Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 66993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
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?”
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?”