Chapter 25: Emperor of Wrath: Chapter 25

“In my opinion, marriage is vastly overrated.”

I raise my head. My right eye is fairly swollen, but I can still glare at Ulkan anyway, despite the pain…well, all over.

Everything hurts. Before we left Valon’s house, two of Ulkan’s goons went to work on me with fists and the same rubber club they used to knock me out earlier—while I was still tied to that fucking post, I might add.

But I’m not focused on the pain or on Ulkan’s ramblings. Instead, I’m trying to gauge how badly off the rails this psycho’s original plans have gone.

I glance over at the terrified mother huddled in the corner of the kitchen, keeping her two small kids well behind her.

Yeah, whatever Ulkan had in mind, it wasn’t this.

“Everything is going to be okay,” I murmur quietly in Japanese to the woman.

Her face is pale and stricken, her eyes wide with fear for her children as she shields them behind her back.

“Do you know who I am?” I ask her.

She nods quickly.

“Then you know I will take care of this. I am sorry to have bothered your family⁠—”

I grunt as Ulkan backhands me across the mouth.

“It’s rude to speak a foreign language in front of those who don’t know it, Mr. Mori,” he snaps coldly. He turns to nod his chin at the woman. “What the fuck were you saying to her, eh? Telling her to rush me?”

He pulls out a vicious-looking knife and starts to advance on her.

“Ulkan!” I roar at his back, stopping him. “It’s me you want, not them,” I growl. “She’s scared. Her kids are scared. I was just calming her and telling her it was going to be okay.”

He slowly turns to look back at me with a manic grin. But just as he twirls the knife in his hand, one of his men barges into the kitchen and starts to jabber to his boss in what I think is Albanian.

Ulkan either misses or chooses not to acknowledge the irony as he barks something back in the same language. Then he whirls on me, his face clouded and angry.

I smirk. “What’s the matter, Gacaferi? Things not going as planned?”

It’s obvious that Takeshi getting away was no accident. None of Ulkan’s men seems to have followed him, and no one looked that concerned about it on our drive.

They wanted him to “escape”. They knew he would run back to my family and tell them what happened, so they’d come looking for me.

So Annika would come looking for me.

But this low-income apartment block is clearly not where Ulkan meant for us to lie in wait. Something spooked them while we were driving, and we diverted here to this unlucky woman’s home right off the highway.

He whirls to me, his eyes narrowing. “There are checkpoints set up on every highway out of the city,” he mutters darkly. “The cops work for you?”

I smile.

Yeah, that tells me Tak made it home. It also means Hana’s already called the people she knows in the police department. They don’t “work” for any one Yakuza family. But the whole system is built on favors and debts, and there’s always someone at the top you can do a favor for and bank it until you need something later.

“Whatever you’ve planned,” I spit at Ulkan, “it’s gone to shit.” I laugh coldly, coughing as the pain in my ribs slices into me. I turn and spit blood onto the floor before turning to level a withering look at the Albanian. “You think I’m just some random Yakuza muscle?”

I turn to look at the poor woman in the corner.

“Do you speak any English?” I ask in Japanese.

She nods. “A little,” she chokes back.

“Can you please tell this fool who I am?”

She nods, turning fearfully to Ulkan and pointing a shaking finger at me. “King,” she blurts. “Kyoto King.”

An uncertain look crosses Ulkan’s face as I smile coldly at him.

“I am the Yakuza in this city, you dumb fuck,” I growl. “Your only hope was to get out before the roads closed.” I shake my head. “You won’t leave Kyoto alive now, I promise you.”

One of Ulkan’s men’s phones rings. He barks into it, nods curtly, then hangs up and tells his boss something. Ulkan’s lips curl as he turns back to me.

“It would seem, Mr. King,” he snickers, “that your people have found us.”

