House of Demons
RebelleFleur00 · 10 chapters · 15,085 words
Authors Note
Well, hello again my lovely readers.
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? But I’m finally back, and I’ve brought something delightfully wicked with me.
House of Demons is darker, bloodier, and considerably spicier than anything I’ve written before. Expect assassins, Yakuza, revenge, obsession, possession, bloodshed, and a romance so wickedly unhinged you’ll wonder why the hell you’re even rooting for them.
Trigger warning : This story contains graphic sexual content, violence, murder, revenge, torture, and other mature themes.
You’ve been warned, darlings.
—Rebelle Fleur.
P.S. Here’s the Spotify playlist of songs that helped inspire some of the chapters! I like playing them in the background while I’m writing. I’ll be updating it the more I write.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4SeXSXOQTP51qlsvW0ouO1?si=7ZXIab8sTLORW2mR6vUyxw
Prologue
“This can’t be right,” Dad’s voice carried through the wall. “If it is, then that means—”
“How else could you explain this?” Mom replied.
Kai and I pressed our ears against the office wall. Our parents never let us listen to their work. If anyone asked what they did for a living, we didn’t even know what to tell them.
“We aren’t safe here,” Dad said. “We need to get this to him immediately.”
“I’ll pack the kids.” Footsteps sounded from behind the wooden door. It opened before Kai and I had the chance to run away. Our mother looked down at us with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
My brother and I got ready for another lecture about eavsedropping, but instead, “Kai, Mei, grab your things. We’re going on a trip.”
“Where to, Mama?” I asked.
“It’s a surprise.” She walked into our room. This wasn’t the first time we took these “surprise trips.” Kai and I did this enough times to already know what came next.
“Do we have to move, Mama?” Kai asked. “I really like it here.”
“And we were going to have our tenth birthday on the beach!” I whined.
My mom turned over her shoulder. “Should I tell your Oji you’re not coming anymore? I know someone there who’s going to be really upset that he can’t see his best friends.”
“We’re going to Oji’s?” Kai and I asked.
I rushed to bed, grabbed my toys, and shoved it into the already full suitcase. “I love Oji’s!”
“Yeah, Oji’s the best!” Kai jumped with excitement.
Packing was always easy. Everything we had fit in a small suitcase. We weren’t allowed to decorate our rooms, and they always looked boring and plain. Once our stuff was packed, it looked like no one lived there at all.
Adults were weird.
A light shined through the window. My parents always got the ones that turned on when something moved. I think they called them motion sensor lights or something. One lit up. Then another.
“Babe!” My dad ran into the room.
My mom zipped up our suitcases. “Yeah, I know!” She hurried over to us, bent down, and gently pulled us closer. “Hey, you remember that hide-and-seek game? The special one daddy and I taught you?”
“The one in the boring room?” Kai asked.
“Yes, that one.” Mom stood up and grabbed our suitcases. “Go, hurry.”
There was a loud thud on the door. Dad was in the library, putting in the code for the secret hiding spot. He swung the hidden door open while Mom placed our suitcases inside. I didn’t like this one. The secret rooms in the other houses were bigger, and they had more candy.
Another loud thud came from the front door.
“Remember the rules in here, okay?” Mom placed a hand on each of our shoulders. “Don’t make a sound, and don’t come out until someone opens the door from the other side.”
Another thud rang out, but this time, it sounded like something broke.
Mom and dad gave us both a kiss on the forehead.
“Never forget we love you.” Mom’s voice was shaking.
“Remember what I told you before, Kai,” Dad said. “We love you. With all our hearts.”
They looked at us for a second before they shut the door. My brother and I stayed silent. Usually, we weren’t in there long. But this felt different. Footsteps pounded outside the door, echoing through the halls. There were so many.
Weird sounds came from the other side. Booms that sounded like cannons. Yells and grunts.
Then Mom screamed. It was short, but I knew it was her. Another scream. I flinched. Tears streamed down my face as I reached for the door. Kai grabbed my hand and pulled me back. I fought against him, but he pulled me into a hug and covered my mouth. The noises seemed to go on forever.
I didn’t know what was going on out there, but Kai seemed like he had an idea. He shut his eyes and held me tight. There was one last thud outside the door, then it quieted down. The footsteps outside lingered, walking around the house and slamming drawers. After a while, everything went quiet.
We were in there a lot longer than those other times. We didn’t say a word; we didn’t even whisper. My brother and I just waited for someone to come and find us, just like our parents said. I slept most of the time. Naps made the time go by faster. I didn’t see Kai sleep. Maybe he rested while I did.
Kai shook me awake. A faint chime rang through the room before a woman cracked the door open. She looked down at us for a minute, a frown stretched across her lips. Her eyes darted around the tiny room.
“Are you friends with mom and dad?” Kai asked.
“Yes. My name’s Nina.” The lady bent down and smiled. “Now, let’s get you out of here.” She glanced over her shoulder. The woman looked around the room for a second before turning back towards us.
“Here. One of you gets a piggy back ride, and I’ll carry the other.” She looked over her shoulder again. “But it’s really important that you don’t open your eyes until I tell you to, okay?”
I nodded.
The woman held her pinky out towards us. “Pinky promise?”
Kai and I took the pinky oath, the most sacred of all promises.
The lady smiled. “Good.”
She carried us out of the house and placed us in the backseat of a car.
“Can we open our eyes yet?” I asked. The car started. The engine was a lot louder than dad’s minivan.
“Not yet,” the woman said.
The car started moving. I knew she told us to keep our eyes closed, but I couldn’t help it. I cracked an eye open and glanced at our house as we drove by. Windows were broken, people were sleeping out on the lawn, and there was some kind of red stuff all over the place.
“Where are we going?” Kai asked.
“Somewhere safe.”
Chapter One
Fifteen years later.
“Congratulations on making it to Graduation Day.”
My eyes swept across the five head instructors seated before us. Aside from Nina, we didn’t know the others’ names or faces. The Organization prioritized anonymity above all else. Their identities were irrelevant, and we addressed them by the masks they wore.
The Tengu wore a black crow-like mask with a long, curved beak, its sharp features fitting for the cunning, watchful man beneath it. He had an irritating ability to notice everything. He corrected my technique more times than I could count, and he’d never once bothered to tell me what I’d done wrong. He’d just stare at me until I figured it out myself.
Nina, The Kitsune, wore a porcelain-white fox mask streaked with crimson markings and delicate gold detailing that was as beautiful as it was uncanny. Behind closed doors, to us, she was Nina. Everywhere else, she was the Kitsune. The Organization had strict rules about identities, and calling Nina by her name wasn’t worth getting killed over. She was the closest thing Kai and I had to family, although, I suspected she’d deny that until the day she died.
The Hannya was a woman hidden behind a pale ivory mask. Its delicate features were distorted by blood red markings and small gold horns, creating the face of a woman twisted and consumed by rage. Considering the woman underneath had made grown men cry during training, I’d always thought it suited her quite well. She’d once broken a student’s nose for dropping his guard during hand-to-hand combat, then made him apologize for bleeding on the floor. I wasn’t entirely sure which part had been more terrifying.
The Shikami wore a black skeletal mask with an inhuman grin, its dark surface traced with subtle gold accents. There was something deeply unsettling about a man who never spoke wearing a mask that never stopped smiling. He’d taught us more about killing than any of the others, which was impressive considering he’d rarely needed more than a few words to get his point across. Most of his lessons involved demonstrating how quickly a mistake could become fatal.
And sitting in the center of the stage was the Oni, his face hidden beneath a crimson and black demon mask crowned with sweeping horns and edged in gold. Its sinister smile served as a warning of the authority he commanded. Although, anyone stupid enough to need the warning probably hadn’t survived long enough to make it to Graduation Day. The Oni was responsible for overseeing all of us, and after fifteen years in The Organization, I’d learned that his approval was almost as valuable as his disapproval was dangerous.
Kai and I stood amongst our fellow classmates, all one hundred and sixty-seven of them. We were lined up in neat, orderly rows with our hands cupped behind our backs, all of us waiting for the signal that would turn our graduation ceremony into a bloodbath.
The Oni crossed his legs and leaned back in his black leather chair. “Your final exam is simple. Survive. The last ten standing will be our graduating class.”
I glanced over at Kai, who was already staring at me. He tilted his head to the right, a silent signal that he’d be focusing on that side of the room. I nodded.
There’d only be a handful of classmates that would pose an actual threat. Everyone knew who they were, which meant they were also the ones everyone would be watching—my brother and I included.
Usually, the Organization taught us to take out the weakest ones first. It was the safest strategy. Eliminate the easy targets, thin out the numbers, and save the real threats for when there were fewer people left to deal with. But my brother and I had always found our method to be superior: take out whoever the fuck was dumb enough to stand in our way.
“Aside from that, there are no rules.” The Oni leaned an elbow on his arm rest and placed a hand underneath his chin. He looked across the room, taking in the student who had spent over a decade training for this exact moment.
“Begin.”
