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Akira, on the other hand, is glaring up at me already. “You were late.”

I raise a brow. “Interesting welcome. You missed me?”

He scowls harder. Yuma snorts quietly and hides it badly.

I ruffle Yuma’s hair first, because it makes him duck his head and smile in that flustered little way I’ve been inflicting on him since he was tiny. Then I do the same to Akira, which earns me an offended sound and a weak attempt to swat my hand away.

“Stop that.”

“No.”

“You always ruin it.”

Akira mutters something under his breath that is definitely rude and only loses impact because his hand is still resting lightly against my sleeve, like he hasn’t fully remembered to let go yet. He’s a grumpy little thing, but I know he loves me.

I look between them and, as always, some inconvenient warmth moves through me.

They were small when I first met them. Now they’re bigger, standing in front of me with the exact same black hair and bright green eyes, so similar it’s almost unsettling at first glance. The green looks slightly out of place against their distinctly Japanese features, but that comes from their mother. She was an American blonde, and somehow she passed both of them those striking eyes.

They’re Kenji’s real sons. I’ve known them since they were babies, and now I get to watch them slowly disappear in front of me. They’re both sick, and everyone in this house knows they’re going to die soon, even if nobody is stupid enough to say it out loud.

But they’re weaker now. Noticeably so. A year ago, they could run through this house without stopping. Now I catch myself watching to make sure they aren’t pushing themselves too hard. Fifteen years old, and already running out of time. It fucking kills me.

I don’t know exactly when I got attached to them. Maybe there was never a single moment. But somewhere between Kenji taking me from my old home and me spending nearly half my life under this roof, before I knew it, half my life had happened inside these walls. The twins were there for almost all of it. They grew up while I was growing up too.

Somewhere along the way, they stopped being Kenji’s sons and became my little brothers. Not like Rei. Rei is a part of me in a way I don’t think anyone else could ever be. He’s my angel, and there isn’t a family in this world that could ever compare to what he means to me. But that doesn’t make what I feel for these two any less real.

And now I have to stand here and watch them get weaker, knowing I won’t get to see who they would’ve become. I won’t get to watch them grow older, make stupid decisions, fall in love, piss me off, or become whatever kind of men they were meant to be. They’re supposed to have decades ahead of them. Instead, I’m already counting the time they have left, and I hate it.

I put an arm around each of them and guide us toward the sitting room. “Did something happen while I was gone?”

Akira folds his arms the second we sit, already trying to look older than fifteen.

“Father said you should deal with Vetrov.”

I lean back and study him.

Akira has always been the one Kenji uses when he wants information moved cleanly from one room to another without adults muddying it.

Yuma perches on the arm of the couch, hands clasped loosely in his lap. “He was in one of those moods.”

I reach forward and tug lightly on one of Yuma’s sleeves. “You tell me.”

Yuma glances at Akira again, not out of uncertainty but habit, making sure his brother doesn’t want to take the lead. Akira gives the smallest nod, so Yuma begins. “Vetrov’s youngest started causing problems. He’s been moving weapons through our ports without permission, leaning on our people for protection money, and taking over two of our gambling rooms in Yokohama.”

Akira picks up where he leaves off. “Then he got bolder.”

I look at him, and he sits a little straighter under the attention because he takes being useful very seriously. “He stopped one of our routes completely three nights ago.”

Yuma tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. “Father doesn’t want him dead.”

“Yet,” I say.

“Yet,” Akira agrees.

Interesting.

I stretch one arm along the back of the couch. “And he wanted you two to tell me this?”