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With that, he walked out the door, followed by his two hulking bodyguards. As soon as the door shut behind them, Regan jumped up from the couch, startling the heck out of me.

“Oh my gosh, where is she, Sydney? This isn’t like her at all,” Regan said as she paced back and forth in front of the couch.

“Hey, it’s okay. Let me try calling her first,” I said to her as I grabbed my phone off the counter.

Maybe she actually did it. Fuck, I hope she did run and finally got away from him.

I pressed on Raven’s contact, and the phone rang. And it rang until the voicemail picked up.

Damnit. I’ll shoot off a text too.

Sydney

Raven, Kaito was here and said you didn’t come home after the fight. Was this after you called me yesterday? Let us know what’s going on ASAP!

I waited for a few minutes with no reply before I sent a second one.

Sydney

Please, sis, we just want to make sure you’re okay. We won’t tell him anything if you are running and you can delete the messages right after.

Still nothing.

Okay, it’s not like her to not reply, but I’ll give her some time. Maybe she’s unable to answer her phone right now. It doesn’t mean anything bad has actually happened to her, so let’s not freak out yet.

I grabbed the photo Kaito had given me earlier off the counter.

I needed to look at it closely, find anything in it that might explain what was going on.

I looked at Raven. She seemed worried as she looked out into the distance.

That wasn’t unexpected. After all, she’d had a lot riding on that fight. We all had.

I continued to look at the photo, my attention now focusing on the man standing next to her.

I drank in his muscular frame and the tattoos I could see on his arms, accentuating the curves of his biceps.

Dang, whoever he was, guy had a nice body.

A black mask and a ball cap covered his face, so that wasn’t really helpful.

But I had enough of the tattoos to go on, so it gave me somewhere to start.

I carefully folded the photo and put it in my pocket. Then I walked over and stopped Regan before she made a hole in the floor.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I need you to go through her contact book and give anyone who’s extended family or old students a call and see if Raven has reached out to them lately.

And call Touma and ask if he knows who the guy is.

I’m going to go to the last ring Touma was supposed to fight in and ask around there if anyone saw her leave that night.

Or if they know who the guy was that fought in Touma’s place. ”

I gave her a kiss on the cheek and a small smile.

“We’re going to figure this out together. I need you to calm down for me because I can’t do it all alone,” I said as I gave her arms a gentle squeeze.

She took a deep breath and then nodded. “Okay, I can do that. I’ll begin right away. Please, text me if you hear anything.”

“Of course. Now let’s get to it and find our sister.” I walked over to the front door and slid on my shoes, grabbing my wallet and car keys before dashing out the door.

I drove as fast as I could through evening traffic in Tokyo to get to the fighting den. I’d been there only twice in the past, but once you were shown a place like this, it was hard to forget where it was.

I parked in the parking garage and walked across the street to the entrance, banging on the door until a slider opened and a pair of annoyed eyes looked at me.

“What do you want?” he snapped on the other side of the door.

“My family sponsors one of the fighters, you idiot. Let me inside. Now ,” I said, my patience already thin to begin with, without some meathead of a guard standing in my way.

He glared down at me for another solid second before slamming the small window closed. I thought he was going to leave me standing out here, and I raised my fist, ready to pound on this door to force him to open it to tell me off, but then I heard a click, and it opened.

I walked in, head high and shoulders back as I passed him.

In a place like this, women were rarely here unless they were accompanying a partner.

If you showed signs of weakness, there was no doubt you might vanish before waking up sold or missing some organs I’d rather not part with.

This place brought the shadiest of people together.

Which meant someone had to know something about Raven.

I walked down into the main room. The fight ring might be empty, but the gambling dens and the bar were still busy early in the night. I made my way to the bar first. When I sat down on a stool, the bartender came over.

“What can I get you?” he asked gruffly.

“Have you seen this man?”

I slid the photo of Raven and the man she was with across the bar for him to have a look. He glanced at it, studying it for a moment, then looked at me, shaking his head.

“No one I recognize except the woman.”

I pulled the photo back and sighed. I glanced at the rest of the men gathered here. I went one by one, showing the photo and asking the same question, only to be met with three more noes in total.

Four people. An unlucky number, as its pronunciation, shi , also meant death.

I continued to ask around the entire place, and an hour later, I was still no closer to finding out any answers.

“Dammit …” I swore under my breath as I resigned to leave here and go stop by places Raven had frequented in the past.

As I rounded the corner to walk up the stairs, I bumped into a man who could possibly be a butler of some sort based on how he dressed. I fell, dropping my photo as I landed on my ass.

“Ouch!” I hissed as the pain jolted up my spine.

The man paused, then extended his hand, which was covered in a black glove.

“Apologies, ma’am. Allow me to help you.” He spoke with an American accent.

I reached up and accepted his offer. “It was my fault. I was lost in my thoughts and wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

He flashed me a smile, and then he bent down and picked up my photograph. He brushed it off and refolded it before handing it back to me. I accepted it, and with a nod of his head, he continued on his way down into the room.

Must be here to fetch something for his boss.

I glanced down at the photo before tucking it back into my pocket. Time to go before it got much later.

I went to half a dozen cafés and spas before I gave up for the night. Another handful of texts and calls to Raven went unanswered as well. When I arrived home, Regan informed me she’d had no luck either.

“I’m worried about her. I went into her room, and when I opened one of her vanity drawers, her beautiful comb, which used to be our mother’s, was broken in half.

I’m not usually superstitious, but it made me uneasy,” Regan said as we sat on the couch next to each other, searching through social media, attempting to find anything that could lead us to Raven.

I glanced over at her. “I’m sure it has been broken for a while now. It is a really old comb, sis. Try not to worry about it being something bad until we have to, okay? You should go get some sleep. I’ll keep looking around a little while longer.”

With a tired nod, she excused herself, and I resumed my search late into the night before I finally succumbed to sleep right there on the couch.