Chapter Two
I grabbed my daggers from my waistband and pivoted on my heel, targeting the classmate to my left of me. I sank the blade deep into his throat, slicing through the cartilage and arteries with a series of sickening cracks.
I had barely managed to pull the dagger free before the man on my right swung at me. I ducked beneath his attack and drove my blade into his lower abdomen. As he doubled over, I twisted and brought my other dagger across his chest, tearing straight through his flesh.
Warm blood splattered across me, the familiar iron scent filling my senses.
Blades clashed and strained grunts echoed through the air, a sweet symphony of death I’d become accustomed to after all these years.
I kept moving, weaving between classmates who lunged at me from every direction. I ducked beneath a right hook, drove my elbow into another student’s jaw, then spun out of the way as a blade sliced through the space where my head had been.
Three more students closed the distance and lunged for me. I ran straight towards them, gaining speed before dropping to my knees. I slid across the sleek, blood-soaked marble. I sliced through the Achilles tendons of the first two, then drove my blade into the throat of the third.
I pushed myself back onto my feet just as another dagger came flying towards my face. I twisted at the last second. The blade grazed my cheek while another student charged. His fist came straight for my sternum. I caught his wrist, redirected the blow, and twisted his arm until I heard his shoulder crack. I brought my knee up, breaking his elbow before I sliced across the inside of his wrist.
I glanced at my brother, who was dealing with his own crowd of overzealous classmates trying to murder him.
It didn’t take long for the numbers to dwindle, and soon, there were only twenty of us left.
Now, the fun could really begin.
Out of everyone, there were only five of our fellow classmates who posed any kind of real threat.
One of them was the youngest student to ever take the Final Exam: Natasha. Last name? No fucking clue. We didn’t know anyone beyond their first name. At first glance, most people would dismiss the frail-looking, petite woman. But what she lacked in brute strength, she made up for in cunning and intellect.
Jecht, a gargantuan of a man, was quite the opposite. He had more muscle than he did brain cells. But his “punch first, ask questions later” mentality only worked because of his abnormally large stature. The man was built like a brick wall with anger issues. It was a miracle he even made it to Graduation Day running off of sheer willpower and sadistic tendencies alone.
Lily and her brother Liam were another on my list. Aside from us, they were the only other sibling duo in the Organization. They’d developed a fighting style that, when combined, could take down even the most seasoned assassin. The siblings moved like they’d been trained as a single unit rather than two separate people, anticipating each other’s movements before either of them moved. But their synergy was also their downfall. Separate them, and they’re no better than a tenth year.
But there was one standout amongst our graduating class: Felix. A lethal combination of strength, cunning, and speed, which was an unfortunate combination for anyone stupid enough to get within arm’s reach of him. He had a habit of killing his sparring partners. He was the kind of fighter who made you realize you’d lost about three seconds after you’d already been dead. If there was anyone I was worried about, it’d be him.
My brother and I stood our ground, eyeing the classmates who had the highest potential to kill us. And each of them returned that glare with equal intensity. Except Jecht. The giant bastard looked around the room like a kid on Christmas morning.
The fighting around us shifted. We weren’t the targets anymore. Apparently, everyone else in our class decided to let the top performers handle each other. It wasn’t a bad strategy. Let the people most capable of killing each other do most of the dirty work, and pick off whoever was left standing.
The subtle sound of footsteps approached me from behind. I twisted, lifting my blade just in time to block an attack that sent me stumbling backwards. I barely had time to recover before another dagger shot towards my ribs. The edge cut through my shirt and grazed my skin.
I glanced up. A pair of icy blue eyes met my gaze.
Of course. Out of all these fuckers it just had to be Felix who’d set his sights on me.
Jecht sprinted from the other side of the room, dipping his shoulder low and charging through the crowd like a bull. The giant idiot wasn’t even armed. Apparently, he decided that being the size of a small building meant he didn’t need weapons. He fought with his bare hands and a stupid smile stretched across his lips. I could say with absolute certainty that Jecht charged in not for a strategic advantage, but just for the fucking hell of it.
The others avoided Felix and me like the plague. Their best strategy would be for me to distract Felix enough for them to make it into the top ten. I couldn’t blame them. Shit, if I were in their position, I’d happily let two of the most dangerous people in the room kill each other while I stayed the hell out of the way.
I caught sight of the twins, who stared at Felix for a moment before turning towards my brother. To them, I was already as good as dead.
But I didn’t come this far to die at the finish line.
Felix’s movements were faster than I remembered. He took advantage of every opening, no matter how small. My blade clashed against his, sparks dancing off the metal as I struggled to keep up with him.
“You better save some action for me, motherfuckers!” Jecht screamed.
Felix and I glanced in his direction, then looked at each other. Neither of us needed to say a word before stepping away from each other and turning our attention towards Jecht.
He flailed his arms like a gorilla, forcing Felix and me to take evasive measures to dodge the blows. One of Jecht’s wild swings clipped my shoulder and pushed me off balance. The impact dislocated my shoulder. But I didn’t have time to worry about it. I grit my teeth as his other hand gripped my arm.
With the brute’s attention on me, Felix went in for the killing blow. Jecht didn’t even try to dodge. He flexed his stomach and let the dagger sink into his abdomen while he headbutted Felix.
Jecht grabbed Felix with his free hand. His grip on my arm tightened before he turned and lifted both of us off the ground. He swung his arms, ready to slam Felix and me into each other like a monkey banging two cymbals together. I curled my body, protecting my vital organs, and raised my blades to meet Felix’s.
Apparently, he had the same idea. His blade clashed with mine as our bodies collided. At the same time, we both twisted towards Jecht, slicing at whatever parts of his arms we could reach before freeing ourselves from his grip.
Jecht stood there, his smile widening as a steady stream of his blood pooled at his feet. He didn’t even make it a step forward before Kai threw himself onto his back and started stabbing like a madman.
Felix took advantage of the distraction. He lunged forward, his movements so fast that they blurred in my vision. He had an answer for every attack I threw, and he was already two steps ahead with each counterattack. The last time we sparred was six months ago. Back then, I could at least hold my own. But right now, he was on a completely new level. Either he had improved exponentially, or he was holding back. I didn’t know which thought pissed me off more.
In my peripheral, I spotted Jecht clawing at Kai, who still clung to his back. Another classmate appeared behind them, dagger raised as he lunged for Kai’s back.
Without thinking, I threw my blade. It hit its mark perfectly. The steel went straight into the center of his throat. Blood gurgled from his mouth as he crumbled to the floor.
I barely had time to turn back towards Felix before he grabbed my wrist and twisted until my remaining dagger slipped from my fingers. I launched a series of kicks towards his side, but he blocked every single one with ease. Throwing my dagger to save Kai had left me vulnerable. And Felix knew it.
His blade plunged towards my throat. I jerked backwards, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me closer. There was nowhere left to go. Before he could pierce the skin, a soft chime rang through the room.
Everyone froze.
The cold steel of his dagger pressed hard against my skin, drawing out a thin trickle of blood that dripped down my shirt.
“Congratulations.” Our head instructors rose to their feet. “The ten of you have passed the Final Exam.”
Chapter Three
I stepped into the infirmary with Kai, both of us leaving a fresh trail of blood across the pristine white floors. A masked nurse waited for us. She didn’t bother motioning towards the chair. I didn’t blame her. Kai and I had been in here enough times to already know the drill by now.
Every time we got our asses handed to us, this was where we’d end up. The nurses only did the bare minimum to keep us alive. They sanitized and wrapped your wounds, popped bones back into place, and stitched your flesh back together. If it wasn’t a serious injury, we were expected to handle it ourselves back in our dormitory.
If you were injured badly enough to require surgery, you were as good as dead. Injured or not, you were expected to show up and fight again the next day. The Organization had a firm belief that one should suffer the consequences of their own mediocrity.
Kai inspected his wrist. Swelling had already started to spread beneath his skin, the bruising darkening by the second. “Fucking Jecht. He was on one today.”
“When isn’t he ‘on one’?” I asked.
Kai scrunched his brows together. “You’re fucking right, actually.”
I chuckled. “Aren’t I always?”
The nurse walked over and began stitching the gashes along his arm.
“Pretty shitty that you got stuck with Felix,” he said. “I would’ve thought Lilly and Liam would target him first.”
“It looked like they wanted to. Guess he got to me faster than they could get to him.”
I turned my back to him and pulled my shirt over my head, leaving me in a blood drenched sports bra. At this point, I couldn’t tell which blood belonged to me and which belonged to the unfortunate bastards who hadn’t passed the exam.
The nurse eyed me for a moment, then turned back to my brother. She finished her suture on Kai’s arm before nodding towards the tray of medical supplies.
I guess my injuries weren’t severe enough for her attention.
The door slid open. Nina stepped inside, her Kitanue mask covering her face and a large black gift bag dangling from one hand.
The nurse froze. She bowed and left the room without a word, abandoning Kai with half a stitch dangling from his arm.
“Ah, fuck.” Kai looked down at his still-gushing wound. “Little help, sis?”
“Yeah, I’m on it.” I picked up the needle and thread and picked up where the nurse had left off.
