They were usually mirrors showing you a side ofyouthat you didn’t know about.
Who you were when the mask slipped, when the clock ticked too fast, when the eyes watching you didn’t blink.
Tests never truly measured knowledge.
They measured how still you could hold your pulse when a blade kissed your throat.
And maybe that was why Kenji believed in them so much. His whole empire had to be a series of tests—loyalty tested in blood, honor tested in silence, courage tested in the dark.
Fail, and the man died.
Pass, and the man had the Dragon’s loyalty forever.
I have to beat this test. I don’t know why he is doing this but. . .I have to win.
I knew he was falling in love with me.
I knew he enjoyed fucking me.
But I wanted to be important tothispart of his life too. And I had no fighting skills to brag on, and I didn’t know what to do with a gun so. . .if this test revealed some other strength that he and even Reo would value. . .then I had to win.
If I failed, I wasn’t just useless. I would be a fucking ornament. A warm body. A little fuck toy. A gilded caged bird—fed on kisses but stripped of any real purpose.
But if I passed?
I became his secret weapon. Necessary. A woman he could not go to war without.
Not a mistress.
Not a shadow.
Not a body waiting in bed while the real decisions happened elsewhere.
I would be sharpened into something lethal—an edge only Kenji could claim, a blade that gleamed because I was his Tiger. I imagined it—walking into a room, silence rising, men pausing not for him, but for me. Heads turning because my presence carried its own weight.
Respect not borrowed.
Respect carved into bone.
Where killers with blood under their nails would hesitate before they spoke.
That was the future I wanted.
No. . .craved.
I stood there in my robe, steadying my breaths.
Reo’s pen hovered over his notebook.
Kenji’s warmth burned at my side. His hand was a firm weight at my waist. “Let’s begin, Tora.”
Reo clicked the top of his pen. “The two minute timer starts each time they finish saying their three statements.”
I nodded.
Kaoru stepped forward first. He tucked a few pink strands behind his ear. His voice came out flat, smooth, and dangerous. “I’ve killed two hundred and thirteen men.”
What?
