Page 12

I hate it here. Sure, the Triad raised me into the man I am today. I can kill a guy as easily with a chopstick as I can with a knife or a gun. I haven’t missed a boxing or Kung Fu lesson since I came here. I can speak Mandarin, English, Korean, Thai, and a little Japanese. Why I became part of the main compound, no idea. My mom was one of the whores my father was fucking on the side. It’s tough being an illegitimate child. I look at my watch, still an hour to go until I turn eighteen. Not that I have any chance of escaping from this hell; they own me till the day I die.

Someone bumps his shoulder against me, and from the smell of cologne alone I know it’s Yuki, Moon’s second in command.

“How have you been?” he asks, snatching my pack to steal a cigarette from me. He opens his lighter, the clicking sound making me glance up.

“What do you want, Yuki?”

He looks like a freaking model with the way he holds himself. He could easily grace the cover of any magazine if he wanted to. Instead, he’s in Tokyo with Moon expanding the empire. Ever since he sucked my dick in that karaoke room in Seoul, South Korea last year, while I was interpreting for him and Moon during a business meeting, he’s been sending me messages I’ve been ignoring. I scratch the back of my head. What happened between Yuki and me is already a distant memory for me. But he thinks we’re something. I don’t like him. Truth is, I don’t know if I even like men. Sure, I came, but it didn’t mean anything. Will it mean something with the right person? Moon’s face flashes before my eyes, and the way the corner of his mouth twitched while I was translating one of the biggest deals in Seoul. The feelings it gave me confused the hell out of me. It felt more intense than Yuki going down on my dick.

“I like your hair like this,” Yuki comments, his eyes moving over my face down to my lips. I turn my head toward him and blow the smoke in his face, and the fucker smiles.

Moon is a man of few words but behind those dark eyes is an endless deep well I want to jump into, to swim or to drown in. I smirk and blow the smoke out through my nose looking at the other men. I’m a fucking mess.

“When did you come in?” I ask, trying to make conversation. I feel his eyes traveling over my face to my arms and hands. He moves a little to the left to get in my space. I don’t flinch; I know what he’s trying to do. I know what he sees when he looks at me, what they all see. When I was living with my mother, the men started to ask her if I was her pretty daughter. When they found out I was a boy, those sick fucks still wanted to fuck me. No idea why she never sold me to one of them. She only lived for the money till the day she died, and with my face, I could have been the main attraction in the whorehouse.

“You look good,” he tells me, and runs a finger over the top of my hand. I have the sudden itch to take out the knife in my sleeve and stab him in the eye, so he’ll never look at me again.

“Save your words for someone else. I’m not fucking you. Why are you even here, Yuki?”

“We’ll see,” he whispers, and the way he says it makes me look at him. It sounded like a threat.

He winks at me. “I’m joking jailbait, lighten up,” he says, bumping his shoulder against mine. “Just waiting for the main event tonight,” he explains. “Moon took over the last remaining territory, so Japan is done.”

“Are you coming back to Shanghai?” I begin, but my breath catches when the sea of men in the garden parts to reveal the man who’s been my go-to jerk off face these last couple of years.

Moon bows to a couple guys and shakes hands with the older men from the main family. He doesn’t smile but listens attentively to them. I’ve missed Moon’s resigned look. I catch myself and take another drag from the cigarette. His desire to do the right thing for the syndicate always lingers on the surface. He often looks emotionless, but his eyes hold so much depth and yearning, for what I don’t know. Definitely not for me. Probably just for more money and power. The man is graceful and strong. He looks so stern and always ready to judge, with his arm behind his straight back.

When I stare at my reflection in the mirror, I can smile with my eyes unlike him. I’m slender where he’s bigger. I like to smile when I’m with Jade. But when I look at him now, my smile falls instantly.

I excitedly wave at Tian who walks by with Porsche, his number one guy who’s always with him as protection. He smiles brightly and nods. Tian is the only friend I have here besides Dash. We always try to have dinner together after shooting at the range, outside the city. He shares my love for fast cars and racing. I guess that’s why we hit it off.

I flick my cigarette away and brush a couple stray locks behind my ears. There’s always a hint of a smile on my face, at least that’s what Dash tells me, but it falls when Moon is around. He says hello to the men, they all bow making way for him. I mean he’s royalty as far as they’re concerned.

“The boss has arrived,” Yuki says, still moving his damn finger over my skin. I stare at Moon; the man is the embodiment of discipline and quiet strength. He says something to Tian who slaps him on the shoulder while he laughs, talking amicably with his hands while he’s explaining something to Moon. Is Tian really going to marry Dashie? She’s going to eat him alive. Moon nods and listens to him intently, sometimes I see the corner of his mouth hike up for a hint of a smirk. His eyes travel across the courtyard and when they land on mine, he presses his mouth in a firm line. I have the urge to cast my eyes down, but something makes me hesitate, maybe the way he clenches and unclenches his hands, like he’s itching to punch me in the throat.

He can shut someone down with one gaze, without having to lift a finger. Because his silence speaks louder than words. He always walks with one hand behind his back, the epitome of composure while I’m a bouncing cat with too much energy, who doesn’t think before I open my damn mouth.

Moon’s eyes widen and a muscle in his jaw ticks when Yuki presses his mouth against my ear.

“I’m in room twelve if you want to finish what we started.”

I push him away from me with my shoulder while he laughs. Moon bares his teeth at me. I swallow hard and my cheeks flush. Why do I feel like I did something wrong. Tian grabs Moon’s arm but he shrugs it off. I watch the muscle in his jaw twitch when his eyes land on Yuki, who bows at him.

I can only stand there leaning against the railing watching him come toward us. Hold the fuck up, he’s coming toward us, toward me. What the hell should I do? I should bow right, but I can’t move. The new cigarette I forgot I lit almost burns my fingers.

Moon opens the button of his suit jacket revealing a black dress shirt and waistcoat with a black tie, before he puts his hands in the pockets of his black dress pants and pushes out the front with both hands, while I stamp out the cigarette. I’ve done that shit a couple of times with my pants when I was trying to adjust myself when I thought about him. But this is definitely not the reason why he did it now. Right? Nahhh.

His eyes never leave mine; it’s like the world stops, all the sound vanishes, and I can only hear the beat of my own heart pounding in my ears. The lines around his eyes crinkle and I feel Yuki take a step away from me. My body turns in Moon’s direction involuntarily as he stops in front of me. I decide to bow, careful not to bump into him again.

He takes another step toward me, and when our eyes meet, I have trouble breathing as I stagger slightly backward. His eyes are worth waging a war over. I feel my cheeks heat. Where did that thought come from? He’s just so breathtakingly beautiful. It feels like the world around us falls away. Behind his calm exterior I feel a roaring storm, the dark side of the moon. A heart filled with unwavering loyalty for the people he loves, like his best friend Tian and Dash. But not for me. I can feel the anger radiating from him when his eyes land on mine. What the hell did I do for him to hate me this much?

Yuki bows again, excusing himself. Moon pushes a hand in his pocket, tenting the front of his pants again and takes a step in my direction. I stumble back, my back hitting the railing.

“How have you been?” he murmurs, barely able to look at me as his eyes dart over the compound behind me.

I swallow hard, tugging at my collar. His eyes follow the movement of my hands while I drop them at my side. The only sound left is the beating of my heart in my ears.

“You’ve lost weight,” he says, his voice so low I feel it in the pit of my stomach.