“The only reason you got injured is because you got sloppy.” Nina raised a brow. “Jumping on his back? Really? Have you learned nothing these past fifteen years?”
Kai smirked. “It worked, didn’t it?”
Nina smacked the back of his head.
Kai cupped it with his good arm. “Hey, what the—”
I pulled on the suture tight. A jolt of satisfaction shot through me seeing him wince.
“Nina’s the reason we’re still alive. Show some respect.” I tied off the last stitch.
Nina raised a brow. “At least one of you retained your manners.” She reached into the bag and pulled out two neatly wrapped boxes. She held it out towards me. “Congratulations on passing your exam.”
Kai shot up from his chair. “Wait. Is that a present? Where’s mine?”
“I’m offended you think I’d forget about you.” She handed him the second box.
Kai snatched it with a childlike enthusiasm. It was strange, receiving a gift. The last time we’d been given one was when our parents were still alive.
I tugged on the red ribbon, wrapping it around my hand. The fabric was thick and sturdy.
I could probably strangle someone with this.
I filed that information away for later.
I lifted the lid. Two blood-red daggers rested inside.
Kai tore into his box and tossed the lid over his shoulder. He reached inside and pulled out a pair of brass knuckles. The scuffed and dented metal told me it’d cracked its fair share of skulls.
Nina smiled at him. “Those belonged to your father.” Then she looked at me. “And those were your mother’s.”
I held one of the daggers like it was the most precious thing I’d ever owned. Because it was.
The only things we had left of our parents were our memories.
Even Kai’s usual recklessness faded. He turned the brass knuckles over in his hands as though they were made of glass.
“Thank you. This is…” The words caught in my throat.
“Don’t thank me yet.” Nina reached into the bag and pulled out a folder.
“Our first mission? Already?” Kai groaned. “We just graduated. After fifteen years, I’d think the Organization could give us at least one fucking vacation.”
Nina nodded towards the folder. “You’re going to want to take this one. Trust me.”
I took it from her and flipped through the documents. Most of the pages were screenshots pulled from street surveillance cameras. The grainy images showed an elderly man moving through different locations. Tattoos covered every inch of visible skin. He was old enough to belong in a retirement home, yet I could tell there was nothing frail about him.
“Renjiro Aoki,” I mumbled. “Patriarch of one of the four yakuza families.”
“And the man responsible for your parents’ deaths,” Nina said. “Now you can thank me.”
My fingers stopped against the page.
“You finally found him?” Kai rushed over to me.
“He’s been in hiding for years. But we finally received confirmation from one of our sources that he was the one who ordered your parents’ death.” Nina’s face hardened. “The contract called for the heads of everyone in your family. You and Kai included.”
“This old fuck?” Kai scowled. “You have his location?”
“No. We were only able to find and verify the contract. The yakuza hid him well. He hasn’t been seen in five years,” Nina explained.
“Are you sure he’s even alive?” I asked.
Kai’s scowl deepened. “He fucking better be.”
“The yakuza operates under a strict hierarchy,” Nina said. “The fact that the Aoki family hasn’t named a new patriarch leads us to believe he’s still alive.”
“So how the hell do we find this bastard?” Kai asked.
Nina rolled her eyes and let out a deep, disappointed sigh—the one she reserved almost exclusively for my brother. “If you go through the rest of the file, you’ll find out.”
I flipped through the remaining pages while Nina pulled out her vape. The Organization had provided us with recon on every major family, but there was one face that kept showing up.
“Jhin Aoki,” I whispered.
He towered over those around him. His muscular, broad shoulders stretched against the fabric of his perfectly tailored suits. Black hair fell across his forehead, framing a sharp jaw and dark eyes that held the same quiet menace as a drawn blade.
Jhin didn’t flaunt flashy jewelry or wear absurd patterns. He blended in, and wore nothing that screamed for attention. But with a face like that, I suppose he didn’t need it to draw the eyes of everyone around him.
Intricate tattoos climbed his throat and disappeared beneath his sleeves. Dark ink covered what little skin his suit exposed, consuming every inch of him like a walking piece of art.
He wasn’t smiling in any of the pictures. If anything, he carried a look of profound boredom, as if the world had failed to hold his interest.
“Before his arrest five years ago, he was seen meeting with leaders from the other families.”
Kai peeked over my shoulder. “What did he get arrested for?”
“Injury resulting in death. Japan’s legal equivalent of voluntary manslaughter,” Nina said, her voice flat. “I can already tell what kind of idiot he is. Only a fool gets caught.” She hit her vape and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. “We believe he’s been running Renjiro’s operation.”
“Before he went to jail?” I asked.
“And while he was locked up.”
Nina glanced at the tray of medical supplies, eyeing the two syringes beside the antiseptic. She picked it up and waved me over.
Kai stared at Jhin’s picture. “How the hell is that even possible?”
Nina scoffed. “It’s the yakuza, dear. Their influence goes far beyond petty thugs and gangsters. They’ve bought politicians, judges, police officers—anyone with enough influence to protect their interests is already on their payroll.”
She stuck the needle into my arm. After receiving the same shot every two weeks for fifteen years, I barely felt it.
“If he’s running Renjiro’s operation, then he’ll know where that bastard’s hiding.” I said. “When do we leave?”
“In two hours.” Nina dropped the syringe onto the tray, picked up the other one, and turned towards Kai. She drove the needle into his arm with far more force than necessary.
Fifteen years of bruises, broken bones, blood, and sleepless nights. Fifteen years of being taught how to kill before we were old enough to comprehend death. Through all of it, there had only been one thing that pushed us forward: revenge.
My grip tightened around the blood-red dagger.
I’d dreamed about the day I would finally make the people responsible for my parents’ death pay.
Now, that day was finally here.
Chapter Four
I glanced around my empty dormitory. White flooring. White, windowless walls. A twin-sized bed with—guess what—white fucking sheets and pillows. I spent fifteen years in a monochromatic-induced madness.
It hadn’t bothered me until now. Maybe it was excitement, or anxiety. Or maybe after fifteen years of staring at the same four walls, I finally noticed how fucking depressing they were.
This room had been my refuge from the bloodshed for most of my life. It was the one place where I could close the door, crawl into bed, and pretend like I hadn’t just learned the most efficient way to murder someone.
We hadn’t left the facility since we arrived. I had vague memories of what the outside world looked like—grass, trees, rivers—but they felt like fragments from a distant dream. One I had so many times that I couldn’t tell which parts were real.
I packed my essentials: daggers, guns, ammunition, and anything else I could shove into my backpack that could double as a tool for ending someone’s life. It took me five minutes to pack everything I owned.
Except none of it belonged to me.
Everything from the bullets in my chamber to the clothes on my back belonged to the Organization. They owned us, and they made damn sure we knew it from day one.
Nina gave us vague answers whenever we asked what would happen after graduation. Her usual detailed explanations became curt, offering nothing more than, “You’ll receive assignments to complete.”
That was all we were able to pry from her before she beat us senseless for asking too many questions.
Even with the lack of details, she guaranteed us one thing: we’d get our chance to take down whoever killed our parents.
As long as revenge was on the table, we didn’t care what we had to do. If the Organization wanted our obedience, they had it. And if they wanted our lives, they could take those too. They’d just have to wait until after we made the people who murdered our parents pay.
A soft knock on the door pulled me from my thoughts. I glanced over my shoulder to find Lilly leaning against the doorframe.
Her eyes drifted towards the open backpack on my bed. “They’re sending you out already?” It was more of a statement than a question.
I stared at her. I think this was the first time I’d ever heard her say more than three words. For a woman so lethal, her voice carried a strange softness, like a child afraid to speak up in front of the class.
Come to think of it, this was the first time I’d ever spoken to a student who wasn’t Kai or Jecht. Then again, Jecht hardly counted. Every interaction with him was just… strange. The training facility didn’t exactly foster an environment for making friends. It was hard to form attachments when any one of us could die at any moment.
“Yeah.” I zipped my bag shut.
“Did they give you any details?” she asked.
I studied her, trying to figure out what she really wanted. There had to be a reason she’d come here, and I doubt it was to make awkward small talk.
“I’m not asking you for your mission details or anything.” She crossed her arms and looked away. “It’s just… did they tell you what’s going to happen to us now?”
Looks like Kai and I weren’t the only sibling duo left in the dark.
“No.” I slung my backpack over my shoulder.
“Lilly!” An overly enthusiastic voice boomed through the corridor.
Jecht turned the corner, the fresh blood from the exam still caked across his skin. He placed a massive hand on Lilly’s shoulder. She flinched, not in fear, but as if she were resisting the urge to tear his arm off.
“Excellent fighting out there!” Jecht smiled and patted her back. Lilly took a step forward and scowled. We all knew Jecht had a hard time controlling his strength. Either that, or he just didn’t bother to try at all.
Lilly didn’t acknowledge him. She glanced over at me instead and muttered, “Good luck.”
Jecht watched in confusion as she turned on her heel and walked away.
