Emperor of Rage: Chapter 44

I’ve barely slept in the last three days.

I can’t. Not with Freya and Hana still missing.

I’m back in Kyoto, my eyes bleary as I stare at the computer monitor, checking and rechecking the footage from hundreds of CCTV cameras on the night Freya and Hana were taken. I’ve at least managed to narrow down the search little: they had drinks at a cocktail bar on Kiyamachi Street, and the credit card receipt gives me a time and place to start from. But even so, it’s like looking for a needle in a digital fucking haystack.

I’m looking for anything—any flicker of movement, any sign of them. My hands shake as I scrub through the footage, my eyes burning from the strain.

This is getting you nowhere, I think darkly.

Freya is the one who would excel at this, and yet she’s the one who’s missing.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

I thought for sure they’d be at the farm. But that was a dead end. We tried tracing Jonas’ phone to see if we can get a geographic location based off the last ping of his cell connection. But he’s either turned it off or destroyed it after his last call to me, so it’s impossible to trace.

The door creaks open. Annika steps in, her face pale, dark circles under her eyes. She’s as wrecked as I am. She hasn’t slept much either.

Kenzo’s just as bad. Though he’s working through his worry by combing all of Kyoto like a maniac. Word is out all over the city that the Mori-kai is on the fucking warpath, so it’s not like he’s encountering any resistance.

But we still can’t find them. Three fucking days later and we can’t. Fucking. Find. Them.

“Mal,” Annika says softly, coming up beside me. “You need to rest.”

I don’t answer, just keep scrolling through the footage, one frame at a time. Every second that ticks by is another second wasted, another second Freya’s in danger.

“Mal, seriously. You can’t keep going like this.”

“I have to,” I snap, not bothering to hide the bite in my voice. “I have to find them.”

Shit. Regret slams into me when I glance back and see the hurt in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I just… I have to keep looking.”

Annika smiles wanly. “You’re not going to be any good to Freya if you’re dead on your feet,” she whispers. “Please. Let someone else take a look while you rest.”

I hang my head. “Maybe.”

The door opens again and Takeshi storms in, carrying a couple mugs of coffee. His usual mask of cocky smugness has been gone the last few days, revealing the monster underneath: prowling, snarling, full of madness and a thirst for blood.

Tak hands each of us a cup of coffee.

“Thanks,” I mutter, taking a sip. I can feel Annika’s eyes on me, watching, waiting for me to snap again.

The tense silence stretches between us as we all focus on the footage. I scroll through frame after frame, the monotony of it starting to blend together. I turn back to Takeshi.

“Anything from Kenzo?”

He shakes his head. “No. Just⁠—”

The sharp gasp from Annika has me whirling back to the monitor so fast that the coffee sloshes over the edge of the cup. Takeshi’s already leaning over my shoulder, staring at the screen.

“Oh my God!” Annika blurts. “That’s them!”

I hit pause, and there they are—Freya and Hana, walking down the street the night they disappeared.

“Where is this from?” I bark, my pulse racing.

Takeshi squints at the screen. “Looks like a storefront security camera for a small shop just off Kiyamachi Street.”

I stare at the footage, my mind racing. Freya is paused mid-step, looking at something. Hana is walking ahead of her but then turns back, joining her as they both stare at…

“What are they doing?” I growl.

Annika’s brow furrows. “They’re looking at some poster. What the hell’s it for?”

“The Lotus Bride.”

The two of us glance back at Takeshi in confusion.

“What?” Annika asks.

“The Lotus Bride,” Takeshi reiterates. “It was a lame reality show, kind of like The Bachelorette, but it tanked when someone figured out the main chick was an actress.”

“Huh?”

“Kitamura Kyo,” Takeshi says with a shrug. “The woman in the poster. She was the chick picking the dude, but it turned out she was a professional actress.”

Annika arches an eyebrow. “How the hell do you know all that?”

Takeshi mumbles something about having weird taste in TV. My eyes are glued to the footage. Freya and Hana are pointing at the poster, talking to each other, but there’s no audio.

“We need someone who can read lips,” I say, my voice a low growl. “Now.”

An hour later, Professor Ken Eiji from the Kyoto School for the Deaf, a local expert in lip-reading, sits nervously across from us as he stares at the screen.

It’s pretty clear the quiet, middle-aged man hasn’t ever been in a room with a member of the Yakuza, let alone at the house of the head of the most powerful Yakuza family in Kyoto. He’s rattled, and he looks like he’s sure someone’s about to chop his hands off or something.

I don’t have time to care about his nerves. I just need the skills in his head. We’ve offered him a lot of money to be here, and I need him to work fast. My patience is hanging but a fucking thread, and it’s wearing thin.

“All right,” the professor says, glancing nervously around the room before refocusing on the footage. “One more time, please.”

I replay the clip and he studies the movement of their mouths. His brow furrows in concentration, eyes narrowing as he leans closer to the screen.

After what feels like an eternity, he speaks. “Hana is telling Freya about the reality show in the poster. She’s describing the basic concept.”

I frown. “And Freya?”

The professor nods for me to replay the footage, watching Freya carefully. “She’s saying she knows this woman. The one on the poster.”

My frown deepens. “Freya knows a reality TV star?”

The professor nods. “Yes. Freya says her name is Cain, and she’s…an encryption analyst and network tester now, it seems. They met in New York.”

My blood runs cold.

