Page 60 of The Oyabun's Boy

We'd reached another set of double doors, these marked with warnings about authorized personnel only. The medical team paused, clearly waiting for me to release Kenji's hand.

"Thirty seconds," Chen said from behind me, his tone making it clear this wasn't a request.

The medical staff exchanged glances but stepped back, giving us a moment of privacy.

I leaned in close, my lips nearly touching Kenji's ear. "I love you," I whispered, the words tearing from somewhere deep inside me. "I love you, you terrifying, beautiful disaster. So you'd better come back to me, because I'm not done telling you that yet."

Kenji's fingers tightened around mine with surprising strength. His eye locked onto my face with laser focus, and he managed to rasp a single word, "Promise."

It wasn't clear if he was asking for one or making one, but it didn't matter. "I promise," I vowed, pressing my forehead gently to his. "I'm not going anywhere. Not ever."

"Time's up," the doctor announced, his tone softening slightly as he witnessed our exchange. "We need to get him into surgery now."

I reluctantly released Kenji's hand, immediately feeling the loss of connection like a physical pain. "I'll be right here," I promised as they wheeled him away. "Every second."

As the doors swung shut behind them, cutting off my view of Kenji, I felt something shift inside me—a hardening, a clarifying, a transformation. The Joy who had been kidnapped days ago was gone. In his place stood someone stronger, someone who understood exactly what he wanted and what he was willing to do to protect it.

I turned to Chen, who was watching me with an unreadable expression. "Tell me what happened to him," I demanded, my voice steadier than I would have thought possible. "Tell me who did this."

Chen studied me for a long moment, then nodded once, apparently seeing something in my face that satisfied him. "TheOyabun'suncle," he replied simply.

"Is he dead?" I asked, surprised by how calm I sounded, how matter-of-fact.

"Not yet."

I nodded slowly, my decision already made. "When Kenji wakes up, he's going to want revenge."

"Yes," Chen agreed, no emotion in his voice.

"Good," I said, wiping the mixture of Kenji's blood and my tears from my cheeks, not caring that it smeared across my skin like war paint. "Because so do I."

I sank into a chair outside the surgical suite, prepared to wait as long as necessary for the man I loved. The man who had crawled through hell to come back to me. The man whose childhood had been stolen, whose humanity had been systematically stripped away, but who had somehow still found a way to love me.

The fluorescent lights continued their harsh buzz overhead, but I barely noticed them now. My focus had narrowed to the doors separating me from Kenji and the steady tick of the clock on the wall marking each second he fought to stay alive.

For him, I would wait forever. For him, I would become whatever I needed to be—protector, avenger, sanctuary. For this beautiful, broken man who had somehow found his way home to me, I would rewrite every rule I'd ever lived by.

And God help anyone who tried to take him from me again.

Chapter Fifteen

~ Kenji ~

I woke to the sharp sting of antiseptic and the mechanical hum of monitors. My body felt distant, disconnected—like trying to pilot someone else's limbs through a fog of morphine and muscle relaxants. Medical-grade narcotics. Interesting choice.

My eyes took longer than they should have to focus. White ceiling. Recessed lighting. The whisper of climate-controlled air. All wrong. I was supposed to be dead—or at the very least, still unconscious. I'd taken enough damage to ensure it.

A weight rested against my right hand. I turned my head—even that small movement requiring concentrated effort—and found my answer.

Joy. Asleep in a chair pulled flush against the bed, his copper hair falling across his forehead in disarray, dark circles etched beneath his closed eyes like bruises. His fingers were intertwined with mine, his grip firm even in sleep.

At the foot of the bed, Chairman Meow lay curled in a perfect circle of fur, one yellow eye cracking open to acknowledge my consciousness before dismissively closing again.

Home, then. Safe.

The door opened silently, and Chen froze mid-step when he saw my open eyes. Training kept his face impassive, but the minute tightening of his shoulders betrayed his surprise.

I raised my free hand—noting with clinical detachment the IV taped to the back of it—and pressed a finger to my lips. Chen nodded once, understanding immediately.