“Tiny Lilly! I look forward to fighting against you again!” Jecht called after her. “And you, Mei—” He placed his hands on his hips and straightened his back. “I am not satisfied with our fight.”
“What was so unsatisfactory about it?” I asked.
“It only lasted a few minutes. Not long enough to truly gauge your skills.” Jecht frowned. “I demand a rematch at your earliest convenience.”
“Sure. It’s going to have to wait though,” I said.
His eyes widened. “You’re leaving?”
I nodded. “Kai and I got our first mission.”
Jecht stood there for a moment, his eyes glistening and a pout forming on his lips. “You… you get to see the outside!” A tear streamed down his scarred cheek.
Yet another one of those weird Jecht interactions.
He gripped my shoulder and shook me. “You must tell me every detail of it when you return.”
“Alright—”
“Every. Fucking. Detail.”
I couldn’t tell if he was excited or threatening me. It was hard to tell with him.
“Hey, fuck off, will you?” Kai yelled out, glaring up at the giant man in the doorway.
Jecht scowled. “I am just excited for you two. Enjoy the outside world.” He pointed a finger at me. “And do not die. I will be awaiting your return for our rematch.”
“Hmm. Sure thing.”
His finger followed me as I walked past him, the burning determination in his eyes never faltering.
Six guards were waiting for us at the end of the corridor.
“Mei. Kai. This way,” one of them announced.
They turned in unison, their footsteps falling into perfect rhythm. The guards led us through a series of secured doors, some accessible through key cards, others with biometric scanners.
We were entering a restricted area of the facility, one where wandering these halls without permission warranted a bullet to the back of the head.
A plain black door stood out amongst the eye-straining white of the facility. One of the guards placed his hand on a scanner, holding it there until the light shifted to green and the door unlocked with a deep thunk .
The guard held open the door and stepped out of the way, revealing a lounge where our head instructors waited for us. Obsidian replaced the sterile white of the hallway, the dim lighting and dark decorations making it feel as though we’d stepped into an entirely different building.
The Hannya lounged across a chaise, her legs crossed and a long cigarette holder balanced between her fingers. She tilted her head up, sending another twirl of smoke dancing through the stagnant air. The delicate scent of flowers mingled with the pungent stench of ash, burning my nose with every breath. With how much she smoked, it was a miracle she hadn’t succumbed to lung cancer by now.
The Shikami sat beside Nina, his arm draped carelessly across the back of the couch. He changed into a casual kimono, the front falling low and revealing the sculpted muscles beneath the thick fabric.
Even The Oni had an air of ease about him. He swirled a cup of liquor in his hand. He lifted it to his lips, and for a moment, I thought I’d finally get a glimpse of the man behind the mask. The Oni tilted the cup back, the dark liquid pouring through the opening of his mask.
The Tengu was the only one who kept his usual uptight demeanor. He sat on a chair in the corner, isolated from the rest and watching the room in silence.
Kai and I entered the room, the guards following closely behind.
The Oni motioned towards two seats across from him. “Sit.”
The other instructors watched our every move in silence. On the coffee table in front of us sat two envelopes.
The Oni placed his glass on the table. “Open it.”
We did. When The Oni gave an order, you damn well did it without question. I opened mine, and inside were passports, cash, IDs, credit cards, a cell phone—everything I’d need for a new identity.
And apparently, mine was named Emma Cho.
“The Aoki family runs the Kanto region. You’ll start in Tokyo, then work your way from there,” The Oni said, his voice harsh and cold. “We don’t care how you find Renjiro. All that matters is that you come back with his head.”
“And if you can’t, don’t worry.” The Hannya exhaled another puff of smoke into the air. “We’ll come to you.”
She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to. The message was clear: kill or be killed.
I hesitated, not wanting to speak out of turn. “How long do we have?”
“A week—” The Shikami said.
“A month,” Nina corrected.
The Shikami tilted his head and clicked his tongue. “My, my. Better be careful, Kitsune. Your favoritism is showing.”
“Don’t play coy. We all have our favorites,” The Hannya added.
The Shikami chuckled. “Yeah, well, mine could get the job done in a week.”
“Doubtful,” Nina said. “Renjiro’s men aren’t going to give him up that easily. This will require careful infiltration.” She glanced at The Shikami. “Which isn’t done in a week.”
“Infiltration’s overrated,” he responded. “Even the most loyal subordinate will sing if you play with them the right way.”
“The yakuza is a different breed of loyalty. Even the most sadistic torturer wouldn’t be able to break them,” Nina said.
“Is that a challenge?” The Shikami asked.
“Will you two just fuck already?” The Hannya groaned.
The Oni slammed his glass onto the table, silencing the room. “One month. We’ll be watching.”
“Oh, and sorry in advance,” Nina said.
“For wha—”
I felt a prick on the side of my neck. I glanced over to see one of the guards pressing a thick syringe into my skin. I jerked away, but his grip tightened around my shoulder.
The room shifted. The walls swayed around me, the dark room stretching and warping at the edges of my vision.
Well, fuck. What a shitty mission briefing.
Chapter Five
I jolted awake. Instinct took over the moment I felt fingers wrap around my bicep. I caught his wrist and wrenched it until the sweet sound of bones snapping echoed through the cabin.
"Son of a bitch!" the guard bellowed. He recoiled, cradling his mangled wrist against his chest while sending a frantic, pained glare at his partner. "I told you we should have used the straitjacket."
My eyes took a few seconds to adjust. Kai was slumped in the seat across from me, his eyes fluttering open as he gingerly massaged the back of his neck.
"What the fuck did they put in that syringe?" Kai groaned. "Feels like I got hit by a truck."
Two men stood over us, clad in the same monotonous black suits as the facility guards. I took in my surroundings: ivory leather seating and mahogany tables anchored to the floor. An aisle cut through the spacious cabin, leading to an empty cockpit.
A private jet?
I knew how to bypass an aircraft’s security systems, but I’d never actually been inside one before.
“You bitch!” The guard hissed through his teeth. “You broke my wrist.”
I stood up and stepped into his space. “You grabbed me.”
“I was checking to see if you were conscious.”
“And it seems like you got your answer, didn’t you?”
“Well aren’t you a fucking delight.”
“If you think a broken wrist is bad, you should see what I do to people who insult me.”
I held his gaze in a silent standoff he had no chance of winning. It took three seconds for his shoulders to hunch and for him to take step back. There was a beautiful sense of satisfaction watching the asshole crumble underneath my gaze.
The guard cleared his throat, a pathetic attempt to piece together his shattered pride. “Car’s waiting on the tarmac,” he grunted. “Hotel address is loaded in the GPS.” His voice wavered despite his best efforts to sound professional.
His partner held out a large black duffel bag. “Field equipment from the instructors.”
I snatched the bag, unzipped it, and checked the contents: a laptop, hardware keyloggers, and enough network bypass tools to crack a standard infrastructure grid. Tucked into a side compartment was a case of syringes—our bi-weekly dose of mystery chemicals courtesy of the Organization.
I slung my pack onto my shoulder and headed for the exit, Kai’s heavy footsteps trailing behind me.
The moment I stepped past the threshold, I froze. Cool, sharp air brushed against my skin, filling my lungs with something other than sanitized recycled air. The dense treeline surrounding the airstrip was far more vivid than the faded childhood memories I’d held onto. Reality made those mental images look like cheap imitations.
“Whoa,” Kai whispered from over my shoulder.
We stood there for a moment, taking in the world we had almost forgotten.
“You planning to move today, or what?” the uninjured guard grunted. I suppressed the overwhelming urge to snap his wrist too. I walked down the stairs and slid into the driver’s seat of the black SUV.
I turned the key, bringing the engine to life. Unlike the sterile stillness of the facility—where quiet usually meant an imminent attack—the mechanical purr of the vehicle was almost peaceful. Finding tranquility in silence was so foreign it was almost uncanny.
“So, what’s the plan?” Kai asked.
“Well, we’ve got two options,” I said, pulling out onto the tarmac access road. “We follow Nina’s advice and spend weeks meticulously infiltrating a high-level crime syndicate—”
“Or?”
“Or we snatch a low-level member of the Aoki family and torture them until they tell us exactly what we want to know.”
“The second one. Definitely that one.”
“You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?” I asked, my voice flat as I glanced at Kai through the rearview mirror.
My brother’s gaze drifted to the limp body slumped in the seat beside him. The yakuza member hadn’t survived five minutes of basic questioning before Kai’s impulsivity drowned out his logic.
Finding a target hadn’t been difficult—the traditional neck tattoos and missing fingers were a dead give away. We’d intercepted the bastard during the drive to the hotel, right as he was terrorizing a local shopkeeper with a half empty bottle and an empty revolver.
“I barely touched him,” Kai grumbled defensively. “Not my fault the guys made of fucking paper.”
“You asked him one question, Kai. And when you didn’t get a respond, you went straight for his throat.”
“It was an accident.”
“How can you accidentally sever a carotid artery?”
“He squirmed.”
“He was being interrogated at knifepoint. What the fuck did you think he’d do? Sit still?”
“When was the last time we ran an interrogation exercise? When we were tenth years?”
