Chapter 5: Emperor of Wrath: Chapter 5

For a second, when the door first opens, I’m greeted by a man my height standing in a way that suggests there’s a gun hidden behind the door. Then his blue eyes lighten with recognition. Tate smiles as he steps back from the door and opens it a bit wider.

“Mr. Mori,” he bows, a little stiffly, and I manage not to laugh.

Tate, my father’s full-time nurse, can be a bit of a dork sometimes. Yes, a six-foot-four dork who can probably bench three hundred, but a dork nonetheless. He’s big on the formalities, which make sense since he’s ex-military—green berets, to be precise—but the way he always bows to me like I’m some ultra-traditional Japanese businessman is almost comical.

“Just Kenzo is fine, Tate. Really,” I smile as I step into my father’s sprawling apartment, smirking as I catch a quick glimpse of him slipping the gun that definitely was hidden behind the door back under his loose jacket.

I spent the early years of my life not knowing anything about my father beyond his first name. None of us ever pressed our mother on it, because it was clear it still pained her to talk about it.

Later, when I went to Japan to learn more about my past and my connection to the Mori name—which my siblings and I later adopted—I thought Hideo had died trying to run away with his family from the world of the Yakuza.

It was only recently that I learned the truth. Hideo was attacked while trying to get away, and sadly, his wife, Bella, was killed. But he and their infant daughter, my half-sister Fumi, managed to get out. Hideo got them new identities and new lives, and immigrated to the US as Hideo Yamaguchi, leaving behind Mori and everything that came with it.

Hideo and my sister had to start over again from nothing. The fortune he’d built with the Mori empire was gone. But it turns out, my half-sister is a bit of a genius.

Well, after all, she is a Mori.

Fumi worked her damn ass off, went to college and then law school, and later got hired at Crown and Black, one of the most prestigious law firms in New York.

Coincidentally, that happens to be the firm where Annika’s twin sister, Taylor, is a managing name partner: she’s the “Crown” in Crown and Black.

Fumi was already doing extremely well for herself, but a year or so back, she fell in love with Gabriel Black, her boss at the time. She married him, and now, that man is Governor of New York.

This is why Hideo now lives in a stunningly gorgeous apartment near Central Park with a full-time nurse-slash-personal-guard.

“How’re things, Tate?” I nod at the man as he walks with me through the huge apartment toward the front living room.

“They’re good, Mr.—” He clears his throat and shoots me a look. “Kenzo.”

“And my father?”

Hideo and I have a complicated relationship. It’s not cold, but let’s say we’re still learning who we are to each other.

I could, but don’t, blame him for not knowing I existed, just as I don’t blame my mother for keeping us from him. She was terrified, and rightly so, of the Yakuza life. And to be fair, he never knew about us.

Still, I know my father feels shame and regret for not having been in my and my siblings’ lives. There’ve been tears shed at the thirty-four years of my life he missed. But there have also been smiles at the time we have now. He might not approve of my heavy involvement in the life and organization he sacrificed so much to escape from, but he respects the fact that my choices have been my own.

He and Sota have even reconnected, too, which I know has made both of them happy.

“Your father is doing great, Kenzo,” Tate says with a smile.

Hideo, like Sota, was also formerly battling lung cancer thanks to a lifetime of being the sort of old school Japanese gangster chain-smoking Lucky Strikes. He’s on the mend, now. But the lingering health issues are partly why Tate looks after him full-time during the day, with his own apartment directly above.

Hideo’s also been turning Tate into a monster at shoji, Japan’s version of chess.

Voices filter in from the living room as I follow Tate down the hall. Before I can ask, he turns to me. “Oh, your sister stopped by about an hour ago. They’ve been laughing it up ever since.”

I smile.

Finding new family can be an interesting thing. It depends on the person. Me, I’ve enjoyed getting to know my father and half-sister, but I know Takeshi and Hana feel a little differently. There’s no blame directed at our parents. But it’s been hard for them to move past initial meetings and pleasantries with either Hideo or Fumi.

