“Welcome to the Family, Tora.” Hiro turned toward the door, lifted his hand, and with his fingers he made a small precise gesture in the air—two fingers flicking out, then down.
What is he doing?
Both twins took out their guns and headed to the door.
The hair on my arms stood up, and I backed away.
Fast, they opened the door and moved in like a pair of blades—silent, coordinated, cutting through the air.
One scanned the ceiling and corners as they approached, the other checking the floor, the seams along the threshold.
I watched them in awe.
Then the door shut behind them.
I turned to Hiro.
He kept his voice low. “I just want the twins to make sure the suite is safe. No surprises for my brother’s Tiger.”
“I like the sound of that.” I stared at his hands. "Wait. You said all of that with just a flick of your fingers?"
He nodded.
"Is that a thing the Fangs and Claws do?"
"The Claws started it." He lowered his hand. "We developed it when we were kids."
"Kids?"
"There was a time the twins couldn't speak." His expression softened slightly, something almost nostalgic crossing his features. "So we all had our own way of talking to them. Hand signals made sense. Quick. Silent. Effective."
My chest tightened. "They couldn't speak?"
"Just didn’t speak. . .for a while." He didn't elaborate, but I could read between the lines—whatever trauma had left those scars on their chins had also stolen their voices.
Hiro continued, "Eventually, when kids around the neighborhood would bully our group because we were so small, we'd use hand signals to kick their asses."
My eyebrows shot up. "Really?"
He made a circular motion with his hand, fingers moving in a smooth, practiced arc. "That means circle them and picksomething up—glass bottle, sticks, whatever. Hit them in the head while I hit them in the balls."
I blinked.
He shifted his hand into another gesture—two fingers pointing forward, flipped his hand, and then curled the fingers back. "After we hit them good, we run."
Then he pointed straight up at the ceiling. "We'll run north."
"You're serious?"
"Very." His mouth curved slightly. "We had a signal for every direction, every weapon, every move. By the time most of us were ten, we could fight like a unit without saying a word."
I tried to imagine it—a group of small boys, two of them mute, developing their own silent language just to survive the streets. Fighting bullies. Running from danger. Protecting each other with nothing but hand signals and scrappy determination.
"And you all have been fighting and communicating with your hands since you were kids?"
He nodded. "Then later, when we joined Kenji's organization, we taught the Fangs. Now we all move as a unit to protect my brother."
The weight of that settled over me. These men hadn't just built an organization.
