Page 52 of The Oyabun's Boy

I pulled Kenji's jacket tighter around me, burying my nose in the collar to breathe in his scent again. The leather was warm from my body now, but it still smelled like him—still carried some essence of the man who had stormed into my life and turned it upside down in a matter of days.

The man I was falling in love with.

The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. I loved him. Not Stockholm syndrome, not captive bonding, not trauma response. Love. Complicated, messy, terrifying love for a dangerous man with blood on his hands and walls around his heart that I'd somehow managed to breach.

And now I might lose him before I ever got the chance to tell him.

"I can't lose him," I whispered, more to myself than to the men standing before me. "I can't."

Chen's hand returned to my shoulder, squeezing gently. "You won't," he said, and for the first time since this nightmare began, I heard genuine emotion in his voice. "None of us will. TheOyabunis... special. Important. Not just to the organization."

The admission seemed to cost him something—as if acknowledging any personal attachment to Kenji was a weakness he rarely allowed himself to display.

"We will find him," Chen repeated, conviction hardening his voice. "And we will bring him home."

Home. This tower of glass and steel and danger that had been my prison just days ago was now the place I desperately wanted Kenji to return to. With me.

"What can I do?" I asked again, looking between Chen and Lin. "There must be something more useful than sitting here watching screens."

Lin stepped forward, surprising me. "Actually, there might be. TheOyabunkeeps private files—information not shared with the organization. Contingency plans, personal contacts, details that might help us locate him."

"But we cannot access them," Chen continued, picking up Lin's thread. "They're protected by biometric security—voice, fingerprint, retinal scan."

"So how could I possibly help with that?" I asked, confusion momentarily displacing despair.

Lin looked uncomfortable. "TheOyabun... he may have granted you access. To certain files."

The implication hung in the air. Kenji, paranoid, secretive Kenji, might have trusted me with access to his most private information. The thought was both flattering and terrifying.

"I don't understand," I said. "He never showed me anything like that. Never gave me any passwords or took my fingerprints or anything."

Chen and Lin exchanged another look, this one tinged with something I couldn't quite identify.

"TheOyabunworks in layers," Chen explained carefully. "Some security measures are... passive. They would recognize you without you needing to be explicitly told."

My mind raced to keep up with what he was suggesting. "Are you saying Kenji has some kind of system that would just... know me? How is that possible?"

"Advanced biometrics," Lin supplied. "Voice patterns, facial recognition, even scent markers. TheOyabun'spersonal security goes well beyond conventional measures."

The thought that Kenji had somehow programmed his security systems to recognize me—to trust me—made my heart ache with renewed pain. How much planning, how much thought, how much trust had gone into such a decision?

"I'll try," I said, gathering what remained of my strength. "I'll do anything if it helps find him."

As I stood, clutching Kenji's jacket around me like armor against an uncertain world, I made a silent promise to the man whose scent still clung to the leather.

I will find you. I will bring you back. And when I do, I'm going to tell you exactly how I feel, consequences be damned. Because the thought of a world without Kenji in it was suddenly more terrifying than anything his enemies could ever do to me.

Chapter Thirteen

~ Kenji ~

I woke to darkness and the exquisite symphony of pain. My consciousness returned like an unwelcome guest, each pulse of awareness bringing a new shade of agony.

Blood—my blood—had pooled beneath me, soaking into my custom Tom Ford suit. Italian wool didn't deserve such treatment. Neither did I.

The metallic taste in my mouth suggested internal bleeding.

Interesting.