Page 11 of The Dragon 1 (Tokyo Empire #1)

Chapter seven

The Lion

Kenji

I don’t pray enough. . .

That wasn’t a line meant to provoke a laugh. It was a veiled threat. A warning cloaked in theatrical bullshit.

I stared at Kazimir.

I don’t pray enough because what? Now a demon sits in front of me?

The Lion didn’t shift as he watched me.

His men didn’t move either, although I was sure that they were ready to attack.

The air thickened between us.

A waitress approached my side, head bowed, and holding a tray full of sushi.

I waved her off. I no longer had an appetite.

Here we were.

Two monsters.

Two empires.

One room barely containing us.

It was time to get on with it.

I gave the Lion a smile. “How can I help you during your. . .surprise visit to my country.”

“ Your country. . .” Kazimir slid the chopsticks between his fingers, plucked a piece of sushi from the curve of the woman's hip and brought it to his mouth.

Chewing, he looked up at the ceiling.

The gold dragon stretched wide, its wingspan infinite, its mouth open in eternal roar, fangs sharp and merciless.

Kazimir swallowed. “Dragons.”

I raised one eyebrow.

He lowered his view from the ceiling and put it on me. “Dragons are big. They fly. Fire pours out of their huge jaws.”

Where the fuck is this going?

“Very bold creatures,” Kazimir turned to Sasha. “Dragons hoard treasure too. Right?”

Sasha nodded slowly. Those damn silvery grey eyes were unreadable.

A shadow passed through the far side of the room.

One of my runners, lean and forgettable by design, hurried behind Kazimir’s soldiers.

No one even looked his way.

A few seconds later, the runner slipped beside Reo and handed him a thick, blood-red card edged in white ink.

What’s that?

Reo gave the card a single glance then slid it into the inner pocket of his jacket without a word.

I put my view back on Kazimir.

“Aww,” Kazimir chuckled. “Dragons are fun creatures.”

Then his laughter died.

He placed his chopsticks down on the table with a delicate clink . And turned that glacier stare back onto me. “But dragons are myths .”

I leaned back in my chair.

“Imaginary. Nonexistent in reality. No true threat,” Kazimir sneered. “Not like lions.”

To my left, Hiro stiffened and his jaw ticked once.

To my right, Reo exhaled like he was preparing for war.

I crossed my arms over my chest, letting Kazimir have his little theater moment but my mind was already assessing—how fast I could reach Kazimir, how clean the kill would be, whether Sasha would shoot before I shattered the Lion’s throat.

More importantly, I calculated the aftermath—how long until the Bratva came for my head and flattened the city.

And only after all of that, did I decide to speak. “Kazimir, did you come to Tokyo to educate me on various creatures? If you did, you wasted a flight.”

“Do you sleep comfortably in bed at night?”

“I do.”

“Careful,” Kazimir held up one finger. “Comfort breeds weakness and weakness invites predators.”

“Then let’s not confuse comfort with control, Kazimir.” My smile widened. “I sleep well because my enemies die screaming. Because the air outside these walls carries my name like gospel. That isn’t comfort, that’s dominance.”

“Perhaps, you’re correct. . .Dragon.” Kazimir reached into his coat with slow precision, pulled out a thick cigar, and rolled it between his fingers like a loaded weapon.

“I have many ears and eyes in Tokyo,” he said, not looking at me yet. “They hear things. They see things. They run back to me like good little dogs and give a report.”

He placed the cigar between his lips.

Yuri tilted forward without being asked, struck a matte black lighter, and held the flame steady.

Kazimir leaned into the fire, his eyes finally locking with mine over the flickering flame.

And then he did a single drag of the cigar until the tip glowed.

He leaned back and smoke curled around his face like a serpent.

“Lately. . .the news from my good little dogs has been smelling like rot. It is the stench of decay. Putrid.”

My brow furrowed slightly.

Hiro caught it.

I would need my brother to find the Lion’s spies in Tokyo, those fucking rats slipping through the cracks of my empire. And when Hiro did? I would cut out those rats’ eyes and ears.

“For example,” Kazimir blew out cigar smoke. “I’ve been told that the Dragon does not like my new shipment prices. Especiall y the security fee.”

He is truly insane.

Reo had been right on his guesses. The Lion hadn’t flown to Tokyo just to eat sushi off a naked woman. He came here because he’d heard whispers about that measly twenty percent. A small fraction of drug shipments we’d quietly rerouted through the French.

Just twenty fucking percent.

A little test.

A safety net.

But also, apparently, a huge slap to the Lion’s pride.

For Kazimir Solonik, twenty percent might as well have been treason because he’d crossed the damned ocean to sit in my city and bitch about it.

Now what?

I’d tried to slide one past him but he’d sniffed it out, like a fucking lion drawn to the scent of betrayal.

I should’ve known better with this pyscho.

So now I had to fix this.

If it was one thing I knew about him, it was that Kazimir appreciated a lot of things—violence, theater, his damned metaphors—but what he respected most was the truth.

I uncrossed my arms and leaned forward. There was no apology in my voice—only clarity. “Your numbers are bloated. Too high. And the security fee? An extra cost for the same dirt and danger that others would easily deal with for free to get the product to me.”

Reo stirred next to me.

Kazimir smiled like I’d told a joke. “My prices are too high?”

