Page 32 of The Dragon 1

“The person is cutting off women’s feet and then leaving them gift-wrapped outside the Floating Garden. There have been three packages so far.”

Silence dropped like a blade.

I frowned. “Gift-wrapped?”

“Red paper. Gold ribbon. Each box is the same. A single high heel inside the box—still strapped to the severed foot.”

The imagery hit hard and fast. I could see it—a woman’s foot, pale and lifeless, the curve of her ankle still locked in place by a glittering high heel.

I placed my hands on my desk. “Do we know who the feet belong to?”

“Yes. Granted, none were our sex workers. But all of the women were in the area the week before. I think the killer is watching the club and more specifically watching us.”

I spotted the crease in his forehead. “And what else?”

“Each box says ‘To the Dragon.’”

The skin behind my ear tingled. It was either instinct, danger, or maybe just the aftershock of desire still curling in my blood.

I rose from my chair and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked that section of our territory.

Outside, the underbelly of Tokyo pulsed like a heart beneath the city’s ribs.

Soft neon glowed under steel skies. The colors slow danced on puddles left behind by a brief early evening rain. Red. Violet. Electric blue. Reflections rippled along the wet asphalt, smearing bruises across the city’s skin.

Women in short skirts leaned against glowing walls, legs crossed, cigarettes perched between painted nails, their eyes both hollow and sharp.

Host boys lingered beneath awnings with silver hair and silk shirts unbuttoned too far.

I knew that if I opened the window, laughter and moans would mix with the hum of vending machines and the metallic hiss of train brakes echoing in the distance.

This was my city—glittering and grotesque, a jeweled blade dipped in blood. The beast I ruled wore perfume and pearls, but it always devoured in silence.

And somewhere down there, among the scent of cheap perfume and spilled whiskey, a killer walked. Someone who had wrapped severed feet like presents and left them at my doorstep.

“Red paper,” I scanned the area. “Gold ribbon. A single high heel.”

Reo got to my side. “Yes.”

“Besides saying my name, there’s no calling card?”

“No. Just the feet. Each cleanly severed with almost surgical exactness. No signs of torture. No DNA trace left behind. Whoever he is, he’s meticulous.”

“A doctor?”

“I don’t think so. A doctor would have made cleaner cuts. Straighter, with less variance in tissue exposure. These aren’t medical dissections—they’re. . .deliberate. Intimate. What he is doing is probably a labor of love.”

I turned my head slightly. “Love?”

“Maybe more. . .obsession. Sick fetish? The angle of the cuts, the way the ribbon is tied—same knot every time. Careful. Ritualistic. This isn’t just murder. It’s performance.”

I tapped my finger against the glass. “You think he’s in love with the feet?”

“I think he’s in love with what they represent. Femininity. Movement. Power. It’s not just mutilation. It is worship twisted inside out.”

I stared down at the club below, at the soft pink glow pulsing from the Floating Garden’s entrance like the mouth of a beast—beautiful, expensive, and hungry.

I wasn’t a good man but I had rules. And whoever sent those feet wanted to see if I would break them.