Page 7 of The Dragon 1 (Tokyo Empire #1)

Chapter four

Marked by the Tiger

Kenji

Maybe I went too far.

Lightning seared my balls.

Sharp, burning pain lit up my entire groin like fireworks going off behind my eyes.

The last time I’d been kneed, I was in grade school. I punched the boy so hard he’d lost a tooth. There were no consequences. The staff didn’t suspend me. Not a note home.

Everyone knew my family.

They knew what would come. Knew my father’s name meant silence and my uncles carried longer memories than most men survived to regret.

But all that legacy didn’t save me from the ache now pulsing at the center of my body.

She said she would knee me. And she did.

I’d have to remember that—her threats were real and merciless in execution.

I clutched myself like a bruised pervert and laughed under my breath.

How. . .strange.

How fucking beautiful, that one woman—this dark brown skinned American stranger—could do something no one else ever had.

She made me feel something completely new that I couldn’t even name.

What is this? Excitement? Anticipation? Hot desire, perhaps.

In the numb landscape that had become my life, emotions were prizes. Rare. Tarnished. Better locked away than wasted.

Most women?

Predictable.

Soft shapes I memorized without touching.

I read them before they moved.

Knew their games before they smiled.

But not this one.

I wasn’t lying when I said she came into my office like an eclipse—a celestial event no man could summon and every man feared. She swallowed the light, bent gravity, and dragged my gaze toward her like a tide rising for the moon.

And I let her pull me in.

I was eager to let her drown me.

One moment, my world was order—every object in its place, every threat cataloged, every desire silenced beneath brutal control.

Then she walked in.

With those wild curls like smoke made flesh. With a mouth that looked sculpted to speak rebellion and kiss sin. With a scent I hadn’t breathed since childhood, when I stood in the shadows of my father’s study and first discovered that power could moan .

She didn’t just enter my space.

She rewrote it.

Bent the air around her.

Tilted the axis of my composure.

Suddenly, I was no longer the dragon perched on the cliff. I was the sky tearing itself open to make room for her fire.

I was the predator watching the skilled hunter.

And everything inside me—the control, the legend, the coldness—shifted like plates beneath the sea.

She disrupted everything.

Not because she tried.

But because she existed.

Because the moment I looked into her eyes, I realized that nothing in my empire—no man, no god, no blade—had ever dared to challenge my hunger quite like her .

I’d been right to name her Tiger.

There was this sharp fire in her bones.

And that smell. . .

That was what undid me.

I tilted my head back and inhaled, still able to trace her scent like it clung to my skin.

Black amber and ripe plum.

I’d only ever smelled it once before—in my father’s study when I was eight years old. A woman had been pinned to his desk, her moan the sound that followed surrender. That scent. . .it lingered through the air as a spell would.

Then my little tigress walks in with that scent wrapped around her like prophecy.

And now here I was—gasping through the throb in my groin and clutching my cock like I might die from wanting her.

She had touched something ancient in me.

Something monstrous.

Something divine.

I thought back some more to Nyomi—my naughty Tora.

Her body was one of a sleek beast that longed to be stroked—harmonious and muscled where most women would be soft and firm.

If I had to write a haiku on her frame alone, it wouldn’t be one compared to flowers or delicate things. Those three poetic lines would have claws and heat, deadly eyes, and the promise of passion with the bite of scorching flames.

Instantly, I thought of one.

Claws beneath her skin.

Fire licks the curve of grace.

Even a dragon would kneel.

I smiled and considered her beauty some more.

Her lips had snared my attention.

Those curves made my cock sit up in my pants.

She had curls for days, long, slinky black ones that bobbed when she moved her head too quickly to make a point.

And she’d made several arguments to save her precious book.

She wants to write about Tokyo’s sex industry. What a dangerous topic, little Tora.

To reveal my world would be to paint a huge target on her back.

There was a reason the red-light district didn’t maintain transparency.

I didn’t just move in the shadows of Tokyo—I controlled them. My syndicate didn’t thrive on chaos like Western mobs. No, we moved with precision. With legacy. With silence.

We didn’t shout our power.

We etched it into the bones of Japan.

Tradition kept our empire standing.

Honor shaped our hierarchy.

And privacy?

That was our religion. What happened behind closed doors stayed sealed in blood and oath. Outsiders didn’t get to peel back the curtain. Not without paying a price.

It would be easier for her to write a book on the Yakuza!

A laugh escaped my parted lips as the pain in my groin subsided to a sensual thumping.

My Tora had done more than hurt my loins.

She’d triggered excitement in my core.

I can’t wait to see her again.

The door creaked open.

I didn’t have to look to know it was Reo entering first. His presence always arrived a beat before his body. He was the whisper before the storm, warning you of the wind that would come to strip you bare.

Plus, Reo didn’t ask permission. Just stepped in like the air already belonged to him.

Currently, he moved with quiet confidence, the hem of his dark blue suit brushing against his polished shoes. The suit was sharp, cut in a subtle, European style.

His holster peeked beneath the blazer’s edge, the sleek handle of his signature white Glock catching the light.

In his other hand, he carried a worn paperback, one I would bet was an old mystery.

The cover, frayed at the edges and sun-bleached at the spine, featured a woman in silhouette standing beneath a streetlamp, her trench coat cinched at the waist. A revolver was at her side.

Blood dripped from the corner of the lamppost.

I eyed the title.

The Girl with the Crimson Shoes .

Lifting the book, Reo thumbed the corner of the page, closed it and tucked the novel into the inside pocket of his blazer with the same ease as sheathing a blade.

My smile widened.

Of course, he’d taken time to read when I dismissed them.