“Twelfth.”
“Whatever.” Kai scoffed. “Jecht never had an issue surviving that.”
“Jecht also giggled and begged you to go deeper. Stop using him as a baseline for street thugs.”
Blood pooled across the leather upholstery and specked the side windows.
What a fucking mess.
I veered off the main street, following a dirt road until the lights of the city vanished beneath the horizon.
“Want me to call the cleaners?” Kai asked.
“No. Just shove him in the trunk.”
I pulled over onto the shoulder, unbuckled, and climbed into the passenger seat. I pulled the laptop from the tech bag and booted into Linux.
“Wait—you’re not gonna help me?” Kai asked.
“You made the mess, you move the body,” I said. “I’m handing the next one. You’re driving.”
I opened a terminal window to run a scan on high-density yakuza territories while Kai grunted behind the vehicle, struggling with the dead weight.
“You made the mess, you move the body,” Kai repeated, mocking my words in a nasally, high-pitched tone.
“I heard that,” I said.
“Good. You were meant to!” he called out.
He muttered something else, but I tuned him out. I spent fifteen years mastering the art of killing. But after twenty-five years of sharing oxygen with my brother, I developed a selective hearing that far surpassed any of my other skills.
It took me less than three minutes to breach Tokyo’s public surveillance network—license plate cameras, transit feeds, municipal CCTVs—I watched over the whole damn city like Batman .
I made the Metropolitan Police Department’s firewalls my bitch in under two minutes. I pulled investigation logs, classified gang profiles, and the city’s GIS infrastructure mapping layer, uncovering every blind spot and back-alley service tunnel in the city.
Next up was the TAKA Eye Matrix. Tokyo’s very own eye in the sky—facial recognition, gait analysis, crowd-behavior tracking—there wasn’t anyone who could hide from me now.
Not like they could in the first place.
I filtered through police reports from the past forty-eight hours, specifically looking for violent offenses and off-the-books gunshots. Small, easily overlooked crimes, the ones that civilians would report and the police would ignore. I generated a heat map of the data, highlighting portions of the city where these incidents occurred. I overlayed a layout of the city and pinpointed its exact locations.
Cross-referencing the police database, I isolated active Aoki family members and set the matrix to track their movements in real time. All I had to do now was wait.
Since I had time, I pulled up Jhin Aoki’s profile. I stared at the mugshot, specifically the smug smile on his face, one that someone being incarcerated shouldn’t have. He had a clean record—too clean considering who he was.
Jhins official record listed a single charge: Injury Resulting in Death. The case file noted that the crime occurred in a VIP casino lounge owned and operated by the Aoki family. The victim was found in the back office with twenty-seven stab wounds to the neck and torso.
Turns out that man had been undercover for three years infiltrating the Saito family—another branch of the yakuza organization. Police arrived at the scene in ten minutes to find Jhin in a blood-stained suit lounging on a couch with a cigarette between his lips. His official statement was “Took you fuckers long enough.” He didn’t even try to resist arrest.
Despite ironclad physical evidence and thirteen witnesses, Aoki’s legal team had plead the charge down to an Injury Resulting in Death. A thirty-year sentence reduced to a measly five. He was released a few hours ago on good behavior.
This was the man running the Aoki operations? How sloppy. I was executing cleaner kills at fourteen.
You could tell a lot about a person by the way they killed. And based on this, Jhin Aoki was a brazen, idiotic fool.
The laptop pinged, opening multiple tracking windows as active Aoki targets popped up across the city grid. Each one displayed a live feed and coordinates to their current location.
The back of the SUV dipped. Kai’s strained grunt filled the air, followed by a deep thud of a corpse hitting the floor. I looked in the sideview mirror, catching a glimpse of my brother grappling against the lifeless body on the floor—and losing.
Sounds like he’s really struggling back there.
I turned my attention back to the screen.
I cross-referenced target locations with abandoned commercial properties. We needed a controlled environment: isolated, single-access, and sound-proofed by distance.
My brother may have been okay working in the back of a moving car, but I sure as hell wasn’t.
The only location that met my requirements was an unfinished shopping mall. Isolated structure, one point of entry, clear sight lines, and no municipal camera coverage within three blocks. It was perfect.
Apparently, the wealthy old bastard who’d financed the place met his end under “mysterious circumstances.” Every cent of the remaining budget had been redirected to fund his suspiciously young widow’s college tuition.
The driver’s door creaked open as a sweat-drenched, exhausted Kai slumped into the seat. He stared blankly through the windshield, his expression hollow and his thoughts clearly drifting in another dimension.
“Betrayed by my own flesh and blood,” he muttered, his hooded gaze never wavering. “I didn’t know you fucking hated me.”
I sighed, not even bothering to look up from the screen. “Enough with the theatrics.”
“I’ll be sure to keep this in mind the next time you need help dragging a corpse,” he grumbled, bringing the engine to a low purr. “Where are we headed?”
I punched the coordinates of a high-end club into the GPS. Kai glanced at the display and arched a skeptical brow. If he had any objections, he was smart enough to keep them to himself. He turned back onto the dirt road, muttering something about his new abandonment issues as we went.
The optimist in me wanted to chuck failure of an interrogation up to first-time jitters. If this shit show was any indication of how the rest of the night would go…
I groaned thinking about all the bodies we’d have to go through to get the answers we were looking for.
Chapter Six
— JHIN —
Freedom. Sweet fucking freedom.
My eyes drifted over the three women. The one in the center didn't take her eyes off of me while she spread her legs, laying herself bare for my enjoyment. The brunette to her right traced a path along her friend's throat with her lips, her hand finding the soft curve of a breast. On the other side, the blonde leaned down. She kissed a path to her nipple and started sucking on her delicate skin. The woman in the center arched her back, a soft moan escaping her lips while her hand trailed down her stomach towards the glistening heat between her own thighs.
Oh, how I fucking missed this.
Walking into my bedroom to find three naked women already tangled in the sheets was the exact kind of welcome home I'd been craving. I didn't know their names. Maybe they told me, maybe they didn't. Honestly, I couldn't have cared less. Half a decade stripped of every carnal pleasure had left me more starved than I'd realized.
The only intimacy I’d known in that concrete hell was with my own palm. Once I’d finished the day’s business dealings, I had nothing left to occupy my time but obsessively working out and stroking myself into a stupor.
Having the local precinct on my payroll came with certain luxuries. I had my cell phone, a steady supply of Marlboro Menthol Blacks, and a mattress that was significantly more comfortable than the concrete slabs the other pathetic inmates were forced to rot on. Attempts on my life had become so frequent they were practically routine; I’d even started budgeting time for one or two of them between my morning sets and lunch.
The other heads of the families were behind the majority of the assassination attempts. They’d deny it until the day they died, but I knew it was them. As amicable as they were with the Aoki family, getting a chance to take down Renjiro’s wakagashira was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Shit, if the situation was reversed and one of their heirs were in jail, I’d give the order too.
But a comfy bed and endless tobacco weren’t the real benefit of buying the law. The immunity was. I could stack as many bodies as I wanted in that cage without a single extra charge ever touching my record. Even with the pile of corpses I left behind, I was released early for good behavior.
I was now officially a reformed member of society.
There really was nothing quite like giving back to the community, and I had always been a firm believer in the value of hands-on public service. And while watching the scene unfold on the plush bed across the room, I decided my civic duties had never been more urgent.
The sight of them alone was enough to test the limits of my restraint. I watched, mesmerized, as the woman’s fingers started moving in a steady, agonizing rhythm. The blonde pressed her weight down, pinning her to the cushions while their mouths collided. The brunette crawled over the one in the middle, her tongue tracing down to the sensitive heat of her clit while the woman continued to indulge herself. The blonde maintained her hold on the center girl’s lips while her own hand found the drenched, pulsing core of the brunette who had already buried her face between the thighs of the one in the middle.
I undid the button of my pants, the fabric falling slack around my hips. My hand closed around my throbbing erection, pumping myself in a slow, rhythmic slide that matched the frantic, wet movements of the women on the bed. I watched, my breathing turning into a sharp, jagged hiss.
Then, my phone vibrated.
I ignored it, hoping that the chorus of moans would drown out the unwanted intrusion.
Yet the fucking phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. I picked it up and checked the caller ID.
Renjiro.
I let out a heavy sigh, taking a moment to mourn the ruined mood before I picked up.
“The Mori pickup in Tokyo,” Renjiro said. Before he could continue, a sudden fit of harsh coughing interrupted him. “Jung never showed up.”
My hand slowed on my length. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”
“One of the new guys. Only joined a week ago.”
My hand stopped moving. I let go of my cock while muttering a curse under my breath. Leave it to some rookie fuck to ruin a perfectly good night.
“I sent two men to secure the pickup. They’re ten minutes away, and they’ll be waiting for you at the pickup site. Meet them there, and make sure it’s handled.”
My jaw tightened. In the Yakuza, when the boss gave you an order, you don’t offer opinions or excuses. You obey without question. It was a rule I knew all too well.