It is what it is. Maybe I had an easier time bringing my half-sister and my father into my life because it was just me and Mom for a couple of years. When Tak and Hana were born, they instantly had both of us, plus of course each other, being twins.

Who knows.

“Hey!” Fumi beams as she scrambles up from the couch and runs over to give me a big hug.

She’s had a rough go of it. Being chased by the Yakuza. Losing her mother. Having to adopt a new name and identity, and cross the world to start fresh.

And yet… None of that broke her. None of that took the smile from her face. And I love that for her.

“Madame First Lady,” I bow almost as comically deeply as Tate does. “I didn’t realize I was going to be in the company of American political aristocracy.”

“Oh please, fuck off,” she snorts, rolling her eyes.

I grin, giving her another hug before walking over to my father.

“Hey, Dad,” I smile as we embrace.

For the first few months when we initially connected, I called him Hideo. Now, it feels weird to call him anything but Dad.

“Heard you guys were getting crazy over here.”

Fumi laughs. “Yeah, totally wild. We’re going to do sake bombs in a second.”

Hideo chuckles, wheezing a little. “Not unless you want to carry me to bed and tuck me into it, we’re not.”

It looks like Fumi’s brought takeout from my dad’s favorite Vietnamese place. But when they offer me some chả giò, I shake my head.

“No thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” Fumi shrugs and takes a big bite of fried spring roll. “How’s your other dad?”

Hideo wheezes another deep laugh as I shake my head.

“Sota is good, thank you.”

“And his treatment?”

I smile warmly. “They’ve got a lot of hope going into this new round of chemo.”

“Good, I’m glad,” Fumi nods.

“If I can deal with that goddamn poison,” Hideo chuckles, “then Sota will do it dancing around the room. He was always the best at taking a punch and getting back up again.” He pats my arm. “He’s a tough son of a bitch.”

He understands that his best friend from back home effectively took over as a surrogate father in his absence. And I think that makes him happy.

But that’s as far as the conversation goes with him about Sota and my life with the Yakuza. He prefers to not talk about that world at all, considering what it cost him. Fumi’s the same way.

So in a sense, I have two lives these days: the Yakuza one, which I talk about with Mal, Tak, Hana, and Sota. And then the other one, that I share with Hideo and Fumi.

Sometimes I like having that dual life. But it’s also exhausting.

“How’s Gabriel?”

“Oh, you know…” Fumi sighs. “Tons of free time to spend with me. Not a care in the world. Slacker workload.”

I smirk. “That rough, huh?”

“Oh my God, it’s endless. And I thought managing partners put in the hours.”

Some might think it an “in” for man like me to have the damn Governor of New York as a brother-in-law. And I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my devious mind.

But nothing funny is ever going to happen, and I have no plans to push for it. I mean, it’d be nice to have a “special relationship” with a US governor. But I’ve also met Gabriel, and that shit is not happening.

There’s a darkness in that man, definitely. Not the kind that would ever hurt my sister. The kind that would murder for her. It’s also clear that darkness doesn’t extend to corruption.

“Oh, by the way,” Fumi mumbles, her mouth full of Bún bò Nam Bộ. “I don’t know if she mentioned it, but I grabbed a drink with Hana the other day.”

“She didn’t, but that’s fantastic,” I grin.

“She’s cool, I like her a lot,” Fumi shrugs. “Great style. What’s new with you?” Fumi asks around another bite of beef noodle soup.

“Oh…” I puff out a breath. “Not much.”

I’m just marrying a lying, backstabbing little bitch to stop a war with the Bratva.

“Really,” Fumi deadpans with a wry look.

Fuck. I have to remember that this woman is one of the best lawyers in the city. She can smell bullshit a mile away.

“I’ll fill you in later.”

“Better.”

We chit-chat for another twenty minutes or so before Fumi announces she has to run to get half an hour with her husband before he’s pulled away to yet another governor’s function.

I walk her down to her waiting car, hug her, then head back upstairs to my dad. When we’re alone, he eyes me coolly with the look of a man who’s spent his life reading between the lines.

