“I’m sorry. Kaiyo didn’t deserve to die. But what you did to me wasn’t warranted either.”
“I know. But you don’t know what it’s like, waiting for a call that never comes. Watching your parents fall apart and being powerless to stop it. I hated you because you survived.”
“You don’t even know me. You have no idea what I’ve had to endure.”
“You’re right. It was selfish. I lashed out because I wanted someone else to hurt.”
“So you tried to destroy me? You tried to do to me exactly what the Sakamotos did to Kaiyo? How does that right a wrong?”
She glanced around the restaurant, her gaze heavy with regret. “I’m completely to blame for the problems you have now.”
“I might have survived, but it hasn’t been sunshine and roses. I still have nightmares. In the beginning, getting out of bed felt impossible. I thought I’d never get better. And your actions only compounded it. You wrecked my mental health, made me believe Reina was alive. Even my best friend and boyfriend thought I was losing my mind.”
I sat there, trying to hold it together. Here was a woman who had deliberately taken a wrecking ball to my life’s work. And yet I was still listening. Entertaining her reasons.
I wanted to hate her.
I wanted to stab her.
But I knew that wasn’t me.
Keiko leaned forward, nudging the sword aside. “I want to know what happened. How did Kaiyo die? They told us nothing; he was cremated when we got him back. Please, you have to tell me.”
“You really want to know?”
“I do.”
I studied her face for any hint of a lie. “He didn’t suffer. It happened quickly.”
“Don’t sugarcoat it. I know how horrible the other deaths were. Kaiyo told me!”
“I’m not. He was electrocuted. It was over in seconds.”
The tears came, shaking her shoulders as months of grief spilled onto my kitchen floor. When she finally spoke again, her voice was raw. “Let me fix this. I’ll work here for free. I’ll scrub toilets. Anything. I want to undo what I did.”
I glanced around the restaurant and realized it wasn’t dead yet. With the truth about Reina out, I had a choice: call the police and make her pay, or put that energy into saving what was left of my dream.
“You can help,” I said at last, “but only under one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You tell me everything. Every message Kaiyo sent. Every detail.”
Because my gut told me whatever was happening here, it wasn’t over. And if that was the case, better to keep my enemies close.
11
The next morning, Keiko met me at the restaurant at ten o’clock sharp, ready to work. She wore a black T-shirt, blue jeans, and white trainers. Her shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she was smiling like we hadn’t spent months as enemies. She held out two cups of coffee.
“Are you always this cheerful in the morning?” I asked, taking one.
“Believe it or not, I’m excited to be here. Ever since I lost Kaiyo, my time felt wasted, a lot of wallowing in bitterness.”
“Don’t forget destroying me.”
Her smile faltered, eyes dropping for a beat.
“It’s a joke,” I said. “Get used to it.”
