something to use against him.”
“Let’s say I do have that something. Why would I hand my boss’s weakness over to you?”
“Because you care about me.”
“You flatter yourself, Ojou-sama. I care about no one. I’m merely curious.”
“You do care. It might not be conventional or normal, but you always have since that day you killed Sam to save me. It was your first kill and you told me yourself that act holds a special place in everyone’s lives. Yours included.”
“Let’s presume I do. That doesn’t give me a reason to divulge Abe’s secret.”
“Is my life reason enough?”
He narrows his eyes and a gust of air causes his long hair that’s tied at his nape to fly in the wind. “Your life?”
“The same life you’ve taken pride in saving all these years like you do with your hard-earned swords. I know you see me as some sort of an accomplishment, Kai. Probably the first thing you ever considered to have value. And I hate to end that just to force your hand.”
“Is that a threat, Ojou-sama?”
“No, I’m merely telling you how it will go if I don’t live with Sebastian. I love him, Kai, and you might not understand what that means, but for me, that love is what makes my life wholesome. I can no longer live away from him or be content with watching him from afar. So if you’re scheming with my father to shove me back with Akira, then I’ll kill myself and finish the life you take so much pride in.”
I’m breathing harshly, my limbs shaking due to the force of my words. Kai remains inert, unmoving, as if I hadn’t said anything.
“Well played, Ojou-sama. I knew I saw something in you even when you were nine.”
“Does that mean you’ll help me?”
He reaches into his jacket and I think he’ll retrieve a gun and shoot me for thinking I could threaten him, but he produces a small black leather notebook and slips it into my bag.
“What’s…that?”
“Abe’s little black book.”
“What?”
“Your father has a system of scamming his most important clients. Once every few years, he’ll sell them a forgery among many genuine paintings. They’re used to the best quality from him, so they never suspect it. Even when the paintings are found out to be fake, they blame their own people, not Abe. It’s a fine line so he can’t scam the same person twice or the same group of people within a close timeframe. When he was younger, he used to do this proficiently and even kept us, his closest circle, out of it so he could reap all the profits. I only found out about this practice when he started to keep a record due to his faulty memory a few years ago. That little black book contains the names of the paintings, the people he’s scammed, and the years it happened. He’s been agitated since he lost it and stopped the whole scamming business altogether. That’s why he’s desperate about the alliance with Akira. It’s for protection more than anything because even though he stopped, he’s still in grave danger if that ledger comes to light. We’re talking about other powerful crime organization leaders and influential figures who wouldn’t hesitate to torture and kill him.”
My mouth falls open, then closes. “And you’re giving it to me?”
“You asked for something to use against your father. That’s his biggest weakness.”
“But you could’ve used it to push him out of power and then become the leader.”
“I’m not interested in being on the front line, Ojou-sama. Real leadership is done from the background.”
Why am I not surprised that he’d rather be the one to pull the strings without showing his face? Kai is a strategist, after all, and even though my father is the head of the Yakuza, Kai might’ve been the power behind it all along.
“Don’t speak a word about having the ledger,” he continues. “Let me do the talking with Abe. I’ll tell him Akira somehow got hold of it and gave it to you. That way, Abe will always be wary of both of you and wouldn’t dare to threaten you again.”
“Thank you, Kai.”
“You’ll only be holding it for me. When I want it back, you’ll give it.”
“And when will that be?”
He lifts a shoulder. “When I’m sick of using Abe as a front.”
“You’ll kill him?”
“Why? You don’t want that?”
“I don’t care as long as Sebastian, Mio, and I are out of this.”
“You and Sebastian are debatable. Mio isn’t. She wants the marriage and no one