Poisonous Kiss: Chapter 31

You’re a wolf, Mr. Black.

Tonight, I move like a shadow. It’s not like I’ve spent every weekend of my adult life killing in the name of correcting justice. My executions are few and far between, and I reserve them for extreme miscarriages of justice.

Still, over the years, I’ve become quite good at what I do.

Remaining unseen. Leaving no trace.

Killing silently, if need be.

Dressed all in black, my face masked with a balaclava, I drop down silently from the wall and into Orochi Ito’s compound on the outskirts of Kyoto. I would assume his guards are usually much more attentive, and under normal circumstances, I’m not so sure I could pull this off.

But these are not normal circumstances.

I’ve “prepared” Orochi’s men for my arrival. During my flight here, I had several packages and guests arrive at the front gates of Orochi’s stronghold. The first was a children’s party clown who handed out candy to the men on the front gate. The second was a delivery of beer. For the third act, I hired three women to streak past the front gates, blowing kisses to the guards and throwing their panties at them.

Now, hours later, let’s just say the mood amongst Orochi’s men is elevated.

They’re having a good night. They’re relaxed. They know someone’s playing pranks, but it’s all obviously in good fun.

It’s exactly what I want them to think. I want them to be at ease. I want their guard down. I want them thinking of that beer the guard captain probably confiscated, or the three pairs of tits they just had giggling past them.

I want them unprepared for when the wolf slips past them.

I hug the shadows at the base of the wall as I draw from its lacquer scabbard the sword Hideo gave me before I left his apartment. It’s his, from his time in the Yakuza. Japan has very strict gun control. As such, the leaders of the underworld here use older ways of enforcing their will or waging war on their enemies: simple honed steel.

Something dark and sinister ripples like fire through my veins as the etched blade of Hideo’s elegant, curved samurai sword catches the light of the full moon.

Tonight, I’m not just a wolf. Tonight, I’m death. I’m vengeance personified.

I’m a man who’s willing to soak the ground in blood to take back the woman who was stolen from him.

My wife. My love.

The dark heart that completes mine.

I move quickly, keeping to the base of the wall as long as I can before I dart across an open area into the black embrace of a Japanese Maple tree. There’s an almost medieval feel to the old city of Kyoto, and I breathe it in like a samurai going to war before I continue toward the main house.

“Sore wa daredesu ka?”

Who is that?

But the guard whose attention was pulled by the rustle of maple branches against my arm doesn’t even see me before my blade slits his throat. He falls to the ground, wide-eyed and gurgling as he drowns in his own blood.

A second armed guard also falls to Hideo’s sword before I scale the latticework at the side of Orochi’s mansion. I slip onto the balcony on the second floor, prowling as silently as I can around the perimeter of the traditional style home.

Another of Orochi’s men dies in silence before I stop at a set of open shoji screens. The light from inside floods out onto the blue-black inky darkness of the perimeter walkway. I glance inside, and smile.

Orochi is alone, sitting on a sofa watching soccer on TV, his back to me. I slip inside silently, vengeance in my heart, viciousness in my eyes, and Japanese steel in my hands.

He tenses when he feels the edge of the blade against his jugular.

“Konbanwa, Ito-san.”

To his credit, Orochi doesn’t panic. He doesn’t scream, or beg for mercy, or offer me money. He just sits there, still and quiet, slowly breathing in and out.

“Good evening to you, too,” he finally growls. “American?”

I ignore his question.

“Fumi Yamaguchi,” I hiss. “You have her. I want her.”

He nods carefully, so as not to nick his throat.

“She’s not here. She⁠—”

“Where.”

His eyes drop slightly. His brow furrows.

“I know that blade,” he says quietly. “Or at least, I used to.” His hands raise. “I am unarmed.” Slowly, he turns his head, letting his gaze focus on mine.

I keep the blade against his throat.

“You’re the husband,” he murmurs. “The lawyer.”

“You have exactly fifteen seconds to tell me where⁠—”

“She’s getting married.”

I flinch and pull off the balaclava, letting my eyes stab into him. “Excuse me?”

Orochi smiles benignly. “Married, Mr. Black. Surely you know what blood she has flowing in her veins.”

“Neither she nor her father has anything to do with⁠—”

“You don’t simply walk away from the Yakuza, Mr. Black,” he growls. “Blood carries much weight in our world, and your wife’s blood holds the weight of an empire.”

My jaw grinds.

“Let me tell you a story, Mr. Black. Years ago, I thought I’d beaten my competition, your father-in-law. I had his wife killed. I chased him from his world, exploiting his weakness for family. But when the king was in exile, his subjects didn’t take the knee as expected.”

