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Which is fine. Grandfather warned me they would be petty in this meeting and I was to be cunning. Something I didn’t know if I was going to be until now. Because now that I’m looking at a sea of old, wrinkled men in black suits, I feel at ease.

They think this will scare me, that I will cower. Sure, their protectors at their backs are armed, but so are mine. In this room, we are all equals. The only thing different is our pasts. They all came from wealth and family, born and bred to lead in the positions before them, as Grandfather informed me.

Unlike me, who had to survive the darkness and the monsters that came for me in the light of day on my own. Someone might have always been there to bring me home, but it was me facing them alone. Me who felt the cold metal of the clippers on my toe when it was cut off. And the pain as each fingernail was pulled off and then drenched with Clorox to “cleanse” the wound. I’ve gone without meals, scared to eat because it could be poisoned or drugged. I’m the only one in this room who understands what it feels like to know no one is coming for you. To know I wasn’t chosen first, just picked out of necessity, not want.

Till Atom.

I look at him and feel the slight ache of being left out as my past demands to surface from the insignificant gesture of these men. He picked me. He said so.

And I use that now.

“Please, may I have a seat, husband?”

His smile is almost feral, something I’m not sure if he learned from Gina or always possessed on his own.

“Of course, wife.”

He turns away from me and moves with even steps to the man closest to him. He doesn’t ask, nor does he speak at all, just grabs the top of the chair and tilts, shaking out the man till he falls onto the ground. Half the table rises in protest, guns openly aimed at Atom, but a single knife thrown at one gun dislodges it from the hand holding it. The sounds of pain and the gun clattering to the floor rise like a beacon in the stuffy room.

Everyone pauses, and I side-eye Gina, who’s smiling sweetly as she twirls another knife in her hand. A noise at my back has me looking behind me, and I see most of the men I brought have guns drawn as well.

I can’t help but feel a warmth spread over my body as I look at Vinny, Casper, and even Psy, who nods at me once before I look back just in time to see Atom place the chair beside me. He takes my hand and guides me into it with all the showmanship of a queen taking her throne.

The room falls silent, and I take it upon myself to start the negotiations.

“Gentlemen, I come before you to share news that my grandfather is doing well. The men sent to kill him, and I can only assume me as well, are dead and dealt with.” When no one even seems put off by my words, I look them over and mumble loud enough for them to hear, “Happy times indeed.”

One of them, Sota Kenji, begins speaking in Japanese.

I hold my hand up, and astonishingly, he stops speaking and looks to the others for a moment.

“I just wish to inform you that not only do I speak Japanese, but Vinny Leone does as well. I caution you to choose your words with care as to not insult the Mafia Don of the East Coast, as well as exclude the other guests I have brought with me.”

From what Vinny said, even if they’ve never met, names travel in these groups. Vinny’s is the only one I need to say, as Casper and Psy wear their patches with pride as they stand behind him.

The three men get more notice now than they did before, and I enjoy the small gasp I hear at one end of the table, a giddy joy bubbling just below the surface when I see a few men at the backs of the Yakuza look ill at ease.

“I was simply offering my condolences for the ordeal you must have gone through,” Sota starts again, in English.

I hum, knowing full well that wasn’t what he was about to say when he started his first sentence with a term used to describe dirty feet. I regret stopping him, because I’m interested to know the insult that would have gone along with that. It could have been funny.

“As it may be, despite the attempts on both our lives, Grandfather has decided to step down. His shares in the companies will now belong to me, as per the original bequest in his father’s last will and testament.”

My father, whom I saw the moment I came in, slams his fist on the table. He sits three seats down from my uncle, who continues to look like he ate something sour with the way his lips purse out at me and his eyes are drawn close together.

“Muri.” The man I looked up to for so many years, even though my heart knew he was never my father, glares at me with disdain. “You are not of my blood.” He spits on the table. “You have no claim here but an old man’s ramblings. I forbid it. You will stop this foolishness this instant. The contract has already been written. The wedding will continue as planned. You will marry the Deverauxes’ son, and you will not decide who runs this family. I will. No daughter of a bastard will be in charge of the Takahashi family. Ever.”

Atom snorts a laugh, drawing my father’s eye. “Funny, Hiroshi. Real funny.”

The room goes silent at his words, more than one man looking around for an answer before Sota grows the balls to ask, “Why?”

I cross my legs at the ankles. The dress I wore today is actually pretty, hugging the curves at my waist and flaring just at the knee to allow me movement.

“Funny, since he’s the bastard he fears.” I speak to the table, then look at my father, holding his stare with my own, unblinking. “Check the papers again, Pop. You aren’t even related to the Takahashis.”

Vinny’s man steps around his boss and drops a handful of copies onto the table. Proof that Hiroshi is the son of some unknown thug who’s been dead for ten years. Died from a drug overdose. Nothing special about him. And his mother? She was the wife of Takahashi-san—but only on paper. Picture after picture shows her unfaithfulness. She, too, was no one special. At one time she was, but only to get a business. A business that now lies firmly in my hands since I have sole control over the assets that were once Grandfather’s.

“This is a lie!” he screams as he stands, his chair falling behind him as the other men reach for the papers and scan them.