Page 8 of The Dragon 1 (Tokyo Empire #1)

Chapter five

The Price of Power

Kenji

I waved my hand lazily. “Go ahead.”

Reo placed his hands in his pockets. “First, someone is cutting off women’s feet.”

Shock hit me. “What?”

“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.

What this psycho didn’t understand was this— my rules were the only thing keeping me human. The only thing keeping this city from burning to ash beneath my feet.

Because when my father forced me to take this power, when I wrapped my claws around the throne I never asked for, I didn’t become a king.

I became the Dragon.

And like any true dragon, I guarded what was mine with fire and fury.

Every woman who stepped into my world—whether she danced behind glass, fucked for a fee, poured drinks at the bar, or simply wore my scent on her skin—was under my protection.

They were the treasure I kept beneath my wings.

The flames I burned for.

And anyone who dared to hurt any of these women. . .who dropped severed limbs at my doorstep like invitations to war...

Was already fucking dead.

He just didn’t know it yet.

I gritted my teeth. “Reo, you said he . Could it be a woman doing this?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“The psychology doesn’t align.” Reo stepped closer and I caught the scent of old books clinging to his jacket.

“Female serial killers tend to kill for power, not artistry. Not often for pleasure, and rarely with this kind of pageantry. This man? He wants you to see. To feel something. To marvel at the beauty of what he’s destroyed and he wants to piss you off. ”

A chill rolled up my spine.

Reo’s gaze cut to me. “He’s communicating. Each gift is a sentence. We’re just not fluent in his language yet.”

My hand curled into a fist.

Reo frowned. “And he’ll keep doing it. Until we understand the message… or give him a reason to stop.”

Then, Hiro spoke from across the room. “So this is personal?”

Reo nodded. “It is.”

I pressed my palm to the glass and looked through the window. I didn’t like the idea of someone creeping through my city, slicing women to pieces, and treating one of the doorsteps of my clubs like it was a sicko art gallery.

Hiro left the wall and came over to me. “Let me find and track this guy.”

I didn’t answer my brother right away.

Hiro was destruction incarnate. Beautiful, effective destruction—but he thrived in close-range war. In shadows and steel. His solutions were final, his methods bloody. He didn’t trace patterns or dance with madness.

He simply found the soft spot and drove in the blade.

Tempting as it was to let Hiro off leash—send him into the dark and wait for the blood-soaked results—this situation wasn’t about dragging a confession out of someone screaming in a basement or leaving bodies in alleys as warnings.

Hmmm.

This killer was clever—a theatrical mind with surgical hands and a psychotic artist’s obsession.

A man like that didn’t fear violence—he expected it. Probably got off on the idea that we’d come at him like hounds on a scent trail, snapping jaws and blind rage.

He wanted noise, mess, and chaos.

But what he wouldn’t expect?

Strategy and cold, meticulous logic.

He wouldn’t be ready for the kind of mind that peeled back layers like old wallpaper, that read people like books, spotted patterns like constellations, and had no interest in glory—only clear, accurate results.

This wasn’t Hiro’s hunt.

This problem needed patience, puzzles and an obsession that mirrored the killer’s own.

And there was only one man in my inner circle who’d ever fit that mold.

I shifted my gaze to Reo.

He was already watching me, waiting.

Reading me.

Of course he was.

He knew.

“Not you, Hiro.” I let my hand drop from the glass and turned toward them both.

Hiro’s jaw twitched. “I can find him for you.”

“I always have faith in you but this isn’t a matter of force. It’s a mind game. A conversation in corpses.”

Hiro frowned.

“I need him exposed, not erased.”

Reo’s expression remained unreadable but I caught the flicker in his eyes—the spark of challenge.

“Reo,” I stepped closer to him. “This is yours.”

No protest.

No hesitation.

He simply nodded once. “Understood.”

I added. “I want you to learn his language.”

“I’ve already started assessing,” he murmured. “The shape of the boxes. The type of ribbon. Even the brand of the heels. There’s meaning buried in every detail. I’ll figure it out soon.”

Satisfaction hit me.

This was why Reo was my Roar. Because where others heard chaos, he found code. Where others flinched, he leaned in.

This killer had chosen performance. But he’d picked the wrong stage. With Reo on his trail, the real show would begin.

I nodded. “Keep me updated on everything.”

Hiro gave a dissatisfied grunt and returned to the wall, sucking on his lollipop.

I looked back out the window one last time, at the city stretching into shadows and neon, and thought again of Nyomi—of how her presence had cracked something open in me.

Somewhere beneath my streets, a monster was wrapping gifts in gold ribbon, waiting for a reaction.

