“Hmmm.”
Reo and the Claws left.
Then, we were next.
Red lights bathed everything in a crimson glow.
Glass walls stretched in every direction, revealing shadowed figures writhing behind them. Men and women tangled together. Groups. Couples. Every position. Every act. Nothing hidden.
Except that wasn't quite right.
I stepped closer to one of the walls and studied it. The surface had a faint metallic sheen on our side—barely visible under the red light, but there. I knew that coating.
One-way glass.
Dielectric.
High-end.
The kind of glass used in interrogation rooms and luxury surveillance suites. A thin metallic film layered between panes, reflecting light back on the brighter side while letting it pass through on the darker one.
These customers were being watched from every angle and never knew it.
I looked at Hiroko. "One-way glass."
"Every room, hallway, and suite has it. There is no privacy within Yoshiwara." She kept her eyes forward as we slowly walked down the hall. "This gives the Council leverage in deals."
“Blackmail?”
“Lots of it. Politicians. CEOs. Foreign diplomats. If they get too. . .naughty down here. . .well. . .the Council ends up owning them after that."
I stopped. “Hold on.”
The whole group halted.
I stared through the glass on my left and tilted my head, watching a man slam his cock into a woman who appeared barely legal. Granted, knowing this was Yoshiwara. . .she might not have been legal at all.
I frowned.
His rhythm was aggressive. Greedy. The kind of fucking a man did when he thought no one was watching—selfish, ugly, purely for himself.
Meanwhile, her moans echoed through the glass, muffled but audible. Her performance was flawless. Mouth open. Eyes half-lidded. Nails raking down the surface.
But her gaze was dead.
She wasn't there.
The man didn't notice and didn't care. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back, exposing the long line of her throat. His hips snapped forward, burying himself deeper, and the impact sent her breasts bouncing against the glass with each savage thrust.
And that's when his neck turned just enough.
There it was.
The fox.
Dark and burned into skin, sitting right below his jaw. My father's mark on another man, branded like a dog.
My smile came slow.
