Chapter 157
Firenze, Florence
Morosini Villa
“Should the girl go to her room first?” Murai asked, confused as to why his son was looking to Rain as if asking for permission to tell them what they wanted to hear.
Kita shook his head. “Seon Rain already knows what transpired, for the most part.”
Evie gasped.
Kita gave his mother a look. “I am capable of using words to articulate my feelings, Mother,” he reminded her.
“A newly learned skill, to be sure,” Evie agreed, smiling when Kita gave her a dirty look.
“Yes, and not one I learned from either of my parents,” he reminded them.
Rain caressed his head. “Stop being a diva. That’s Dae-Ho’s job,” she whispered.
Kita made a face that caused her to smile. “Very well. For years, while in the service of the Imperial family, the Princess was relentless in her pursuit of my affections,” he conceded.
Evie snorted, making a face.
“Yes, I agree, Mother,” Kita said. “Her infatuation from childhood did not wane as you assured me it would. When it became obvious that she would never woo me, and her repeated attempts to bed me failed, she tried to force me to bend to her will and demands through my family’s honor.”
Murai nodded, his attention on the plate of untouched food in front of him.
After speaking with Meiji on the flight, Murai deduced that was what had happened between his son and the Princess. But hearing it from his son now broke his heart.
Evie and Murai waited for their son to continue, but he didn’t, and instead ate his plate of food.
“Here, eat,” Evie said with a warm smiling, sliding her untouched plate over to Rain when the young woman had huffed once her plate was empty.
“Thanks!” Rain smiled wide then started on it.
Murai did the same, sliding his plate to his son to eat. “Regain your strength, Son,” he warmly said.
Kita nodded and started on the second plate of food; he had many calories to replenish from his long nap, and Seon Rain made amazing Italian food.
Watching the young woman eat was slightly concerning at times to the parents sitting there; she was a bottomless pit that smiled and hummed under her breath as she chewed, bounced in her seat, and tapped her toes in happiness. The look on their son’s face was even more concerning in their opinion; he ate with a small smile on his face, his attention never deviating from the woman moaning as she ate.
“Do you know what happened, ChouChou?” Evie asked Rain when she started wiping her second plate down with a piece of bread before shoving it in her mouth. “Between my son and his former charge?” she asked pointblank.
Rain shrugged. “It is rude to ask me when the source of the truth is sitting right here,” she pointed out.
“Yes, I know, but I know my son well enough to know he will not elaborate more than he has,” Evie said.
“You can only blame yourself for that annoying trait,” Kita reminded her, talking with his mouth full. “It is something I learned from my parents, mainly my mother.”
Evie threw her head back when she laughed. “My precious son, I have waited so long for that stick to be removed from your ass. Well done, ChouChou, for removing it.”
Rain gave her two enthusiastic thumbs up. “Ew. But I understand what you’re saying. What happened with Kita and Oni?” she asked. “I wasn’t in Japan at the time, and he hasn’t entirely said what happened, but I have a strong suspicion his charge was relentless with her innuendo, shameless flirting, and when he didn’t cave to her multiple demands for companionship, she targeted his honor.”
“You are saying what he already confirmed,” Evie reminded her.
Rain offered a smile. “I’m repeating what you haven’t taken the time to read between the lines of,” she said. “What is the quickest way to dishonor an Imperial Guard?” she rhetorically asked, gathering the empty plates then headed to the sink with them.
Evie’s eyes widened and she looked from Rain’s retreating form to her husband.
Murai’s face was hard, unreadable stone. “Seppuku,” he said with a snarl.
Kita bowed; that was answer enough.
Evie licked her suddenly dry lips; that, she did not expect to hear. “Did Suiko try to kill herself?” she asked her son. “So it would force adherence of the old law?”
Kita looked to Rain and she offered a reassuring smile.
“Tell your father, mend the broken bridge of your relationship, and start to move past it,” Rain said. “And if you do I’ll bust out with the Tiramisu,” she promised.
Kita shook his head in resignation. “Evil villain you are, Seon Rain.”
“And adorable,” she teasingly added.
“Yes, I suppose you are,” Kita reluctantly agreed, getting a smile in return. “Oni… Suiko, whatever I should call her, arranged for her drink to be compromised at a club she was not permitted to even be in. Whatever she took was killing her, and she said with her dying breath that she would have me one way or another. I would be buried with her as her groom in the afterlife.”
Evie snorted. “Did she neglect to realize that she is Japanese?” she asked, trying to keep her seething husband from losing his temper. “Ghost marriages are of Chinese culture, not Japanese.”
Rain joined them with a large dish of Tiramisu and offered Kita one of the spoons in her hand; there was no reason to dish it up because they’d finish it together. “Oni is well versed in many cultures, especially those with business interest in that of her country and politics. However, when dying, the mind tends to run on overdrive and random factoids present,” she informed them.
Rain read it in a book when she was younger.
Kita nodded his agreement. “I took her to the hospital, which surprised her, and had administered enough field triage that it saved her life. Even a failed suicide attempt would warrant dishonor to the family, and she knew it. I left her in the care of her father’s guards and requested an audience. There, I gave my notice.”
“Three words?” Evie mused.
“Yes.”
“What were they?” she asked, rubbing her husband’s shoulders. “The options are many.”
Rain snorted; now so much of Lucien’s playful nature made sense. “I quit, sorry?” she offered.
Kita nodded. “I hate how well you know me, Seon Rain.”
“It is a curse,” she reminded him before wagging her brows and he chuckled.
Murai slammed his hand down on the table, stealing their attention. “How can you be so accepting over such an injustice?!” he demanded.
Kita offered him a small smile, which disarmed Murai. “Father, your expectations for me were so great that regardless what I did I would fail. It should have been the Emperor I was commissioned with protecting, just as my father before me was. I understand why he did not want to do that to his young nephew because it was all business and a quiet life… He told me so. The Prince should have been where I was assigned, but I was not.”
“You kept the Prince alive from his sister,” Evie reminded him.
“It was purgatory,” Kita said. “A decade of Hell at that demon’s side, and I hated everyone because of it. It was not what I should have been doing, it was not what I wanted to be doing. Resentment bloomed in my heart because of the future you assumed for me. Did you not see what that vile creature did to me growing up?!” he demanded.
Murai glared in return. “You were my eldest son! It was your job to protect the Imperial Family-”
“No, it was your job to protect your family!” Kita shot back, his voice raising. “I begged you to keep her away from us, away from me! And you chose honor over your family. I will not when the time comes.”
Evie and Murai looked at him with wide eyes.
“It ends now, this cycle of honor dictated actions and compromised futures,” Kita informed him. “I will not force my son to follow in my footsteps when the time comes. He will be allowed to choose his future, to choose what makes him happy. Just as Lula should be able to, and Lucien when he finally gets over his fear of settling down. Mother was your chance to break the cycle, but you refused to. That ends now. The cycle is over,” he said with inarguable finality before shoving a heaping bite of tiramisu in his mouth.
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