Chapter 23

I wake up wincing, forehead rumpled in fleshy folds.

But the comfort I feel dulls the pain to faraway throbs. I force my eyes open. I look down at the big hand held over my own, a burly arm draped over me. Carefully, I twist around. I pull the end of the nightgown to cover my thighs, concealing those god-awful stretch marks—night gown? How did I...? Even with my acute memory, I’m struggling to link the scrambled pieces.

I look up. Orian is fast asleep. He looks so... peaceful... harmless... dead right stunning. Handsome would be an understatement, an honest offense. I shift up to rest on my elbow, regrettably waking him. Inky orbs stare back at me groggily. I fall back down, succumbing to the agony of a head-splitting headache.

“What... happened?”

“You don’t remember?” he asks huskily. The bass of his voice deepened.

“Not yet.” I flop over to be on my side. My eyes dart to the gown. “But I know I didn’t choose to be in this... with you.”

He moves to lie on his back, dropping his arm across his eyes. “Nothing happened.”

Relief washes over me. “Yeah, but what happened?”

“You got drunk. Your choice,” he says with a distinct note of contempt.

I get up too fast, wobbling on my way up.

“Where’re you going?”

“Shower,” I grumble.


***

Standing at the front entrance, the men on the sidelines. Orian is attired in a sleek Emporio suit, brandishing his affluence in a modern fit. Through the endless weeks that I’ve been with him. Orian is constant with an enduring disposition of being unshakeable. But today he seems on edge… which makes me nervous. I feel like an on-edge Orian is more volatile, which means more dangerous.

Torin struts out in an all-white, cotton and silk-blend suit, flaunting a pair of Saint Laurent sunglasses. He takes it off to look at Orian seriously, remorse etching itself on his face, clearly carrying bad news.

"Nani?”

“He says you must bring the girl,” he says in English for me. “He wants to meet her.”

Fuming, Orian steps away as if to hold himself back. “Bring her? What the fuck do I look like, his errand boy? I don’t take orders from him.”

"Kashikoku nari, puraido o jama shinaide kudasai,” Torin says, speaking in a persuasive tone. “We’re with her. He wouldn’t try anything with us around. That’s never been his approach, and you know that. Besides, everyone’s got a soft spot. And you’re his.”

His words extinguish the fire. Orian clamps his jaw, looking away before he marches out of the entryway. Torin slides his sunglasses back on and motions for me to follow with a sway of his head. I comply. Not that I have a choice. Their men peel away from the sides, pursuing us from behind.

We make the transition from yacht to convoy style transport, on our way to whomever. Normally I would be brash enough to ask, but I feel if I even breathe wrong, Orian might shoot me just to shut me up. With a tangible tension in the car so thick that a knife couldn’t penetrate it. I rather keep quiet.

I notice that wherever we’re going, it’s out of the city, the scene beyond immersed in verdant greenery. After an hour, we arrive at a compound-like place, massive and sequestered. Once we pass through gates, it’s like we’ve entered a portal, traveling back in time by hundreds of years.

The architecture of the building is exactly like an ancient Japanese palace. An ostentatious set of posts and lintels supports the main building, boosting the large and gently curved roof, double-tiered with coloured tiles, constituting more than half of the size of the whole edifice. The slightly curved eaves extend far beyond the walls, covering the expansive verandas.

The cars roll around an extravagant fountain that cascades crystal-clear water. The cars pull up in front of the pristine-white, mountainous staircase. My eyes jump to Orian’s bobbing knee. I look up, but he’s already staring at me. Something unidentifiable crosses his eyes, too fast and too complex to call by name.

He bursts out of the car, slamming the door behind him.

I gawk back at Torin. “Should I be scared? Too late, I already am.” I shift restlessly. “Why is he acting like this?”

“Well, he hasn’t been home in ten years.”

“Home?”

We exit the vehicle. Despite his apparent aversion to being here, he faces it, already trekking up the staircase. My eyes drift over the football-size cobblestone courtyard of countless men. A battalion of armed guards patrolling the perimeter.

“What, is he secretly the son of an emperor?”

“The head of the Yakuza.”

We make our way to the staircase.

“Local?”

“All of them,” he says with a scoff. He takes in my flabbergasted reaction with that obnoxious smirk. “Managed by the most powerful crime family in Japan. It’s how this world works, Miss Moor. The few control the many.”

