Page 7

7

RYUJI

I hissed as I peeled off the bandage from my forehead and inspected the stitches.

The last few days had sucked . Taking the brunt of the collapsed ceiling had done a number on my body, but worse than the physical pain was the fact that one of my fucking clubs was out of commission. I was losing money daily.

When I wasn’t sleeping off my aches and pains, stretching in the gym, or planning our next move, I was trying to do damage control.

The cops had paid my general manager a visit, promising to open a full investigation into the safety of my property. What a fucking headache. I sent my contact in the police force a large bribe to help wrap up the investigation and get official eyes off my business. They had to write a report to explain the cause and, when these things happen, use the standard criminal excuse of a fucking gas leak or something.

But the whole thing set me on edge.

One wrong move could put me and my investments in the attention of the feds. If someone decided to look just a little closer and realized who owned the club and who was responsible for its demise, we’d be crawling with cops just trying to pin us with something. I couldn’t think of a faster way to lose the freedom I’d worked so fucking hard for.

In the meantime, I’d paid all my employees double their salaries to keep their mouths shut until I could either find a new location, get this one up and running again, or transfer them to one of my three other clubs. Alec was working triple time, trying to wrangle everyone together and stay on top of loose tongues. I was bleeding cash and fucking pissed.

This incident was a wake-up call.

I needed more properties, more revenue streams. The partnership with Leona would hopefully, eventually, work out—but it was too early. I needed to continue to make money by myself.

I needed an escape route if things went wrong.

Things always went wrong.

When I got shot in the stomach by my oyabun for simply trying to leave the Yakuza. When the third mission I’d ever done with Obi resulted in the scar running down my back. When my first club manager, before Alec, had betrayed me, and I’d had to break his fingers one by one before killing him.

With a sigh, I washed my hands, mind racing. Backup plan. Escape route. I’d had my eye on a property in LA, but I was waiting to hear back from my realtor about arranging an in-person meeting with the seller so I could check it out. Expanding the portfolio was already part of my plan, and this whole shitshow just accelerated things.

I would still put full effort into this partnership, but just in case…

I gritted my teeth against the sting of the disinfectant I sprayed on the stitches. With tender yet practiced fingers, I applied the antibiotic cream.

“That’ll probably leave a scar,” said a voice from the door to my bathroom. My eyes flicked up to find Leona with her arms crossed as she leaned against the doorframe.

“Good.” I smirked. “Scars appeal to the ladies. It’ll make me look even sexier.”

She rolled her eyes, but the ghost of a smile pulled at her lip. “Everything feeds your ego, doesn’t it?”

“Sure does, Leona dear.” I wrapped a new, clean piece of gauze around my forehead. The injury was just at my hairline, so depending on my hairstyle, I could either expose it or hide it. I usually preferred to expose my scars—displaying them as proof that I was not to be fucked with. “And my ego is thriving.”

She snorted.

Leona had been distant and reserved since the last conversation about going after Volpe. I had expected her to hide out in her room after stomping off, but she’d gone to the gym to workout instead, and she’d been present in the kitchen at meals. However, Obi was still on the receiving end of her cold shoulder. Sucker.

Despite how much I wanted her to be there to witness Volpe’s death, I agreed that involving her on-site during an active assassination was a recipe for disaster. She was too distracting, too much of a target. When we infiltrated her father’s house to rescue Caspian, I’d ultimately chosen to prioritize her safety rather than kill Volpe.

Maybe I should have just killed him then.

She still watched me from across the bathroom with a frown marring her beautiful features.

I locked eyes with her in the mirror. “You okay?”

“No,” she huffed. “But whatever.”

Not a surprise. But why did she come to me instead of Caspian? Or even Wynn?

“Did you come here so I could take your mind off things?” I teased.

That pulled another tiny smile at the corner of her mouth. “No. I just…I don’t know. I was listening to them finalizing the plans, and then I walked away, and my feet just took me here.”

We’d spent the latter half of yesterday afternoon and this morning reviewing the plans. Obi, Wynn, and Ciel were still running things over with Caspian. The four of us were a well-oiled machine, but inserting another person into our mix would be interesting.

I could no longer stand his fucking piss-poor attitude, so I left to come change my bandage. Yet to hear her feet brought her here? Now that did something to that traitor organ inside my chest.

That organ that always seemed to leap whenever I laid eyes on her now.

I turned around to face her and tilted my head. She still drove me crazy, but things had been different between us since we talked that night in my room. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She pursed her lips in thought for a moment. “Not really.”

“Hmm,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

She cleared her throat. Her eyebrows furrowed in that cute way that made her look like a pissed off hamster. All squeaks and the teensiest bite. Maybe one day she’d bite me. “Tell me I’m crazy.”

