Second, because I had work to do.
And by that, I meancleaning houses.
And bythat,I mean killing a lot of people.
I didn’t waste time with plans or honor or any of that bullshit. I kicked in the door of Kageboshi first, just like I said I would. Ryo was with me, grinning like the bastard he is, because he knew how many of their guys would follow him. And he was right. Soon as they saw us, it was like a fucking tide flipped. Two-thirds stepped back, dropped their weapons, some even bowed low. Midori was always too old for all this. A businessman pretending to be a boss who trusted his second in command to train and take care of the men. Ryo said it before, how Midorididn’t know how to lead wolves, just how to feed them enough scraps to keep their teeth from sinking in his throat.
Midori went out on his knees, trying to buy time with words. I didn’t let him finish one. Steel through the neck, silence after.
Tetsukaminari followed two nights later. Hasebe had more fire, more muscle, and he was ready for us, so he trusted it too much. We tore through their compound like wind through paper. We walked out, and he didn’t.
Three days. That’s all it took to tear down the three biggest gangs in Tokyo from the inside out. Now the Onikin-kai isn’t an idea anymore. It’s a new nightmare.
And now I’m here, outside Naoya-san’s building with cuts crusted over and muscles sore in places I didn’t even know could hurt. I feel strung out, wired like my whole body still expects the next fight to start any second now.
I knock.
The door opens like it was waiting for me.
Naoya-san stands there barefoot, in those soft gray pants and a white long-sleeve. There’s a bruise under one eye, and his nose seems back in place—so it was not broken, then. He looks thinner, too, more tired.
But then he smiles.
And he’sbeautiful.
And I step in without thinking, arms moving before my head does. I grab him, my arms locking around his waist, forehead pressed to the side of his neck. I breathe in. My chest drags with the weight of it, like I’ve been holding my breath for seventy-two hours and now I’m finally allowed to let go.
His body is slim and warm and here.Him.Not the blood. Not the dead. Not the burn in my muscles or the kill in my mouth.
Just him.
“Show me trust,” I murmur, voice rasped and used up. “I need to know what it is.”
EPILOGUE
“Trust only means something when it goes both ways. Like rope. Pull from one end, it holds nothing. But when both ends give, it binds. Then it’s real.”
Naoya-san said that once, so long ago.
I didn’t listen then.
But I let him show me now.
He leads me to his bed and arranges me how I like it. Ties my wrists just how I told him I needed. Anchors my knees open, threads the rope between thighs and across chest and spine. The bells go on my hands, tiny things that will chime the moment I open my fist.
And then he wraps a rope around my neck, pulling it through the metal ring hanging from the ceiling beam.
And when he pulls on it, minutes later, my body lifts and I can feel drag at my throat, the dull pulse behind my eyes. Air narrowing. Skin burning. My cock swells, traitorously obedient, drooling against him. And when he pushed inside me, thick and slow and deep, I felt it everywhere. The stretch. The pressure. The unbearable closeness of death and pleasure, wrapped together like rope in a double column down my spine.
Dangerous. For a fraction of second I think that.
But then I remember.
It’sNaoya-sanbelow me, inside me, holding the rope’s weight in his hands, same as I hold the power to ring the bells. I can stop him. He can save me.
Because he trusts me not to lie about my limits.
And I trust him to stop before I break.
