Page 67 of Bitter Prince

I adjusted my sleeves to stop myself from reaching out and strangling him.

“This is your final offer, cousin,” I warned.

His eyes flicked to the dead body on the ground, then to where Hiroshi had his blade pressed against his guy’s neck. Itsuki knew if we killed him, he’d be next.

“Fine.”

Everything, including this fucking idiot, would go according to plan. Until I took over the Yakuza or burned it to the ground.

“Excellent. And your men are not to be in the same country as her,” I said without a flicker of emotion in my voice. “Or you’ll lose an ally here.”

He turned around, making his way to the exit, tripping over his incompetent bodyguard’s lifeless body. “Are you threatening me?”

Leaning back, I rested a forearm on the back of my chair and kept a bored expression.

“You or your men touch her, and yes, I’ll fucking end you.” The anger was strong enough it burned in my throat, in my chest, and marred my vision with a red haze. But my expression portrayed nothing and my pulse never wavered. “Cancel that contract with the Brazilian cartel or I’ll burn your world to the ground.”

“You gave me your word,” he reminded me.

I stared at him with indifference while my chest twisted with aversion. He stole my empire and he thought I gave two shits about my word? The joke was on him though, because Itsuki was too dumb to realize I’d never given him my word that I wouldn’t take back what belonged to me. I simply told him I’d be the Yakuza’s second-in-command, behind him. That I would work for him.

“Anything happens to her and you can shove those words up your fucking ass. You will call Cortes and cancel whatever the fuck you got going on with him.”

“I need a hundred pounds of cocaine to move.”

“You’ll have it once you cancel the agreement with the Brazilians.” I was starting to get tired of repeating myself.

His gaze found mine and he let out a sardonic breath, shaking his head. I knew exactly what I had done. I had revealed my weakness to him, but he didn’t know that I knew plenty of his. Misogynistic. Weak. Impulsive. And he was dysfunctional—on more than one level.

We all knew there was no room for weakness in the underworld. But Reina… Fuck, the thought of anyone hurting her had unlocked a level of fear that I hadn’t experienced since I was a little boy.

Nobody, fucking nobody, had the right to scare her or touch her. Except me.

* * *

I sat on my Ducati Panigale V4 SP2 bike in front of the Royal College of Arts and Music on the Quai d’Austerlitz. The Seine flowed through Paris, the heat of the summer less stifling here compared to the rest of the city. The bridges down the length of it only gave the city more character, although I couldn’t say that I particularly loved it.

I preferred Japan and Italy. In fact, I’d take any country in Southeast Asia over Paris, but that was just me.

As I watched the river move slowly, consistently, it reminded me of life. I’d eventually lose Reina—someway, somehow—but I’d deal with that day when it came. Yet I couldn’t deny a strange tightness gripping my chest at the thought.

Maybe it was my guilty conscience.

I was using her. It was wrong. I had no plans of stopping. After that brief taste of her in Venice, I knew we’d fit perfectly together, but we weren’t meant to be. Eventually, I’d have to let her go. My illegitimate birth status put her out of my reach. Our families were incompatible.

The pressure in my chest was getting to be too much, and I didn’t know how to handle it.

Growing up, it was about survival. Father’s rage. Mother’s suffering. But when I was with Reina, my fucked-up past faded away. For once, it felt like a good life, all because of her.

A shuffle of voices dragged me out of my thoughts and I found Reina’s golden mane surrounded by three other girls. Her girlfriends, I guessed, but they didn’t look like the friends I’d seen her with before. Suddenly, an alertness shot through me as I watched my cinnamon girl take a step back, bumping into a wall. She kept her face a calm mask, but something about the way she clutched her hands in fists had my anger boiling and sending warning flares.

Fuck, I messaged Darius—one of the founders of Blackhawk SF Security—earlier and told him I wouldn’t need him to watch over Reina today. It seemed I’d need him to attend classes with her since she was getting harassed in school.

I got off my bike and approached the girls huddled around Reina, boxing her in. She tried to keep her footing, but three against one was hardly a fair scenario. Each step I took toward her brought me closer to killing someone.

“I don’t give a shit what you want.” Reina’s steady voice traveled through the air. “Get out of my fucking way and out of my face, or you’ll see how crazy Americans can be.”

That’s my girl, I thought proudly. She didn’t cower.