And in an instant, our attack has been turned into a slaughter.
“Run!” Raf shouts, gripping the collar of his nearest soldier and shoving him back toward the battered front gates.
The courtyard erupts in chaos as we turn as one. The Tanaka foot soldiers converge, forming a ring that tightens like a noose as they pick us off with relentless precision. I see them move, fluid and coordinated, the way men do in a perfectly executed ambush.
“Move! Move!” I bark as I turn back to supply cover fire.
I take them out until I’m out of ammunition. Then I spin and split a man’s jaw with the butt of my rifle, feeling the crack of bone. They swarm us, taking down our back line with knives and fists and the keen precision of men trained not just in violence but in making violence count.
Sal’s face is a map of blood and grit beside me. Vito catches a blade in his ribs and hits the ground. The courtyard is noise and purpose and heat. And somewhere in the chaos, I lost sight of Raf.
When I get a second of reprieve, I turn, scanning the retreating backs to find my brother’s only two steps ahead of me, moving toward the main entrance where the rest of our men try to punch through Kenji’s men who try to cage us in.
I launch my knife at a man stepping between Raf and the open gate, and he staggers.
Then another man lurches forward to tackle Raf. I shove my brother with everything I have, taking his place as I’m brought to the ground with astonishing force. Raf turns, shock and horror in his eyes, but even the slightest hesitation now could cost him his life.
“Go!” I roar. “Run. Leave me. Go!”
He pauses for a fraction of a heartbeat, then Miko is by his side, hauling him backward until Raf turns, sprinting toward the vans. He looks back once, and his face is everything, command and fear and a promise. He takes Miko with him as they dive into the dark interior of the armored vans. A second later, they peel away, engines coughing, then growling into the night.
I don’t even have time to be relieved. No triumph registers as the crowd converges around me. I’m outnumbered, defeated, and I know it as the man who tackled me jerks me onto the flat of my back—and presses a blade to my throat.
I’m ready to die here tonight.
It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make—knowing it’s what got my brother out alive.
But before the blade cuts deep, someone yells in Japanese, sharp and jubilant, and the man above me pauses. Then withdraws the blade. A pair of hands snatch at my arms, hauling me to my feet before wrenching my wrists behind my back. I rip and twist, fighting with every ounce of strength. And for a moment, as my shoulders scream from the odd angle they’re forced into, I almost break free. Then more men pour onto me, weight and knees and boots as they bring me back to the ground. One shovesmy face into the jagged pavement with a sound that scrapes my teeth.
They cuff me with something like cable, cold and rough that they bind around my wrists and all the way up to my elbows. Someone shoves a cloth gag in my mouth, the fabric bitter with oil and smoke, and it makes me cough. I struggle, muscles flaring, but my arms come up like a puppet as they haul me to my feet once more.
There are more hands, staring faces, then a hood dropped over my head, and the world contracts into a barrel of darkness and the smell of wet stone.
They push and shove me up some steps, and I can tell when we cross the threshold into the house as warm air envelops me. Then we’re marching down into what I can only assume is the belly of the house, my boots scraping on damp steps. I can hear the sound of running water somewhere close.
The air grows colder and damp once more as it comes to life with the smell of mildew and fear. The stairs narrow, the walls scraping against my elbows and shoulders if I sway even the slightest bit off track. The light filtering through my hood dies until the only thing is the sound of my breathing and the hard slap of my captors’ boots.
The shriek of metallic hinges tells me I’m being put into a cell, where they shove me down onto the cold, hard floor. Chains rattle heavily. Then strong iron closes around my wrists. And a moment later, the bindings up to my elbows slacken, allowing circulation to flow through my arms once more.
Only then is my hood removed, the gag roughly shoved from my mouth, and as I blink, disoriented but trying to take inmy surroundings, the man beside me quickly retreats, as if frightened of what I might do.
I can see why when I glance down. Both my wrists are chained to the wall behind me but I at least have enough freedom to bring them in front of me as long as I have my back against the wall. Too bad everyone’s out of reach now.
So, instead, I look around.
The small space is hewn from rock and mortar. The iron bars that serve as two sides of my cage look new—like they’ve only been added in recent months. But the chains that hang from the ceiling beyond look like they’ve been there for a while. And the dark stains that surround the drain beneath them would say they’ve seen their fair share of use.
A thin stream of water drips from somewhere above. The iron on my wrists is heavy, a foreign weight that settles like lead in my stomach.
Footsteps echo down the corridor and then stop. A shadow pools in the doorway as Kenji stands there, framed by torches, his suit is smeared with dust now, as if he’d been out in the courtyard, watching us fall apart. He looks entirely too serene for my liking.
“Poor, Sandro. Abandoned by your brothers. I have to admit, they seemed a bit too willing to leave you behind,” he says, strolling into the room to stop in front of my cell as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
My arms ache beneath the manacles, where the cable rubbed my skin raw. But I ignore the discomfort as I lunge upward off the floor, straining to get at Kenji. I thrash and jerk, the metal groaning, but it holds fast to the rock, so all I can do is glare at my mortal enemy, willing him to drop dead of his own accord.My fingers curl and find nothing but the cold of my own blood from where one of the iron cuffs has bitten into my flesh.
I snarl—an animal sound, not a word—and Kenji chuckles.
“You really thought you could take my house in the middle of the night?” he taunts, rounding the open door of the cell to step inside with me. “How foolish. How theatrical. You took a gamble and paid in men.” His voice is clinical now, like a doctor reading a chart. “And best of all,” he adds, pausing to let the words roll through the cell like a sacrament, “you left your own house empty. Left your doors unattended. Yourwifeunprotected.”