Who the fuck is Cain?

The professor pauses, clearly unnerved by the atmosphere in the room. “Does that…help?”

Annika steps closer, her face pale. “Hana texted me about meeting Cain that night, before they were taken.” She exchanges a worried glance with me.

I grit my teeth. The puzzle’s still too fragmented. Too disjointed.

Takeshi frowns. “What are the odds that a washed-up D-list actress is a cybersecurity expert just a couple years later?”

“Fucking low,” I growl, my mind racing.

Annika looks at Professor Eiji. “Thank you so much for your help, Professor. I’ll have someone drive you home.”

He nods quickly, clearly eager to get out of the room. As soon as he’s gone I stand up, the weight of everything pressing down on me.

“She’s not a hacker,” I mutter.

“How do you know that?” Annika asks.

“I don’t. But I’m going to figure it out.”

The door to the modest apartment in Wakayama creaks open, and a young, pretty woman looks up at me shyly.

I’ve done my homework on the drive down here. Kitamura Kyo is still an actress, it appears. She’s done a few regional TV commercials for a cat food brand, and she’s the spokeswoman for a plastic surgery clinic in Wakayama. But that’s it.

I already have an idea how she’s connected to Jonas, but I need to hear it from her.

“Good evening. Kitamura Kyo, is that correct?” I ask, my voice low and steady. I don’t want to scare her too badly, because she might be my only link to that fuck and finding Freya and Hana.

She blinks, seemingly surprised at my Japanese. Most people are when a gaijin like me, with my blue eyes and tall stature, can speak fluently.

She nods quickly. “Y-yes. That’s me.”

“I need to speak with you about a job.”

She smiles. “Oh? Okay, I can get you the number for my agent⁠—”

“You don’t have an agent,” I growl quietly. “The one listed on your website has a number that can easily be traced to this address. Which is how I found you.”

The poor woman pales, fear creeping into her eyes, visibly nervous as hell. “Okay. But I don’t do so much acting anymore. I’m mostly writing these days. I’m working on a play, actually⁠—”

“I’m not interested in your play,” I interrupt, my voice sharp. “I’m interested in your role as Cain.”

The blood drains from her face.

“You were hired to pretend to be a hacker called Cain. You were in New York, where you met a young woman around your age⁠—”

She nods. “Freya. Yes, I remember.”

My head tips to the side slightly. “What specifically were you hired to do?”

She stares at me, frozen. Then, slowly, she nods. “A man reached out. He said he’d loved me on Lotus Bride and wanted to hire me for this immersive mystery thing for a friend of his.”

I frown. “Immersive mystery?”

“Yes, like The Game, that movie with Michael Douglas. He said his friend Freya was going to have to solve all these real-world clues to figure out the mystery.” She smiles. “It sounded fun.”

“And you kept in contact with Freya? I mean after you met her in New York?”

Her brows knit as she shakes her head. “No, not at all. It was just the one-off role I played.”

When she sees the black look on my face, her smile dies.

“Is…something the matter?”

“Who’s the man who hired you,” I growl, my patience fading.

Kitamura’s brows knit. “I’m sorry, but what is this? What’s going on?”

Fuck it.

“The man who hired you is a murderous psychopath who used you to trick Freya and my cousin, and then kidnap them both.”

Kitamura’s face falls, horror washing over her. “That’s awful!” Then the second shoe drops as her own involuntary part in what’s happened hits her. “Oh my God…” she chokes, holding a hand to her chest. “Oh my God, and I—I helped him⁠—”

“You didn’t know,” I say coldly. “But right now, Kitamura, what I need is any connection to this man you may still have. Anything that might lead me to him.”

Her eyes dart back and forth, her face pale as she hugs herself. “I—I don’t know if I do. I only met him twice—once when he hired me, then once when he paid me, in cash.”

“Did he pay for your trip to New York?”

She nods. “Yes, but he just fronted me the money. I bought the tickets myself.”

I swear in English under my breath as I look away.

“Oh! I do have his number, if that helps?” she says nervously. “We talked details of the job on the phone a few times.”

I glance back at her. “That, Kitamura, would be very much appreciated.”

Five minutes later, after thanking her again and reassuring her that the Yakuza—she could tell from my arms—has no interest in her, I’m back outside, calling Oren.

He picks up after one ring.

“I need one more thing from you,” I mutter.

“Anything,” he growls. He’s heard by now what’s happened to Freya, Hana, and Kir.

“I need to find out if a number is still in use. If so, I need it traced to its last known location.”

It’s a long shot, but the number he used to communicate with Kitamura is different from the one he’s historically used to call me.

I’m just hoping to hell that he’s still got that phone on him.

“Done. What’s the number?”

I rattle it off to Oren. There’s a pause on the other end, then his voice comes through, slightly disbelieving. “Holy shit, it’s still active. I’m tracking it now.”

My pulse skips.

Another pause. “Norway.”

No…

“Looks like…a farm of some kind.”

My heart wrenches.

“Yep, got it. It’s a farm on Jordahl Lake. I’ll send you coordinates now.”

My entire body goes rigid and cold.

I missed them.

I was fucking right there, and I missed them.

All I can think about is Freya screaming.

“Thank you, Oren,” I manage to grind out before I hang up, my face a mask of death.

I missed them at that godforsaken fucking place the first time. This time, I’m going to tear the place apart brick by brick.