“Just like the Sakamoto compound.” His laugh was low and gravelly. “You took from us, we took from you. Reina built this. Without her, I’d be nothing.”
“So this is revenge. You blame me for Reina’s downfall, and the Leftovers strike back.”
“We were surviving, thriving in our own way, until you ruined it. You think Reina was evil? She was the one who gave us a place, a purpose, even if it was this.”
“She was a monster,” I snapped.
“Monster, savior… it doesn’t matter. She gave us the right to cook. You never trained under Chef Sakamoto. You didn’t win.”
“So this is where I belong, down here with you?”
His lip curled. “You’re Half-Plated. The lowest of the low. Leftovers would never accept you.”
He flicked his hand. The Chopman shifted aside, pulling the door open.
“Don’t fool yourself, girl. You’ll never touch a Michelin star. Fate already put you where you belong.”
He jabbed a finger toward the exit.
“Leave.”
20
Jiro
The loud clanking in the distance made my body go rigid. Any second, the door would swing open, and hell would begin again. It had been this way since the day I left my apartment.
I remembered it clearly—the black van screeching to a stop beside me, four men in suits hauling me inside. Then waking here, every muscle screaming, the copper tang of blood still on my tongue.
At first, I thought an enemy of my father had taken me for leverage or ransom. But the joke was on them. My father wouldn’t have paid a single yen. He’d been dead to me since the day I chose Akiko over my family, and I’d been dead to him ever since.
Even here, in the dark, lying on cold stone with my throat raw, bruises blooming under my skin and hunger twisting my stomach, I didn’t regret it. I’d take every hit if it meant she was safe.
It killed me that I’d vanished without a word. She must have thought I’d walked out—she was probably furious, maybe even heartbroken. I didn’t blame her. God, if only I could tell her: I didn’t leave. I’d never leave her.
What tormented me was the wondering. Was she still battling Reina’s ghost? Still doubting herself, questioning her sanity? She’d already been through hell. That alone proved her strength.
I should have been there, helping her through it, finding a way forward. I’d always been there. I needed her to know she was okay, that she hadn’t slipped back into the dark place she’d fought so hard to escape.
The door slammed open, striking the wall with a sharp crack. A line of gas torches along the walls flared to life with a hiss, flames spitting shadows across the cell. The sudden blaze burned my eyes, and I squeezed them shut, hating those few seconds of exposure, blind to who had entered, while they could see everything. Though it was always the same person.
“Jiro.” The voice came a split second before the kick to my stomach. “Wake up!”
I forced my eyes open just enough to see the man standing over me—Sana Mori.
He’d been one of the apprentices in the program, eliminated in the second challenge. I’d thought only Akiko and I had survived. I was wrong.
The challenge had been Ayatsuri no Odori—Dance of the Puppets. I remembered the end: Sana’s partner, Osamu, sprawled in a pool of blood, throat cut wide. Sana’s right hand hanging by tendons, nearly severed. But he’d walked out of that kitchen under his own power. When he never returned to the dorms, we all assumed he died from his injuries.
Sana knelt beside me. “Jiro Tachibana, you lousy Half-Plated. You can’t even cook. You’re worse. And yet here you are, alive.”
His eyeliner was thick and dark, less idol star, more emo. The wiry frame was gone, too, replaced by slabs of muscle.
“And are you cooking?” I rasped.
His iron fist slammed into my stomach. The air fled my lungs. I rolled, choking, willing my body to breathe until finally, a ragged gasp came.
“I’m better as a Chopman,” he said. “Play your cards right, and you might follow in my footsteps.”