I smile darkly. “Here’s my offer. Let this woman and her children walk out of here. Untie me and lay down your weapons. Offer no resistance. If you do all of that, I will grant you a clean, painless death. The alternative, believe me, will be quite the opposite.”

Ulkan just grins at me. “Please forgive my imperfect English, Mr. Mori. I meant one of your people, not several of them.”

Shit.

“Tell me, Kenzo,” he drawls. “Which of your friends rides a pink, purple and black bike? Because I’m about to kill them in front of you.”

I try to think. Takeshi has a half dozen bikes he tinkers with, but he mostly rides the black one with the gold dragon. Hana’s go-to is the white Yamaha with the red slash, and Mal likes the black and neon green Ninja⁠—

It hits me like a cold stab of ice to the heart.

…Annika was on a pink, purple, and black bike when she, Tak, and Hana went on their joyride.

Oh God…

Before I can get control of my emotions, Ulkan begins to chuckle. “Oh, please tell me I’m not that lucky,” he wheezes. “Did your bitch wife come to save you, Kenzo? Is she the one who⁠—”

“The next time you speak about my wife like that,” I growl evenly, “I will cut out your tongue.”

He smirks. “I’m terrified, Mr. Mori,” he mutters sarcastically. His eyes gleam. “You see, it’s not even the money she owes me that I’m concerned about anymore. As I said, it is our honor that is most precious in this world. To be wronged like she wronged me requires”…he levels a cold gaze at me…“an equal response. She stole some of my honor. So when she charges in here to save you, Mr. Mori, I’ll be taking some of hers…”

I stiffen as he leans down close to my ear.

“Out of her ass, in front of you. In fact, I think I’ll let all my men have a turn at that hole.”

He laughs as I roar at him, thrashing in the chair I’m tied to.

“Stay as angry as you like, Mr. Mori,” he chuckles, turning to bark orders at his men as the sound of a motorcycle rumbles up outside the apartment block. “It matters not to me.”

Of the original dozen men Ulkan had at Valon’s rental, there are only six here now. The rest took off in other cars, and I’m guessing they’re the ones scouting ahead who called to let him know about the roadblocks.

But that’s still six fucking guys here. And they might not have guns, but they’re still hefting sizable knives, clubs, and in one case, two hatchets.

“ANNIKA!” I roar at the top of my lungs. “GET OUT! LEAVE! IT’S A TR⁠—”

I grunt as Ulkan backhands me across the mouth again, scrambling my vision as blood sprays from my lips. The woman and her children in the corner flinch and turn away as Ulkan storms over, grabs a dishrag off the counter next to them, and comes back to gag me with it.

The engine turns off outside. Ulkan nods at his men, muttering something in Albanian.

No.

I roar into the dishrag, bucking and slamming against the chair back as if to smash it and get free. But it’s hopeless, and my roars aren’t loud enough. She’s going to walk right into this trap.

Outside, I hear the sharp yells of Ulkan’s men as they go charging out the front door. Annika herself doesn’t scream. All I hear is the clang of steel on steel. Again and again, and then the sound of a man groaning in agony.

More clashes of metal on metal. The wet gurgling sound of death taking another man.

A wrenching cry of pain as yet another goes down screaming.

What the fuck. That’s three she’s taken out now.

My eyes dart to Ulkan. His face is lined, worry creasing his brow as he pulls a mean-looking machete out of his belt. He edges toward the front door of the apartment, gripping the machete tightly as a fourth man screams outside, dying.

A hand wraps around my mouth from behind. A scent I know so very well fills my nostrils just as I flinch.

“Stay still.”

Annika’s voice whispered in my ear removes all the pain. It sends a rush of fresh adrenaline coursing through my veins as she cuts the rope around my wrists, freeing them.

I glance at Ulkan, but his back is to us in the other room. I turn back to Annika.

She grins at me, her eyes bright and her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

There’s so much I want to do right now. I want to kiss her. I want to wrap her in my arms and never let go.

