Kiko.
Whatever chaos was happening in there, she had started it.
More screaming hit me as my shoes hit the gravel.
Reo was already gone—left, low, weapon up, clearing the angle on the front doors before Hiro and I had finished disembarking.
Hiro broke right with a blade in his left hand and a sidearm in his right.
My hip was empty, my waistband and ankle too. I'd left the mansion in preparation for a romantic dinner and the Burial Ritual.
I was now walking into chaos with a Dragon's reputation and nothing else.
My men flowed past me in a tight wedge—six of them, all armed, in motion, and fanning into standard breach formation. The lead two stacked on the doors. The next two pulled flanks. The last two stayed next to me.
I gestured for them to go through.
One kicked the doors open hard enough for the hinges to shriek.
Heat hit us immediately.
They rushed in.
Hiro and I entered after.
Smoke crawled along the ceiling in black ribbons.
A body lay twisted near the reception desk.
Another man crawled across the floor leaving a dark red trail behind him.
Then gunfire cracked deeper inside the building.
Three shots in the east.
Close.
“I’ll check that side.” Reo sprinted toward the sound without hesitation. My men followed.
To my right, a man lay face-down with the back of his skull caved in.
Hiro turned him over and we saw his face.
I fisted my hands. “Fuck.”
Hiro carefully placed him back down. “Sora.”
My heart ached, but I would not drown in it.
Sora had been part of my personal security since I’d become the Dragon. He was married and had two daughters. When we had first arrived on the island, he had come to me and respectfully requested to be posted to the clinic detail because his pregnant wife worked the day shift in the lab.