“And take care of the bastard who didn’t show up.” Renjiro hung up without another word. A few seconds later, I got a text with a picture of the asshole who cock-blocked what would have been a delicious foursome.
I groaned in annoyance. The girls sensed the shift in the mood. They crawled across the bed towards me, eager to regain my attention. Their hands roamed across my body. The brunette lightly traced the tattoos along my ribs while the other two slid between my legs and stroked my inner thighs.
They stared up at me with wide, pleading eyes, practically begging to be lined up on their knees, bent over, and fucked one by one until every last one of their dripping pussies were completely ruined. Their fingers grazed the length of my cock, desperate to wrap their plump lips around my throbbing dick.
Against every instinct telling me to stay, I stood up and pulled up my slacks. The girls groaned, reaching for me as I grabbed my jacket. My dick throbbed in protest, but I didn’t give the women a second glance. I walked out of the room, still rock-hard and desperately aching to ram into any tight, wet cunt until I was pumping my cum down her throat.
I slid into the driver’s seat of my Lexus. When I tracked down the fucker who’d killed my evening, a finger wouldn’t be enough to settle the debt. I was going to take his arm—maybe both. My body was still screaming for a release that wasn’t coming, and since my trio of distractions were no longer on the table, I supposed I’d have to find some semblance of pleasure from someone else’s pain.
I checked the rearview mirror, straightened my collar, and started the engine. It was astounding, really. I’d been out of jail for a few hours, and the family was already choking on its own incompetence. And it was my job to purge the rot.
Severing a finger, limb—even slitting his throat would be too simple. I needed to make a spectacle of this one. Skinning him alive would serve as a nice, friendly reminder for the other rookies. Show them first-hand what happens when you disobey a direct order.
The pick up location was twenty minutes away. I made it in ten. I parked on the curb in front of the drop site. I stepped out, my eyes raking over the sidewalk. Not a single motherfucker to be seen.
My blood pressure spiked. Two useless fucks were supposed to be here. And they weren’t.
My list of idiots to kill just grew by two.
I grabbed a Marlboro, bit the filter between my teeth, and scanned my surroundings. I patted my pockets, looking for the zippo lighter I usually kept on me at all times.
Aside from a fresh layer of filth and crumbling concrete, the neighborhood was exactly like I’d left it half a decade ago. It was the same pathetic excuse for a district, complete with the usual shit-tier parking. But it was the ideal spot to pick up illegal imports.
A handful of vehicles were scattered along the narrow street. I took a mental note of the ones showing signs of life—idle engines or the glow of headlights: a red Corolla, grey Honda Accord, and a black BMW. My focus drifted between them, my irritation building as I continued to search for a fucking flame.
A figure rounded the corner in the distance, stumbling forward and sweating through his cheap suit. Another rookie. He skidded to a stop, fumbling to fix his tie that dangled carelessly around his neck.
“Jhin—ah, M-Mr. Aoki!” He wheezed. “I’m so—I’m sorry there was—”
I let him ramble. I was already busy picturing the look on his face when I peeled back his fingernails one by one. It’d probably take a full hand before he begged me to stop. Then he’d have to cut his pinky to the first knuckle—no, the second. Being late was unacceptable. I smirked at the pleasant thought. Wouldn’t be a terrible way to spend a Tuesday night.
When he finally stopped spewing out excuses, I didn’t waste my breath responding. I turned to my Lexus, eyeing the lighter that sat on the driver’s seat. I opened the passenger side door and reached across the center console. I snatched the lighter, flicked the steel wheel, lit the tip of my Marlboro, and took a long, deep pull. I tilted my head back and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke into the night air. The nicotine rushed to my brain, taking the edge off my nerves. I flicked the ash and turned around, expecting the kid to be standing there and trembling like a lost puppy.
But the sidewalk was empty.
In the five seconds my back was turned, the rookie vanished into thin air, and that black BMW was already tearing ass down the road. I stood there, watching the taillights melt into the city’s neon-tinted smog.
Someone had the balls to pull this shit while I was standing right there. A grin spread across my face. I was going to enjoy hunting them down. Then, when I find the brazen moron who did this, I was going to tear them to pieces and savor every beautiful scream that left their mouth.
Finally, some fucking entertainment.
Chapter Seven
— JHIN —
A second rookie stumbled out of the alley, eyes wide with panic. At least he had the decency to show up with his tie tied. I caught him by the scruff of the neck. “Get inside. Handle the pickup. If you screw this up, I’ll be the one to personally mail your head to your mother.”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I was back in the driver’s seat before he could blink. I floored it, drifting and doing a one-eighty before taking a sharp right to catch up with the BMW. I turned the corner just in time to see the BMW banking hard towards the industrial zone near the port.
The distance between our cars grew, but I didn’t panic. I knew this city better than I knew the back of my hand. I cut through a series of service alleys beneath the elevated expressway, a shortcut only locals would know about. By the time I merged back onto the main industrial road, I caught the dull, fading glow of the BMW’s taillights ahead.
I kept my distance, keeping at least three car lengths behind until the BMW veered off towards the outskirts of the city. I slowed down and continued my pursuit. This area was a black hole on the city map—no streetlights or cameras, just old buildings and construction sites.
I turned into an adjacent alleyway and killed my lights. I coasted through the shadows, watching the BMW’s lights from a distance until it pulled into a shopping mall parking garage.
I knew the place. The old bastard bankrolled this dumpster fire of a mall with money that didn’t belong to him. He thought high-end hookers and poker tables were better investments than paying back the money he borrowed from the family. I sent the order to have him torn limb from limb.
I parked on the other side of the lot and lit another cigarette. I watched as a man I didn’t recognize stepped out, opened the passenger side door, and hauled out my rookie like a rag-doll.
Helping the kid wasn’t even on the menu. He was late, incompetent, and had the audacity to get himself kidnapped. This had to be nature’s way of pruning the weak, and I wasn’t about to interrupt the process of natural selection. I didn’t come here to save his pathetic ass. I came because I was bored. Someone was playing a dangerous game by fucking with me, and I wanted to see who was suicidal enough to think they could get away with it.
I didn’t storm the front door. Don’t get me wrong, I loved a good massacre as much as the next guy, but I wasn’t an idiot. Walking into an ambush was a quick way to end up with a bullet between your eyes. I circled to the back of the building, climbed the broken escalator, then slipped through a jagged hole that used to be a second-story window.
I slipped through the shattered glass door of the abandoned mall, keeping my steps light over the crumbling tile. Halfway across the main walkway, a sound cut through the silence: the unmistakable, ragged wheezes of a man slowly drowning in agony.
Then I saw her.
A blood-soaked goddess standing beneath a flickering fluorescent light, a crimson dagger in hand. And tied to the chair in front of her was Jung, the missing rookie I’d been tasked to hunt down and gut myself.
She was already doing the job for me. And she was doing it a hell of a lot better than I would have.
Beside her sat a pile of three mutilated bodies—my men. Their skin was flayed open, the Aoki crests on their necks sliced to ribbons, pooling blood across the dirty tile. Some were missing hands, ears, I even saw a few with their eyes gouged out. She didn’t look panicked. If anything, she looked at the tied up man like his very existence inconvenienced her.
I stayed in the shadows, watching her with a sick fascination that sent a shiver crawling straight down my spine.
She was drenched in my family’s blood. It painted over her sharp collarbones, flecked across the high cut of her cheekbones, and soaked into the fabric of her shirt so heavily that it clung to every curve of her mesmerizing body.
She didn’t hack away like an amateur, she took her sweet time. Her blade slid under Jung’s collarbone with a steady hand, carving through muscle without a shred of hesitation while the bastard cried out in pain. I found myself taking mental notes on the angle of her blade and the way she used her leverage.
Any rational man in the family would have pulled his piece out and emptied the entire clip into the back of her skull. But I wasn’t rational. I’d never been accused of that shit in my life.
Looking at her, soaked in my family’s blood made something dark and feral burn in my chest. The cold cruelty of it was the filthiest, most intoxicating thing I’d ever witnessed. Watching her work filled me with a suffocating fascination that sent a vicious throb straight to cock.
But the high of watching my new favorite butcher got rudely interrupted the second footsteps started echoing through the air. The man from earlier strolled in, dragging that pathetic rookie across the floor by his collar.
Who the fuck is this clown?
A jolt of raw, murderous irritation coursed through me. The mere thought of this asshole having his hands on her—or worse, her touching him—had me reaching for my pistol. My trigger finger itched so hard it ached.
I wanted to tear him apart, drag his butchered carcass across the floor, and dump whatever scraps were left of him right between her boots. A proper fucking gift for a little demon like her.
Then, while that bastard was still bleeding out at her feet, I wanted to slam her up against the nearest pillar, hike her legs over my shoulders, and bury my cock to the hilt in that tight, dripping cunt. I’d kiss her until she choked on my tongue and forgot every other man who had ever dared to look at her. I wanted to pound into her while her lover’s blood cooled around our ankles, wrecking her over and over again until she was trembling in pure pleasure and her sweet little cunt was packed full of my cum.
