Santino jammed the pointy end of the letter opener into Osamu’s running mouth, pushing until the man gagged and it broke through the squishy substance beneath.
Osamu immediately let out a fresh shrill sound, squirming thoughtlessly as blood poured from his mouth in a small stream. He reached up as if to shove Santino’s arm away, but stopped short, hesitating. Likely for the same reason he’d made no effort to remove the knife.
Santino tsked and drew the improvised weapon backward before extracting it properly, drawing more blood as he did terrible and surely agonizing damage to the man’s tongue. “Thatis for trying to silence her. In front of me, no less. Fuck, you’redumb, you know that?” He moved a bit more in front of Osamu, to meet the man’s wild gaze.
Osamu looked like he was losing it. That was fine. He was about to be lost, anyway.
Santino waved the bloody letter opener. “I just want you to know, all of this is your fault. All of your pain. Your son’s death at the tragic age of twenty-three. The way your company will fall in on itself and be torn apart. The end of the Matsunagas—it’s all on you, Pops. Congratulations.” Then he stood, shoved the old man forward so that he was barely a foot from his son’s corpse, and mercilessly plunged the letter opener through the back of his neck.
It was a quicker death than he’d have liked, but at least he had been able to make it messy and a little emotionally painful for the bastard.
Santino let the body drop, the man’s head landing sideways on his son’s lap, as if staring up at him in death. It was so fucking poetic he wanted to kick them apart. But he refrained, stepped around them carefully enough to keep his shoes clean, and came face-to-face with the teary-eyed goddess he’d done all of that bloodletting for.
He ached to reach for her, to pull her close and kiss her until neither of them could breathe. But his hands were covered in blood. He couldn’t touch her like that.
Reiko drew a deep breath, her lips tipped upward at the corners, and she pointed to the long wall. Specifically, to the wood and paper-screen paneled slider that covered approximately one third of it. “There’s probably a bathroom behind theshoji,” she said. “You should wash up a bit before anyone sees you. Here.” She moved to it and slid it open for him, revealing a full ensuite.
Santino let his expression soften. “I won’t take long. You can wait here, or with Armando if you’d rather.”
Reiko lingered in the bathroom doorway as he took advantage of the motion-activated faucet. “Here is fine.”
He studied her through the mirror while he washed himself up. She looked a bit flustered, but she didn’t look devastated or heartbroken or, best of all, frightened. If anything, she seemed more composed than she’d been when her father had been rampaging at her.
“Santino,” she said softly, her hands scrunching the fabric at her sides. “Thank you.”
He shuffled to the latest model air dryer and stuck his forearms in impatiently, but turned his head to keep her in sight. “I’ll always keep my promises to you, beautiful. I might not be a good man, but I know how to be good to people.”
Her brow furrowed and she shook her head. “A lot of people would tell you my father was a good man. If that’s what good men do, I don’t want one.”
Santino pulled away from the machine, gave his hands a shake, and started for her.
She held steady. “I want whatever you consider yourself to be.”
His expression felt a little feral as he came to a stop with the toes of his shoes touching the toes of hers. “I’m a monster, baby.”
Reiko swept her gaze over him, reached up, and hooked two fingers between the buttons on his shirtfront. She tugged him closer as her voice dropped to a whisper. “Maybe a monster is what I’ve always needed.”
He groaned and slammed his lips to hers in a wet, hungry kiss. He wanted to pick her up and press her against a wall, or turn them around and set her on the wide-enough counter. But he knew better. They weren’t there yet, in general, and it was past time to leave that office. So, he pulled away before he could forget himself, kissed her forehead, and guided her from the bathroom until there was space enough for him to offer her his arm. “Ready to go?”
She hooked her arm through his without hesitation. “Very.”
Chapter thirteen
Sapphire
Reiko expected chaos whenthey stepped out of the office. Or a lot of carnage. Something to explain why the secretary hadn’t had security swarming her father’s office when too many suspicious noises started slipping through the walls,or after Santino had whistled for Armando. A detail she still had questions about.
She had a lot of questions, really. Except many of them weren’t what she suspected they should have been.
Many of her feelings weren’t what she thought they should have been.
She’d just watched her father and younger brother—the men she’d been raised to revere—be rather brutally murdered. For her. Because of her. Most anyone would have told her to be upset, emotional, angry, or to some degree devastated by such an experience. But those same men had also that very day plotted to have her assassinated, after a lifetime of abuse and neglect, and she couldn’t work herself up to those feelings.
Shewassad. Sad it had had to come to that at all. Sad for herself, for having let them break her so thoroughly for so long.
Beyond that, she was confused. Because Armando was alone in the lobby outside the office and there was no sign of disturbance. In fact, there was no sign of the secretary at all. The personal belongings Reiko had glimpsed on the desk were also gone.
“All good, Boss?”