I smile coldly. “You mean the men and families loyal to him didn’t kiss your ass after you tried to kill the entire Mori family?”

“You could put it that way.” His lips curl. “But as I said, blood carries weight in our world. Specifically, in this case, the blood of Hideo Mori’s only heir. And when my nephew, Takato, marries Fumi, the scattered remains of the Mori empire will take the knee and bow to the Ito clan.”

“There’s the small issue of her already being married,” I spit. “To me.”

Orochi smiles, lifting a shoulder. “Yes, well, we have ways of negating that.”

“The hell you do,” I hiss.

“Mr. Black, your entire marriage to Fumi is built on fraud.”

“It’s built on a deal,” I growl. “One, I might add, that resulted in you making millions of dollars and settling whatever beef you still thought you had with Hideo.”

Orochi doesn’t blink. “We are in agreement, Mr. Black. It was indeed built on a deal. But a deal that you dishonor by not fulfilling your end of it is no deal at all,” he snarls, anger rising in his eyes.

I scowl. “I didn’t dishonor⁠—”

“You’ve insulted me, Mr. Black,” Orochi hisses. “You ignore my nephew’s warning. You have him banned from entering your country.” He smiles a mirthless smile. “Taking Fumi was the last way I could think of to make you see how poor a choice it is for you to disrespect me.”

“I haven’t⁠—”

“Then where the hell is my money, Mr. Black!” he snarls darkly.

The wheels grind to a halt in my head.

Hang on.

“You were paid, Mr. Ito,” I growl. “As agreed, five million⁠—”

“And yet, I wasn’t.”

“Then I suggest you look again,” I hiss. “Because I was there when the transfer went through. The money left one of my shell companies, was deposited into one owned by my wife, and was then—immediately, I might add—transferred to your accounts. I literally saw it all happen with my own eyes. So, Mr. Ito,” I snarl, pressing the edge of the blade against his neck. “Where the fuck is my wife.”

“Your wife,” he snaps back, “is up there right now”—he jabs a finger past me at the mountains rising over the further outskirts of Kyoto—“marrying my nephew and cementing my dominion over the remains of the Mori-kai.”

Suddenly, it hits me so obviously it almost knocks me off my feet.

Orochi is a proud man. And old-school, steeped in the traditions and the honor system that the old guard of the Yakuza, much like any organized mafia, is built on.

It wouldn’t just be weird and against his honor for him to lie about not getting that money. It literally would not happen.

Which means he’s telling the truth about never having received it. And in a flash, I think I know where it went.

One of the reasons I’ve won as often as I have in court is that I can put myself in the headspace of whoever is sitting across the room from me. I can see their motives. Read their thoughts. Anticipate their next moves before they even think of them, because I’m in their fucking heads.

That’s how it suddenly hits me: now, for the first time, I allow myself to get inside Takato’s head. And very quickly, I realize what I’ve missed in all of this.

“Mr. Ito, do you want to keep your empire?”

His face is expressionless as his eyes lock with mine, and he doesn’t answer.

“I’ll ask again. Do you⁠—”

“Of course I do.”

“Then I’m going to need your help.”

He looks confused when I pull the sword away from his neck. “Mr. Ito, your nephew Takato is stealing from you, at best. At worst, which is much more likely, he’s plotting to overthrow you and take all of it—the Ito empire and the Mori-kai remnants—for himself. I was there, in the room, when that money was transferred. But it was transferred by Takato’s men. And now it’s Takato who is attempting to marry Fumi to bring the Mori-kai under his own control.”

Something twitches in Orochi’s eye.

“You know there’s truth to what I’m saying,” I growl. “He’s been making big purchases recently, hasn’t he.”

Orochi is silent, his jaw tight as an iron band.

Yeah, that was a guess, but his reaction means I’m right.

“So, Ito-san,” I smile grimly. “These are your options: you can sit here watching TV while your traitorous nephew steals your throne out from under you. Or, you can help me, and you have my word that I will make sure that doesn’t happen.”

I’ve done what I’m about to do in court a hundred times. But in those instances, “handing over control” to a witness, or the accused, was always metaphorical.

This time, it’s an actual sword I flip in my hands and offer handle-first to Orochi.

Criminal as he may be, and as pissed at me as he is, Orochi is also a man who exists in a world built entirely on honor.

Or at least, I’m betting pretty heavy that he is.

But when he pushes it back toward me, I know I’ve won this round.

“Takato is mine,” he growls quietly as he stands.

“Mr. Ito, you have a deal.”