“You want to talk about what you really came over here to discuss, before you realized Fumi was here?”

I chuckle. “You can take the man out of the Yakuza…”

Hideo smiles wryly. “My sake bomb days are over. But if you wanted to pour two glasses of that scotch over by the window, I’d join you.”

I pour us two splashes of the Yamazaki eighteen-year-old, neat, and walk back to my father, taking a seat opposite him and clinking my glass to his.

“Kanpai,” he murmurs, taking a sip. “What’s on your mind, Kenzo?”

I clear my threat. “I wanted to ask you about marriage.”

He chuckles, and then goes still.

“You’re serious?”

I nod.

“You’ve met someone?”

I exhale. “In a sense.”

There are certain things that come to mind when Annika enters my thoughts. Things like vengeance and retribution. Things like punishment.

Things too like fucking her hard, and without mercy. Owning her. Dominating and subjugating her. Taking her every way a man can take a woman.

Not once—ever—have I imagined marrying the fucking woman.

To be fair, it’s not a thought or desire I’ve ever had for anyone else. The darkness in me doesn’t allow for anything so normal inside my black veins.

“I didn’t know⁠—”

“Neither did I,” I growl bitterly, sipping my drink.

My father nods sagely. “Ahh. It’s like that.”

Yeah, he knows what this is.

“It is,” I grunt back. “But my question,” I barrel on, “isn’t about contractual mafia marriage. It’s about marriage itself.” I consider how to approach this delicately. “When you met Bella⁠—”

“I just knew.”

He says it without a single second of hesitation. Then he quickly frowns.

“I don’t mean any disrespect toward your mother. I cared for Astrid, a great deal.”

I smile quietly. “I know.”

“If she’d told me about you, that second time she came to Japan…” He shakes his head. “I think things might have been different. But I knew I never had all of her. I knew she kept some part of herself back. And I think I did the same in response.”

“She wasn’t your person,” I mummer. “Bella was.”

My father frowns, clearly unsure how to answer that without offending me.

“You won’t ever hurt my feelings talking about this, you know,” I say quietly. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you were her person either. If you were, she would have made it work. She would have stayed and told you about us.”

Hideo looks away, nodding and taking another sip of scotch.

“So with Bella…”

“Like I said: I just knew.” He smiles to himself before turning to me and allowing it to grow wider. “Instantly. No hesitation. She was it.”

“But what if you didn’t ‘just know’,” I persist. “What if it wasn’t something that made itself instantly apparent.”

Hideo looks at me curiously, like he’s peering past my walls.

“You’re not asking me about true love. You’re asking me about cohabitation.”

I smile sardonically. “Perhaps.”

“And it is an arranged thing by the Yakuza?”

“For the sake of avoiding a war, yes,” I growl.

“I see,” he nods. “Well, I’ll say this. It always comes down to cohabitation, even if you do have the love of your life. Believe me. Even Bella and I had our moments.”

“And if she’s not so much ‘a true love’ and more ‘the enemy’…” I trail off.

Hideo smirks. “Then make it so she isn’t.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible. She’s nothing I’d have ever picked for myself in a million years. Reckless. Emotional and quick-tempered. Tempestuous. Rude. She cares nothing for traditions, thumbs her nose at any sort of rules. Gives the middle fucking finger to⁠—”

“Point taken, Kenzo,” my father chuckles quietly. “But I’ll say it again: if you live with the enemy, it’ll poison you both. And you, it would seem, must do this.”

“I do,” I mutter.

My father sighs.

“Kenzo, I don’t approve of the life you’ve chosen. You know that. But I respect you for following through on your decisions, and doing what you must.” He smiles wryly. “Sota has clearly taught you well.”

“I just don’t think this is the sort of man you wanted me to be.”

“What I want is only a suggestion. It’s your life, my son. And this is going to be your wife, forever. Make her into someone you can live with. That’s my advice.”

I lift my glass. “Thank you.”

He lifts his. “Congratulations on your engagement, son. Kanpai.”

“Kanpai.”