I want to tell her I love her.

But there’s no time for any of that.

“Get them out of here,” I hiss quietly, nodding my chin at the woman and her children.

Annika’s brow furrows as her gaze slides over me. “You’re hurt⁠—”

“Please,” I shake my head. “Get them out.”

She nods quickly, turning to smile warmly at the terrified mother and the two little ones. She beckons and the woman approaches, quickly ushering her children after Annika. They go to an open window on the other side of the small kitchen and tiptoe out onto the fire escape one at a time.

“You little bitch!!”

I whip my head around just as Ulkan comes charging in from the living room, his machete brandished at Annika who is helping the woman step onto the fire escape.

Instantly I’m on my feet, grabbing the chair I was just tied to and whipping it around, flinging it in Ulkan’s face. He bleats in pain as it smashes into him, knocking him on his ass as blood sprays from his mouth.

“Kenzo!”

I turn as Annika grabs my grandfather’s sword which has been leaning against the wall. She throws it, I catch it, and I spin around as I yank it free of its scabbard.

Ulkan comes charging at me, his machete held high aloft and a manic look of fury on his face.

My blade stabs forward evenly with practiced ease. Ulkan chokes, gurgling on the blood that froths in his mouth as my sword sinks deep into his chest. His eyes bulge, the machete dropping to the floor.

I yank the blade free and Ulkan drops heavily to his knees, air wheezing out of the hole in his chest as blood pours from his mouth.

“Tell her to look away, princess,” I growl quietly, turning to lock eyes with Annika, still standing by the window to the fire escape. “That woman doesn’t need to see⁠—”

“KENZO!”

I grunt as something hard slams into me, knocking me off my feet in a hail of splintered wood.

Fuck me, it’s the chair I threw at Ulkan.

I hit the ground hard, blinking black spots and stars as a whining sound fills my ears.

Get up.

Get the fuck up.

Annika screams.

The pure adrenaline exploding through my veins has me on my feet and staggering toward them. Ulkan’s got Annika pinned to the wall, roaring in her face as his blood spurts all over her front. He’s got that fucking machete again, and Annika screams again as he winds his arm back as if to bring it down on top of her head.

He doesn’t get the chance.

I grab my grandfather’s sword off the ground as I rush Ulkan. The steel flashes, and his lifted arm suddenly drops to the floor, severed clean from his shoulder, the hand still clutching the machete.

Annika shrieks as I grab Ulkan and send him crashing to the floor. I whirl on him as he stares blankly at the gushing stump of his shoulder where his arm was a second ago. His eyes bulge as his gaze swims up to me.

“I told you what would happen if you ever called my wife that again,” I mutter.

He tries to say something. But my blade stabs forward with a flash, sliding into his mouth, severing his tongue, and emerging wetly out the back of his neck.

The light flicks off in his eyes as I yank the blade out again and he topples over into a heap on the ground.

“Kenzo…”

Annika runs to my side, catching me before I collapse. I turn to her, groaning as I pull her tight against me.

The front door kicks in. Wincing, I force myself to turn, sword raised.

Mal slides to a stop halfway through the doorway, his blood-soaked blade ready. His eyes lock with mine as my legs start to give out.

“Easy there, brother,” he grunts, darting forward and catching me alongside Annika before the two of them wrap their arms around me and walk me out the front door.

“The woman who lives here,” I choke when I catch sight of her hiding with some neighbors who’ve come out to see what the fuck is going on. I bow my head to her and then glance at my brother. “See that she and her children are taken care of. Get them a new house; a nice one. And give her whatever she needs for life money-wise, plus enough so her kids can go to school.”

He frowns. “Okay, but how about we get you home first⁠—”

“Get it done, Mal.”

He nods firmly. “All right, it’s done, you have my word. I know how you feel about Yakuza shit disrupting the lives of civilians.”

“And now can we please get you home?” Annika mutters as she hugs me close.