I look back at him imploringly. He sighs.

“I don’t know the full story. All I know is that Daku took him in. He’s not his biological father. No, you’re going to meet the man that trained him and made Orian into the weapon that he is today.”

Eventually, we make it to the top. The gilded doors are swept open. We enter, rendered specks compared to the colossal foyer that stretches out like it leads to a throne room.

"Ichiro!”

My eyes fly to a girl sprouting in the torii styled archway. She runs up to Orian and leaps into his arms, throwing her skinny limbs around his neck. His arms coil around her cinched-in waist, burying his face into the crook of her neck. They draw apart, and she speaks to him excitedly, brightening the vast swath with her room-grabbing smile. Orian speaks to her affectionately, his knuckles lightly brushing against her porcelain cheek.

I fling my gaze to the farthest corner.

By the look of it. Torin hasn’t been here before either. Orian introduces him to her. They trade bows and pleasantries then the attention falls on me.

“This is Yua, Daku’s daughter.”

She looks up at me, smiling so broadly her almond-shaped eyes thin into adorable lines.

“Nice—to—meet you,” she says with a broken English accent, her voice small and saccharine like a soft symphony.

I manage a half-hearted smile.

Yua says something, relaying a message of some sort before she beckons us to follow her through the same archway that she came from, trailing after her through the gigantic corridors. We make it to a dining area with multiple rooms that have moveable screens as interior sliding doors, consisting of wooden frames with translucent paper, allowing light to shine through—used to divide and re-divide rooms.

There’s a low-lying table in the center decorated with a medley of delicacies. The table is surrounded by cushions instead of chairs, and the air is saturated with spicy smells that irritate my nose. The opposite screen opens and a well-aged Japanese man strides into the room. The only thing to bring doubt to his youth is his silver fox hair. Other than that, his skin is untouched by time, with a broad and brawny frame. By the waves of exuding power just rolling off of him. I’m assuming he’s Daku.

“Ichiro,” he breathes with distant familiarity. Nostalgic, like recognising a childhood friend. But with the heart-wrenched tone of a father that hasn’t spoken to his son in years.

Daku looks at Torin. He dips into a full bow. Orian doesn’t. Instead, he stares back at him challengingly, as if they’re equals.

Then Daku examines me, his expression completely unreadable. “So, you are the one that has caused so much trouble,” he says with a refined accent.

“Says the one that tried to kidnap her,” Orian retorts.

Daku keeps his gaze on me. “You let your captor speak for you?”

“Everything that has happened is a result of my own actions,” I say objectively. “I deserve whatever comes next.”

Surprise splinters his facade. “There’s an old Japanese proverb: spilled water will not return into the bowl. An exact imitation of your choices. It is wise of you to comprehend that.”

With the precision lens of a sniper rifle. I shoot a look at Orian. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“We all have choices.” Daku rounds the table and moves to the head. “You knowingly made the wrong one.” Gracefully, he plants himself on the cushion.

He looks at the rest of us, gesturing to the table with frosty formality. Orian and Torin exchange looks, Torin gives him a pacifying nod before they seat themselves at the one side. And I share the opposite side with Yua.

"Naze watashitachi o koko ni tsurete kita nodesu ka?” he says demandingly.

“Manners, Ichiro,” Daku chides, picking up a pair of chopsticks. “You know we never discuss business at the dinner table.”

“I want to know how you knew our location.”

“What makes you think I am to blame?”

Orian scoffs resentfully. “Because the Yakuza won’t move without your word.”

“If I wanted the girl—” he tosses me a glance, “—I would have her. I know you are accustomed to failure, but it is a foreign concept to me.”

Orian steps over the insult. “Then why?” His volume increases whilst his patience decreases.”Watashitachi, dōshite koko ni.”

“Yua.” Daku looks at her, his eyes softening by a degree. “Please show our lovely guest the court gardens whilst me and Ichiro talk. With his many years away from home, the boy has forgotten respect, and needs to be reminded.”

Orian’s torso jerks, but Torin grips his arm as if he foresaw it, holding him back.

Yua lifts her sunrise-yellow dress, moving to the screen that Daku came from. I get up, following after her. She slides the screen open and closes it behind me. And from there we begin the stroll to wherever the gardens are.

