Then I hear it—shouts in Japanese, boots on gravel, a rapid shuffle of movement behind the front gate.
The oxygen vanishes from my lungs, and I don’t dare move a muscle as I stand riveted.
Then Kenji appears. He’s flanked by a half dozen men, all armed, all tense. Even in the dark, I can see the fury carved into their leader’s face.
Raf was right—he’s trying to reassert control, to prove he’s still untouchable after looking weak in front of his men and father bynearly dying at the hands of my brother during the attack on our house.
Raf’s voice drops low, almost a growl. “Now. Go.”
I don’t hesitate. I move, crouched low, melting back into the darkness of the property’s edge.
The moment I break from cover, I hear the rifle crack.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Raf doesn’t miss—he’s the best shot in the family, and every bullet he fires is a message.
Men hit the ground on Kenji’s sides, chaos erupting as shouts turn into screams.
All eyes are on the front gate—exactly as Sandro said they would be.
I slip back into the compound for the second time tonight, moving fast but silent, every muscle tuned for the smallest sound.
I know more about where I’m going this time around, and I make it inside the house with little trouble.
Then I scan the layout, searching for a door that looks like it might lead underground.
It’s a safe assumption that the room they would keep her in would have limited exits, probably a few guards stationed at the door.
But none of the rooms seem to reveal what I’m looking for.
Each space is separated with a sliding door that moves silently across the ground, and the hallway that wraps around the house seems to connect one room to the next—but so do the doors between them.
The decorations are spartan, as are the furnishings, but I can tell it was all done in the most expensive taste.
The tapestries that hang on the walls look rich with meaning and ancient—like Tatsuo Tanaka had them brought over from the Golden Palace of Japan.
I can feel the sand slipping through the hourglass as my search continues, and my frustration mounts when the seemingly simple layout suddenly feels like a maze.
Then, completely by chance, I stumble upon a room with two men stationed outside it.
I nearly turn the corner without thinking and plow right into them, but at the last minute, one of them sneezes, and I freeze, bracing against the wall so I can peek around the wall.
Armed to the teeth and looking anxious but unwilling to leave their post over the commotion outside, they look like the perfect candidates for prisoner guards.
They don’t see me until I’m already moving.
The first gets a knife to the throat, quick and silent.
The second turns just in time for my blade to punch through his chest.
His body hits the wall behind him, then slides to the floor with a soft thud.
I leave them where they fall. I don’t care if someone stumbles across them later, but I needed to make their deaths quick and quiet so no one would come looking while I’m trying to get Stephanie and Jackson out.
Wiping the blade on my black pants, I press my ear to the door. Nothing. Not a sound.
Carefully, I push it open.