I’d take her until she lost her goddamn mind. Nothing got me harder than the thought of watching her cold, lethal composure shatter under my touch. I wouldn’t stop until her eyes rolled back and she was shaking on my cock, giving her orgasms so intense that they’d break her mind and ruin every other man for her for the rest of her fucking life. I’d drown her in a high of pleasure until she was hopelessly addicted, until the only touch she’d ever crave was mine, and mine alone.
“Find out anything useful?” the man—the one I’d decided to kill—called out.
“Just that even the lowest ranking member of the Aoki family is a stubborn, loyal asshole,” she replied.
The sound of her voice made my breath hitch. Her tone was soft, almost gentle. The kind of voice meant for dark bedrooms and breathless whispers. But that smooth melody carried with it a razor-sharp edge, each word lined with a subtle promise of violence.
It was fucking intoxicating.
The dangerous contrast alone had my cock straining against my zipper. Hearing her velvet voice while she was soaked in blood and surrounded by fresh kills was a special kind of torment. She sounded like an angel while sinning like a demon, and it was driving me out of my mind just picturing what my name would sound like coming from those sweet lips.
She lifted Jung’s head by his hair and slit his throat open in one swift, clean motion. Blood sprayed across her, but she didn’t even so much as blink. She stood there, watching the man choke on his own blood as she wiped her dagger clean on her pants.
She turned to the man, giving him her full attention. A deep sting of jealousy flared through me. They stood too close. They seemed too familiar with each other. The thought that this prick might be special to her—that he might be the one she looked at when she wasn’t busy dissecting men—made me clench my fists until my knuckles went white.
The little demon walked over to the rookie that bastard had dragged in. She nudged him with her boot, looking down at the unconscious body with a bored expression.
“This one doesn’t look very promising either.”
The man rolled his eyes, a look that would have earned him a slow death if I’d been on the receiving end of it.
“Oh, so now look who’s struggling.” The smug bastard leaned against a concrete pillar and crossed his arms. “You’ve been at this for twenty minutes and all you’ve gotten out of this genius is a fresh pool of blood.”
“Because you hauled him across the parking lot and smashed his skull into a support beam on the way in.” She bent down, checking to see if the new body he hauled in was still breathing.
“Well if you don’t like my methods then next time you can be the one to throw a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight over your shoulder.”
This man had no idea how close he was to having his tongue ripped out.
“You know you’re better at retrieval than I am,” she said.
“Yeah, I know I’m better than you at a lot of things. But flattery won’t unfuck my lower back.” He pushed off the pillar and stood over the unconscious rookie. “And we’re running out of members around here. Either we call it a night, or we move locations.”
I didn’t wait for them to decide. I pulled my phone out, sending orders to a handful of low-ranking members whose sole purpose was to be expendable. I told them to handle a few collections right outside this district.
If she wanted more bodies to play with, I’d make sure she had a steady supply.
“Just head out and grab a few more. We’ll see if the situation changes and adjust,” she said.
The bastard let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Alright. Fine. I’d rather see the city than stay in this shitty place anyway.” He turned on his heel and disappeared into the shadows of the main walkway.
My little demon wasted no time getting back to work.
She walked over to Jung’s lifeless body and yanked the blood-soaked rope free from his limp wrists. The chair tipped over, taking his corpse along with it, and hit the tile with a sharp crack that sent fresh blood splattering across the floor.
Then, she moved on to her next victim.
She dropped down, straddling that piece-of-shit rookie’s waist and tied his hands together. My jaw clenched. That pathetic idiot was out cold, yet there she was, pinning him down with those gorgeous thighs. I would’ve traded places with that dying bastard in a heartbeat just to feel that weight pressed against me.
She finished the knot, grabbed the rookie’s pinky between two fingers, and snapped it backwards without blinking.
A sickening crack echoed through the empty mall. The kid jolted awake with a bloodcurling scream. He thrashed against the concrete, but she clamped her knees into his ribs and kept him pinned to the floor.
Lucky bastard.
“What the fuck—where the hell am—?” he yelled.
She leaned in and held her dagger to his throat before he could finish his sentence. The second her blade made contact with this skin, he froze.
“Where’s Renjiro Aoki hiding?”
A slow grin spread across my lips.
So, that’s what she’s after. How adorable.
I was the only one in the entire organization—maybe the only living soul in the city—who knew where he was hiding. She could slaughter every last member of the Aoki family, burn the entire syndicate to the ground, and she’d never get the answer she was looking for.
I leaned back and made myself comfortable. I wasn’t going anywhere. There was no way in hell I’d miss this private show.
I watched her pick apart my men one by one over the next few hours. She was a fucking symphony of violence. Death incarnate in its purest form. I’d seen more blood spilled than most men see in ten lifetimes, but never like this. Never with this kind of effortless grace. Calling her beautiful would be an insult. There wasn’t a word in any language that could begin to describe the intoxicating little monster tearing through my ranks.
By the time she finished carving through the ninth body, she was spent. She lay on the blood-stained tile, her knees bent and her boots resting flat against the floor. She grabbed her phone from her pocket, made a call, rattled off the address, then hung up without waiting for a response. She stretched her arms over her head and closed her eyes.
Seeing her let her guard down in the middle of a massacre of her own design felt like looking at something holy in the middle of hell. I couldn’t tear my gaze away if my life depended on it.
Dawn began to creep in, its weak gray light bleeding through the cracked skylight. It was eating away at the shadows, slowly consuming my dark sanctuary. The longer I stayed, the higher the risk that those sharp eyes would flutter open and spot me.
Leaving was the last damn thing I wanted to do, but I wasn’t a fool. Not yet, anyway. I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of her lying peacefully among her own butchery, framed by the early lights of dawn and fresh blood. It was a masterpiece, and now, it belonged to me. I took one last lingering look at her before I slipped through a jagged storefront window. I slid into my Lexus and sent her picture to Owen.
Find everything on her. Name, address, history, family, blood type—I want every detail about this woman on my desk by noon.
The city blurred past my window in streaks of neon and morning light. But I didn’t see any of it. My mind was trapped in an endless, intoxicating loop of her until it was burned permanently into my skull.
I pulled into the garage of my penthouse and took the private elevator up in silence. I made my way through the quiet halls and opened the door to my bedroom to see the three women from earlier tangled together, naked, and fast asleep in each other’s arms.
Hours ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice. I would’ve climbed onto that bed, pinned them down, and spent the entire night fucking every hole they had until the sheets were soaked and none of them could crawl out of that room.
I looked down at the bodies tangled in my bed: the curve of their hips, the parted thighs, and the bare tits spilling over the silk sheets. For half a second, a filthy thought crossed my mind to pull one over the edge of the mattress, fuck her from behind, and close my eyes to imagine it was my little demon taking every inch of me.
The thought made me nauseous.
Fucking some disposable plaything while imaging her sharp eyes would be settling for a pathetic, cheap imitation. She wasn’t some fantasy I was going to project onto generic, painted-up whores. She was real, she was out there, and I was going to take the real thing or nothing at all.
My body didn’t want them. It only wanted her.
One of them stirred. Before her eyes could flutter open and catch me standing in the doorway, I stepped out into the hall and pulled the heavy door shut until the latch clicked into place.
I turned on my heel and headed down the corridor towards the guest suite, unbuttoning my shirt with a scoff. I made a mental note to call the cleaners. I’d have them strip the sheets, haul the mattress out—no, fuck it.
Burn the sheets. Burn the bed. Burn the whole fucking room.
Those women tainted the space just by breathing in it, and there was only one woman who belonged in my bed.
I’d let my little demon play her game for now. I’d let her spill as much blood as her heart desires. But it didn’t matter how many bodies she left in her wake. She’d never find Renjiro—not without me, at least. The only path to him went straight through me, and by the time she reached the end of it, she’d be mine.
All of her. Every single inch.
Chapter Eight
— MEI —
Six days later.
“Let’s get this place lookin’ brand spankin’ new!” Brad’s bright voice echoed through the helmet of his pristine white hazmat suit. He tipped his visor, completely unbothered by the scattered corpses littered across the floor. “Mei, Kai! Good to see you kiddos again!” He surveyed the carnage and let out a low whistle as he stepped over a pool of blood with a spring in his step. “Man, you two sure have been busy this past week!”
Yeah, busy wasting our fucking time.
Brad was a freelance cleanup contractor who worked purely off word-of-mouth referrals. Nina handed us his card with a warning: he had zero knowledge of the Organization, and we needed to make sure it stayed that way. We’d just call his number, and he’d show up with a bright smile, a box of industrial-grade cleaning supplies, and a cheerful disposition so consistent it was unsettling.
Brad wasn’t a bad guy. I couldn’t be mean to him if I tried—the man was just too damn nice. Still, having someone radiate boundless sunshine in a room full of severed limbs was mildly infuriating, especially at four in the morning.
“Oh, hey. You again. You a one-man crew or something?” Kai asked.
“Yes sir! Just me, myself, and I until I can afford to hire some help,” Brad said.
“So you just get called in for every mess in Tokyo?”