He’d get one.

Just not the one he expected.

Because now Reo was watching.

And Reo didn’t just catch killers. He dismantled them. Thought by thought. Thread by thread. Until there was nothing left but answers—and blood.

Reo’s voice cut into my thoughts. “And the second point.”

I eyed him. “Yes, what’s the other thing we should talk about?”

“Before your meeting with the Lion, we should try to brainstorm why he is doing a surprise visit in the first place.”

I sighed.

The name alone pushed pressure into my chest.

The fucking Lion.

Russia’s new Bratva King.

While Japan belonged to my father and me, the Lion—Kazimir Solonik sat on a much larger, bloodier throne, overseeing many parts of the world. Kazimir had inherited this position after his uncle Igor stepped down.

And he ruled differently. Where Igor trafficked influence through quiet brutality and assessed silence, his nephew came with explosions.

Cities leveled.

Ports seized.

Enemies erased.

The Lion didn’t just want power.

He wanted everyone to remember how he took it.

And now, with all the Italian ports under Bratva control, he held the keys to the most lucrative drug trade in the world. Every ounce of powder moving into Europe and Asia came through his gates. The English, the French, the Albanians, even the Germans—all had to kneel if they wanted in.

He named the price.

He controlled the flow.

And if you didn’t buy from him?

You didn’t buy at all.

Unless, of course, you got creative.

Which we had. . .

Backdoor shipments from Marseille with the Corsican. Quiet dealings with Vietnamese syndicates who didn’t yet fear the Bratva’s reach. We’d scaled back our Bratva imports—only by twenty percent, enough to stay under the radar.

My gaze remained fixed on the window. “Do you think the Lion knows what we’re doing?”

“I don’t like coincidences,” Reo cleared his throat. “We reduced orders from his ports. It’s down 20% to not make it too obvious. We also just secretly rerouted through France. And now, out of nowhere, the Lion shows up in Tokyo without warning.”

I tilted my head. “You think he came for that small percentage?”

Reo shrugged. “With men like him, it is not the quantity. It is the insult.”

Hiro cracked the lollipop between his teeth. “So… we kill him.”

Silence spread for a beat too long.

I turned to him. “Hiro.”

He lifted his gaze. “We’ve done it before. Important men with empires. Lions bleed, don’t they?”

Reo let out a dry chuckle. “The Lion also has the nuclear codes.”

My jaw tightened.

That was the real problem.

The Lion didn’t just command men, ports, and drugs.

He commanded fear.

And the codes to Russia’s nukes weren’t symbolic for the Lion. He would use them. Everyone at the table knew it. The Americans knew it. The Chinese. Even the Vatican sent a whisper through the grapevine: Pray the Lion doesn’t get bored.

He was cocky, yes—young and too confident in his inherited power—but he was also a psycho.

A demented psycho.

The kind that smiled while entire cities and people turned to dust behind him.

“The Lion won’t make a move here,” I said aloud, trying to convince myself as much as them. “Not in Japan. Not without cause.”

Reo crossed his arms. “He doesn’t need cause. He just needs to feel disrespected.”

“I haven’t truly disrespected him.”

“Yet,” Hiro licked his lips.

I turned back to the window.

If the Lion came to start a war, I would be willing to burn him before he roared. However, there were levels to war, and as much as I hated to admit it, we weren’t ready to battle him.

Not yet.

“If the opportunity ever arises,” I looked back at them. “we kill him.”

Reo lifted a brow. “You’re sure?”

“One day, yes. If the moment ever comes clean—no collateral, no fallout, no nuclear smoke—then yes. We take him out.”

Hiro’s grin curved like a blade. “Now that’s a meeting I’ll look forward to.”

“But not today,” I said.

“Why not?” Hiro asked.

“Because I’m not starting a war with the fucking Lion over 20% of drug shipments.”

“At least not yet,” Hiro added.

I ignored that.

The air in the room shifted.

“You’ll both be in the room,” I said. “Watch the Lion, but stay silent, even if he is disrespectful. Let him believe he’s being entertained.”

“And if he’s here for blood?” Hiro asked.

“Then we show our teeth. But we don’t bite first .”

Reo nodded slowly, eyes narrowing in thought. “He’s young, yes. But not stupid. If he brought bombs to Tokyo, he would’ve dropped them by now. He’s here for diplomacy. . .at least on the surface.”

“And underneath?” Hiro asked.

“We’ll find out what he’s looking for underneath.” I smiled faintly and left the window. “Now let’s go deal with the fucking Lion so I can get back to my beautiful Tiger.”

Hiro shook his head. “I’ve never been a fan of cats.”