He closed the door behind him with the softest click and let his gaze sweep over me. “You appear. . .uncomposed.”

“That’s one conclusion.”

“And the other?”

“I want to know everything about her immediately, starting with where she is staying and how soon she can be in my bed.”

Reo checked his Rolex. “You have the meeting with the Lion in thirty minutes.”

“Forget the Lion,” I waved him off. “Focus on the Tiger. I also want all of her books.”

That got a knowing smirk out of him. “Your tiger won’t be hard to find. I already have men following her and I sent Ali off to the foreign bookstore to see if we can find any copies of her books in Tokyo.”

Pleasure rolled through my chest. “Good.”

“The men you have following her. . .tell them not to get too close,” I murmured. “She’s skittish. Fierce. But she’s watching everything. That kind of woman notices ghosts before they appear.”

Already ten steps ahead, he shrugged. “I told them to remain in the shadows.”

“I should’ve known you would have eyes on her,” I looked at him then, really looked.

Reo was my brother only by bond and he was one of the most dangerous men I’d ever met—because his mind was a brutal maze with no exit and a thousand hidden doors.

Other men killed with fists or blades.

Reo?

He killed with strategy.

Long ago, I’d named him the Dragon’s Roar.

The warning before the fire came.

The sound before the skies split open to rain down blood.

Almost every man in Japan feared me. But they flinched when Reo entered a room. Because I might destroy your body but Reo? Reo would dismantle your legacy, your lineage, your reason for existing.

I watched him. “Her scent—black amber and ripe plum. Did you catch that?”

“I did not,” Reo adjusted the cuff of his jacket.

“Are you sure you didn’t smell that on her?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he studied me and then shrugged. “She said she didn’t wear perfume. I inhaled. There was nothing. Perhaps her scent wasn’t in the air at all.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means your soul might have smelled her, not your nose.”

I stared at him caught somewhere between amusement and a chill I couldn’t shake. “That’s not real science.”

“Neither are most of the things we claim to believe,” his expression remained unreadable. “But if a woman walks in and everything in you howls to remember—maybe it isn’t about the scent. Maybe it’s about the part of you that’s been asleep for years finally waking up.”

His words settled on me like smoke over water.

Still, I tilted my head back and drew in a slow breath.

He’s wrong. The scent is still there. Amber. Plum.

In fact, it clung to my clothes, my hair, the air I breathed. It threaded through my office like it belonged here now, like it had always been waiting.

I looked back at him. “And you can’t smell it now?”

“I cannot.”

“But it’s everywhere.”

“It is not, Kenji.”

I glared at him.

Reo shrugged. “In The Tale of Genji , Lady Murasaki wrote of how the scent of a woman could linger longer than her presence. It’s a symbol in courtship. An omen. The moment her fragrance outlasts her body; the man is already losing control.”

“Are you quoting 11th century literature to explain why I’m losing my fucking mind?”

“Yes and it fits.”

I let out a bitter laugh, walked behind my desk, sat down, and leaned back in my chair.

My body still buzzed.

The door opened again.

Hiro stepped in.

Not a sound.

Not a greeting.

Just quiet violence—a loaded gun placed gently on silk.

A lollipop was already in his mouth. The stick bobbed a little.

His gaze swept the room. He didn’t ask if I was alright. Because Hiro didn’t deal in softness. He dealt in finality.

He was my blood brother—born of the same ruthless father. A man who bred sons to have weapons and didn’t know the meaning of gentleness.

Hiro took position against the far wall and folded his arms.

The rest of the Dragon’s Claws stayed outside—because they knew the order of things.

Hiro was the head of the Dragon’s Claws. He was the first blade—the strike before the threat.

With him, I never had to speak a command.

When I exhaled, he read it as war.

When I stayed still, he struck anyway—because he already knew what I wanted, whatever violence I hungered for, before the thought had even formed behind my eyes.

The others?

The rest of the Claws?

They waited for Hiro to act and when he did, they followed, and many bodies fell.

Hiro's eyes passed over Reo.

The two shared a moment of silent communication.

What are they thinking?

And then I saw it—Hiro smirking.

I narrowed my eyes. It hadn’t been a wide smirk or even a cocky one but it still curled at the edges of his mouth.

The lollipop twitched between his lips.

He didn’t say anything, just stood there with that damn smirk.

I straightened in my chair. “Do you think something is funny?”

Hiro pulled the candy from his mouth and examined it, “this is new territory.”

“What is?”

“Needing to defend you against a woman,” he glanced up, calm and dangerous as always. “An American one at that.”

I let out a slow breath. “I don’t need defending against her.”

“I peeked in when Reo came in. . .”

“And?”

“You were holding your dick like it broke off.”

Reo snorted on my side.

I pointed at Hiro. “Say one more word and I’ll have you eating a lollipop out of your kneecap.”

“Perhaps but you’ll still be clutching your balls due to your tiger .” That smirk stayed.

And strangely, I didn’t hate it.

In fact, if Hiro could be amused—even for a moment—it meant something truly rare had happened.

Nyomi Palmer, you beautiful fucking problem. You’ve made even my Claw smile.

The smirk was still on Hiro’s face when Reo spoke. “We should finish our meeting, there are still two major points that I didn’t get to, before your new obsession entered.”

I let out a long breath.

“We must deal with these things before the meeting, Kenji.”

The Tiger had left claw marks on my soul and that was all I wanted to focus on, but this was the price of power.

The moment I wanted peace, the world demanded war.

"Then tell me,” I leaned forward, steepling my fingers beneath my chin. “What fresh hell is waiting for me now?”