“Oh, heavens no! I wouldn’t be able to handle that by myself. Plus, there’s a surprising amount of competition in my field.” Brad smiled as he grabbed a corpse by the ankles. “I’m just a small business owner getting started in the area. But I’m always happy to lend a helping hand to hardworking folks like yourself! Speaking of which—”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a crisp white business card, smudging the corner with the blood from his glove.
“My business is still pretty new, and I’m trying to grow my clientele. So if you know anyone else who needs help tidying up, give me a shout!”
I took the card. It was blank—no address, no email—just the phone number of a man who carried Tokyo’s most horrific secrets in the back of a beat-up work van.
“We’ll keep you in mind, Brad. Thanks,” I said, sliding the card into my pocket next to my dagger.
Brad’s smile stretched from ear to ear. He hauled the body into the back of his work van, then started whistling an aggressively cheerful tune while dragging another corpse by the wrist. A dull, wet crack echoed through the warehouse as the joint I’d previously snapped tore free from its socket.
“Whoopsie!” he chirped. Without missing a beat, he readjusted his grip further up the forearm and hoisted the dead weight with a grunt. “Up ya go, buddy!” He dragged the corpse to his beat up work van and tossed him in the back with the others.
“What do you think he does with the bodies?” Kai asked. I could tell he was trying to be discreet, but his whisper failed miserably.
“If I told ya’, I’d have to kill ya’!” Brad laughed as he walked over to another corpse. “Just kiddin’! I harvest the good organs and donate ’em to local hospitals!”
“That’s… surprisingly wholesome,” I said.
“But it’s our little secret, alright? Wouldn’t want the kiddos in the pediatric ward finding out where their new kidney came from.” Brad let out a deep, booming laugh.
Kai and I stood in silence, watching him drag another corpse by the belt across the blood-slicked tile, the body squeaking against the floor with every pull. There was something unsettling about watching a guy as cheerful as Brad treat a mass murder like a chore, but at least he was efficient.
“I don’t think this is working,” I said.
“Yeah, no shit.” Kai leaned against a rusted support beam, using his shirt to clean the blood off of his brass knuckles. “Did you at least get anything useful out of them?” “Just a map of their territory, the name of some dive bars the higher-ups frequent, and the location of an underground fight club they use for recruiting.” I shrugged. “Other than that load of useless information, I got to try out that new torture technique I told you about.”
Kai’s eyes lit up. “Which one? The one with the eyelids? Or the tongue?”
“Eyelids. It worked pretty well, but he bled out much faster than I would have liked.”
“Well that’s boring,” Kai said. He slipped the brass knuckles in his pocket. He stared at me with a flat look for a few seconds before sighing. “And before you ask—yes, Mei. I found out something useful, too. Thanks for asking.”
I blinked at him. “You did?”
“Yeah, I—wait. Why the fuck do you sound surprised?”
“I just wasn’t expecting it.”
Kai’s eyes narrowed. “Expecting what?”
“For you to be useful.”
I held a straight face for two seconds before cracking a smile.
“Hilarious.” Kai faked a laugh and flipped me off.
“Relax, little brother. You know I’m kidding. Mostly.”
“You’re older by three minutes.”
“Still counts.” I smirked and elbowed him in the ribs. “Well, are you gonna tell me what you found out, or what?”
“You remember that guy I brought in? The one that was already dead when I got here?”
“The big guy with the cracked skull?”
“Yeah, that one. He was rattling off all kinds of stuff in the car hoping it would save his life. Apparently, the Aoki family initiated a city-wide manhunt.”
I raised a brow. “For who?”
“A girl.”
“A girl?” I repeated. “I highly doubt that the Aoki family would waste resources trying to find some random girl.”
“Well, they are now.” Kai leaned in like he was about to spill the hottest gossip. “They aren’t sending out a few groups of guys to find her, either. Supposedly, the Aoki family dragged the entire yakuza syndicate into it. He’s got all three of the other major families scouring every back alley, port, and district in Tokyo right now.”
“This girl either fucked up catastrophically, or she’s valuable enough to have every crime family in Japan hunting her down.”
“What, do they all hate each other or something?” Kai asked.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “How much research have you done on the yakuza since we arrived?”
"None." He smiled and patted me roughly on the back. "That's what I got my big sis for."
"Yeah, and you only call me 'big sis' when you're trying to claw your way out of the grave you dug for yourself." I scoffed. "From what I read in their classified files, the four families are surprisingly civil. The only time blood gets spilled is when businesses cross territory lines."
"And now they're in the city looking for one girl all because Jhin Aoki said so."
"Did your dead friend say what she looked like?" I asked.
"Long black hair, brown eyes, five-foot-two," Kai rattled off, holding up his fingers to count. "And... that was all he managed to get out before he lost consciousness."
"Kai, you just described over half the female population in Japan."
"Hey, don't shoot the messenger." My brother threw his hands up in defense. "Jhin gave the order, showed them a photo, and told them to turn Tokyo inside out."
"And let me guess, the search is a dumpster fire because he gave his men the most vague description of a person I've ever heard."
"Sounds like it." Kai reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, white and black box. "Word is, Jhin's getting impatient. He's one bad mood away from locking down every highway, rail line, and exit in the city until they find her." He opened the box and pulled out a cigarette. He clicked his tongue and shook his head before biting down on it. "Girl's as good as dead."
I glared at him. "Since when the fuck do you smoke?"
"I don't." Kai flicked a lighter and held the flame to the tip. "But I grabbed these off of a corpse before Brad got to 'em. Come on, haven't you ever been curious why people smoke these things?"
He took a half-second drag, then immediately doubled over and hacked like his lungs collapsed. He dry-heaved over the warehouse tile.
"Yeah, looks
really tempting,“ I said.
My mind wandered while I ignored his struggle to breathe.
“You don’t think they caught onto us, do you?” I asked.
“No chance.” Kai wheezed, spit on the floor, then straightened up. “I mean, I’ve been the one out there doing the heavy lifting and abducting these assholes. All you’ve had to do is stay hidden and stab people for information. It’s just a coincidence.”
“Do you remember what Nina taught us during our fourth year at the facility?” I asked.
Kai groaned. “Oh, god, please—”
“There’s no such thing as a coincidence,” I said, imitating her sharp, icy tone.
“Yeah, well, sometimes shit just happens, Mei.” Kai poked the cigarette between his fingers like he was debating whether to crush it or shoot it. “We’ve covered our tracks. Even if Jhin noticed his men went missing, that’s all he’ll find. It won’t trace back to us.”
“Still,” I muttered. “We should switch hotels and I’ll grab another fresh license plate for the car, just in case. If he really is tearing the town apart, we should start being more careful.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, sis.” Kai took another drag from the cigarette. His reaction was instant—a violent, hacking fit that sounded like he was dying.
“Why would you hit it again?” I asked in disbelief.
“Just to—to see if the second one was as bad,” Kai wheezed.
“So by that logic, if I stabbed you, you’d want me to do it a second time just to compare the pain?” I rolled my eyes.
“Not the same!” he wheezed.
I glared at him while he caught his breath. “You done? Or do you need to try it again? Just to be sure?”
“Whatever,” he coughed. “That shit scorched my lungs.”
I snatched the cigarette from his fingers. I didn’t break eye contact as I took a long drag and blew the smoke in his face. It tasted like pungent ash and burnt tobacco. The burn in my lungs and rush to my head blended together into a euphoric pain that calmed my nerves.
I held the cigarette out to him with a raised brow. He slapped it away and ground it into the floor with his boot.
“We need to find the girl before they do,” I said.
“You still want to try and abduct people?” Kai glanced over at Brad, who was happily humming while scrubbing blood off the floor. “Doesn’t seem like it’s worked out too well for us.”
“I’ll handle it. You’ll be doing something else,” I said.
My brother gave me a skeptical look.
“Yakuza’s a boys’ club. Only men are allowed to join. If we’re going to infiltrate, you’re the one who needs to charm your way through the door.”
“So in other words, I’m still going to have to do the heavy lifting—again—while you get to hang back.”
“Hang back and stab people,” I corrected. “All for information of course.”
“No women allowed,” Kai muttered. “What kind of sexist shit is that?”
“The yakuza operates under a strict code of tradition.” I shrugged. “It’s not our place to question it. Just infiltrate it.”
Kai sighed. “Seems like you already have our next moves figured out?”
“Obviously.”
“So, where do we start?”
“First, we get our affairs in order. New plates for the car, new hotel room—oh, and I need a haircut.”
“A haircut? Really?” Kai asked, deadpan.
“Self-care is important.” I smirked. “And they’re also looking for a girl with long hair. So I’ll cut mine, just to be safe.”
“This master plan isn’t looking too promising,” Kai said.
I ignored him. “After all of that’s settled, you’re going to catch Jhin Aoki’s attention.”
Kai’s expression hardened. “Jhin Aoki isn’t exactly the type of guy you can just walk up to and say hello.”
“You’re right. He’s the kind of man who enjoys a show.” I smirked. “And that’s exactly what you’re going to give him.”