“Crazy?”

“Obi is not turning you guys against me, right? He’s not making you lose faith in me?”

I was finally seeing what was really bothering her about this whole thing. “No, Leona dear. Obi is just doing what he does best: being a Type A control freak.”

She huffed.

“He’s just trying to keep you safe.” I dragged my hand across my face. Obi had always been like that: making the plans because he couldn’t trust anyone else to take the burden of risk. But he meant well. “To keep us all safe. He believes in you, maybe more than the rest of us.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Obi is brilliant,” I said. He had plans for days. Years . He never spoke of them, but he never stopped thinking. Whatever he did, he did for a reason. “But he also is not used to compromising. He’s been our leader for ten years, and his word is the last. At the same time, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think you can become the leader you’re destined to be.”

I’d told her she could be a queen if she just learned how, and I meant it.

She sighed. “Feels like I’m letting everyone down. Like he’s taking over.”

I didn’t see why that made her so upset. Wasn’t it easier to relinquish the stress to someone else? She could sit back and let us handle the heavy lifting. “And? What would be so bad about that?”

“Because!” she started, voice raised before she stopped and collected herself. “Because. I have to be strong enough. I can’t fail.” She knocked her head against the doorframe. “Never mind. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

I studied her as she fiddled with the hem of her shirt. If she didn’t want to talk about it, I wouldn’t force her, but I knew plenty of things that could take her mind off it. Maybe that would get that traitor organ in my chest to calm down. These feelings weren’t anything but lust, anyway.

“May I offer a suggestion, then, of how we may spend our time?”

Her shoulders shook with a laugh. “Sure.”

I grinned and prowled my way to her, eyes tracing their way from her face to the column of her neck to the barest peek of cleavage through the neckline of her shirt. She shivered as I got close, eyes turning dark and cheeks flushing.

“How about…” I hovered only an inch away from her mouth. Her eyes flicked to mine, and that heat between us sparked into a flame. I didn’t finish my sentence, and she didn’t lean away, so I closed the distance and pressed my mouth against hers.

In an instant, my hands were cupping her cheeks, cradling her head, and tilting her head back to deepen the kiss. God, she tasted so fucking good. Her tongue darted against mine as a moan formed in the back of her throat.

I broke the kiss to stare down at her sparkling brown eyes. “Well? What do you think?”

She smiled. “Yeah, good suggestion.”

Her palms flattened on my chest. I crashed my lips against hers, sliding my hands down her thighs. My fingers clamped around one of her legs and hitched it up, pressing her into the door. I groaned into her mouth as her pussy rolled against my already rock-hard cock.

Her phone chimed with an incoming message. She pulled away.

“Really?” I huffed. “One of the guys couldn’t have just come find you here?”

The five of us were the only people with her burner number. I shook my head in disbelief. Lazy assholes, interrupting the best part of my day. She slid down my body and pulled the cursed device from her back pocket.

Was it favor time? Did I really need to cash it in so soon just to settle myself between her sweet legs and finally make good on my promise? Was I that desperate for her?

She frowned down at the screen.

“Who is it?” Whoever interrupted deserved to get their ass kicked.

“I don’t—” Her thumb trembled as it hovered over the screen.

“Vixen?” I tilted my head to try to see what she was staring at. “What’s wrong?”

She swallowed and held the phone up for me to see. A number that wasn’t saved under any contact had texted her.

“‘ Leona?’” I read the short message aloud. It was my turn to frown. “Who the fuck got your burner phone number, and how?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea how, but I recognize that number.”

My hands itched to hold one of my knives, but I’d left them on the bathroom counter with my shirt. “Who?”

“Chiara Tommaso.”

“No shit.” It couldn’t be a coincidence, right? That Chiara was texting her now , shortly after we learned Volpe was hiding out in her father’s estate?

She looked up at me. “Should I reply? Tell her it’s me?” Her voice shook just a tiny bit, and it made me want to wrap her in my arms and hold her close. But that was insane, so I didn’t. “I haven’t seen her since my birthday. God, I’ve missed her so much.”

Something about this didn’t feel right. Obi’s earlier words about Volpe outsmarting us turn after turn seemed to scream through my head.

But it was also her best friend.

There was a version of me in my past that would have snapped the phone in half and crushed it beneath my foot because of even the tiniest risk it posed to us all. But ugh . Feelings and emotions and that traitor organ once again thumping a quick beat.

“You’re sure that’s her number?”

She nodded. “I’ve had it memorized since I was sixteen, and my dad took away my phone for sneaking out. I used to call her on our landline when everyone went to sleep.”

Her thumb moved across the keyboard, typing a response, but I blocked it with my palm. There was a simple answer to this. “We need to show Ciel first.”

She exhaled. “You’re right.”