“What, is, your name?” she asks with a picture-perfect smile.

“Oh, Hadassah.”

Beaming, she nods. “Pretty.”

“So,” I begin, burning to ask the coming question. “You are… Daku’s daughter, right?”

She bobs her head.

“And... you know Orian well?”

She looks at me confusedly, frowning adorably.

“Ah...” I recall the name they keep calling him. “Ah—ki—ro?”

She smiles again. “Yes, for many years. Chichioya took him in. He was good bodyguard.”

An ugly feeling flares inside me. Bodyguard. Orian was the bodyguard of the head of the Yakuza’s daughter? The bodyguard of a crime lord’s daughter—a whole romance novel title, if I’ve ever heard of one. And probably X-rated.

Not that I care.

We come into an interior garden with a colonnade bordering the circular circumference. Opening up to a botanical garden with water features: ponds, fountains, and small creeks connected by bridges and winding garden paths.

“It’s beautiful.” Mesmerized by the manifestation of tranquility. “So peaceful.” My eyes are drawn to the fantasy-like tree with orchid pink flowers. “What are those?”

“Those are Sakuras, cherry blossoms, that only flower in spring.”

I inhale a deep breath, lungs filling with awe. A soft smile kisses my lips. “Sakura.” I whisper to myself.

Moments pass and she offers me frequent looks, coy and cute.

“... Yes?” I ask with a growing smile.

She looks away shyly.

“Say what you want to say,” I encourage.

“Are you...and Ichiro...you his... girlfriend?”

I should’ve known where this was going. Too mellow, I shake my head.

“I’d rather eat an entire container of wasabi than be his anything.”

“Sorry,” she apologizes as if she had said something unforgivable. “Ichiro never brang friend before. Not even his half-brother.”

I smile tightly. “Trust me, it wasn’t his choice.”

She frees a giggle, covering her smile with her hand.

“But you two seem close… he seems very different with you.”

Her smile falls, her hand sinking to her side. “Took years. Ichiro very difficult man… broken. It made him... hard. Very hard.”

Ahead, another woman emerges in the center of the colonnade, tall and petite. Yua looks up, she throws her hand up, waving back at her. The young woman stops, swivels and sashays her way over to us, enveloped in an exotic, virgin-white dress with cutouts that befit an island princess. Strapless, but tied around her neck, flowing down to wrap itself around her breasts, exposing her toned stomach, long legs strutting towards us. A naturally fierce look on her face.

Yua loops her arm around hers and points to me. “Akari, this is Hada—ssah.”

She looks me up and down like I’m a human cockroach. Annoyingly, she’s beautiful, but in a threatening way. Sharp bone structure with high cheekbones, thin lips, and pallid skin. Flawlessly straight ebony hair plunging over her shoulders.

"Naze koko ni kokujin no on’nanoko ga iru nodesu ka?” Her voice is cold and aloof.

Yua gapes at her, shaking her arm reproachfully. I don’t know what she said, but it felt racist.

I cock my head at her. “Yua, please tell me she knows English because when I talk shit about her. I want her to hear it.”

Her eyes flick to me, her gaze slithering up my body like a damn snake. “I can hear you very well, Hadassah,” she says in fluent English. “I received my IV league education abroad, so believe me. I understand much.”

Fluent in bragging, too. I don’t remember asking, hoe.

Her eyes glitter with malice. “You must be the one father mentioned.” A venomous smile lights up her eyes. “Which means Ichiro is here.” She looks at Yua with exaggerated excitement. “I have to see him,.I’ve missed him so much.”

Yua shakes her head vigorously, looking upset, saying something that dims the look in Akari’s eyes.

“I should go.” She looks at me, a malevolent gleam swirling in her eyes. “Oh well, it was nice knowing you.”

I glare back at her, killing her a thousand times in my mind. “And what do you mean by that?”

She frees a small, poisonous laugh, condescending and pitiful, like she feels sorry for me. “You are not the first girl I’ve seen lingering around him. And you won’t be the last. Ichiro likes to play. And when he gets bored with his playthings. Well. It’s not a pleasant ending.”

“How unfortunate,” I say flatly, making sure there’s no inflection in my voice. “But I am sure as hell not one of them. Because unlike… others. He may want them. But he needs me.”