“Yes.”

“ You must make peace with that fact.”

Rage rose within me.

“What else can I tell you, my friend?” Kazimir flicked cigar ash on the table. It landed an inch from the woman’s thigh. “Light a candle. Make an offering. Fucking pray if necessary. But unless your gods are willing to bleed for you, the price remains the same.”

The line of my jaw twitched.

Kazimir exhaled smoke and the wisps coiled upward.

“Make peace with my very generous pricing because if you don’t. . .” He pointed the glowing cigar’s tip at me. “. . .the price will go up.”

Behind me, I felt it, my Claws and Fangs bristling with rage, barely contained behind their tailored suits and tactical restraint. Their bodies were still but their energy wasn’t. They damn sure weren’t used to anyone talking to me that way.

And with that, a crackle moved through the room, a collective readiness to pounce.

Across from us, Kazimir’s men shifted too—thirty Bratva soldiers flexing fingers near triggers, their weight shifting onto the balls of their feet.

It was a room full of violent soldiers on the brink of an all-out battle.

I steadied my voice, even as more rage needled just beneath the surface.

“When your uncle Igor sat on the throne, he understood that holding onto power wasn’t just about who bleeds.

It’s about who stands beside you when blood is being spilled.

Allies in this game aren’t ornaments, Kazimir.

They’re treasure and they’re to be respected. ”

For a second, silence.

Then Kazimir chuckled, low and cold. “Compromise? Diplomacy? Allies? I know these words but I have no need to study them. Even more important, in this moment, I am not the student.”

He flicked ash again. It fell on the edge of a fine silk napkin. The embers sizzled faintly, biting into the fabric like acid.

I spoke through clenched teeth. “Igor also knew the power of respect.”

“Yet I am in power now. And there is no one for me to respect.” Kazimir studied me across the table and his cold expression dared me to lunge, to start a war that neither of us could stop.

Then, with that same condescension, he looked up again at the ceiling. “Lions and Dragons.”

He lowered his view and this time, his focus landed squarely on Reo. “The Dragon’s Roar.”

Reo didn’t flinch.

Kazimir chuckled, then turned his full gaze toward me. “A dragon’s roar is very loud. But tell me. . .have you ever heard a lion roar?”

I narrowed my eyes. “I have not.”

Kazimir took another puff from his cigar and then slowly rose from his chair. “Be sure you never get to hear a lion’s roar. It’s fucking terrifying. Tokyo would be in ruins.”

I stood abruptly and my chair screeched behind me. “Is that a threat?”

Kazimir didn’t blink. “Put that twenty percent back where it belongs. I get one hundred percent of your drug shipments. Not eighty. Not even ninety-nine percent. One hundred. I see anything less than that again. . .”

His voice turned venomous. “. . .and I return. And it won’t be nice and gentlemanly like this visit.”

I frowned. “You think this is gentlemanly?”

“I think you should pray to your gods because you won’t get forgiveness from me. Due to your little. . .disrespect. . .the price for you, is now up to 90 thousand a kilo.” He didn’t give me a chance to respond.

Kazimir turned on his heel—sharp and final. His coat snapped behind him as he headed away.

His men moved in sync, chairs scraping back, suits shifting, hands brushing weapons.

“And now,” Kazimir called out without looking back. “Make it five women in my room within an hour. I’ve got angry energy to release.”

He flicked the whole cigar to the floor. The lit end hit the polished wood and then it rolled. A trail of smoke curled into the air.

Hiro growled low, quiet, and deadly.

Still, Kazimir didn’t look back. He just walked out, boots striking the floor like a countdown.

Just like that, the Lion was gone—leaving the discarded cigar on the floor, the smoke, the insult, and the tension to burn in his place.

Silence dragged in his wake.

I stood motionless, my pulse a quiet thrum of fury.

Reo and Hiro flanked me, still as stone.

I exhaled once.

Then turned to Reo. “Call the French. I want to meet with the Butcher. This week, not next. I can come to Paris, or he can come here.”

Reo glanced over, brows raising. “Are you meeting with him to end the shipments?”

“No, I want to discuss the possibility of getting rid of the Lion.”

Hiro let out a low, pleased breath—more exhale than laughter. That twisted smile of his finally bloomed.

Reo, however, shook his head. “Your father wants us aligned with the Lion. He thinks the Bratva will make us stronger.”

“My father,” I said slowly. “Lies sick in bed and uses me like a goddamn avatar. He doesn’t have to sit across from Kazimir and deal with that fucking ego. He doesn’t have to taste the poison that the Lion spoon-feeds. I do, and I’ve had an enough.”

Reo nodded once. “I’ll call the French.”

“Good.”

“Oh. I can’t forget this,” Reo reached into his jacket and then pulled out the thick red card the runner had given him earlier. “This is for you.”

I took it. “What’s this?”

“Your Tiger’s location.”

Thank God.

A smile flickered at the corner of my mouth. “Very good, Reo.”

While I was done dealing with lions, I was more than ready to tangle with a tiger.

Nyomi’s beautiful face flashed in my mind—brown skin with full lips.

Tora.

Stunning.

Reckless.

Unclaimed.

The kind of woman who didn’t bow to kings or monsters. The kind of woman who made even dragons burn.

Mmmm. Let’s see what you’re doing this evening.