Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 161615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 539(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 539(@300wpm)
"She was trying to protect everyone."
"Including Mami." I set the journal back exactly as I'd found it, smoothing the covers and adjusting the pen. "Poor Hina. She's been carrying this alone."
Hiro's jaw was tight. "And Sako's been slithering into Mami's room in the middle of the night. Whispering and plotting."
The clues clicked together in my mind like puzzle pieces finally finding their mates.
I blinked. "The packages."
"What?"
"During the meeting today, Sako came to tell me that he'd left packages in my office." My pulse quickened. "He offered to open them for me and place them on the shelves himself."
Hiro's eyes sharpened.
"He has access to my office whenever he wants. He can walk in, drop something off, and no one thinks twice about it. A servant delivering packages. Completely normal. Completely invisible. It would have been odd if Mami went into my office, but Sako going in. . .that’s fine. That’s his job." I started slowly pacing. "Mami might have taken the picture, but he's the one that tried to send the message to the Fox. Reo said it came from my office. Sako could have just went into my office to drop off the packages, closed the door, and sent the message."
"That makes sense. Even more, I think Sako has mainly been using the burner phone, not Mami. He can get around more than her."
"I can see that. They're working together. Sako does the actual spying—he has access to the whole mansion through those servant corridors—and Mami holds the phone for him. Takes the pictures when she can, stores everything in her room."
"That would explain why the phone was hidden in her pillow instead of somewhere more secure."
"Exactly. She's not the mastermind. She's the storage unit." I kept pacing, my investigator brain fully engaged now. "Sako's the one with real access. The passageways run through the entire mansion. He could go anywhere, see anything, and no one would question a servant moving through servant corridors."
Then something else hit me.
Something worse.
"Then. . .we have the Eyes.” I stopped next to Hiro.
“They had to be the ones to have killed the men in the footage room. No one would suspect them of going in there.” Hiro's expression darkened. "The Eyes. Sako. Mami. Four fucking snakes."
“But is that all of them? Are we finally done?”
The words hung between us like smoke.
I thought about what Sako had told me during that first tour of the mansion. The warmth in his voice when he talked about young Kenji. The way he'd said "We basically grew up together" like it was something precious.
Had any of that been real?
Or had the Fox been whispering in Sako's ear since childhood—planting seeds of doubt, feeding resentments, slowly turning a childhood friend into a weapon?
"The Fox is a monster," I whispered. "He doesn't just destroy Kenji's enemies. He destroys everyone Kenji loves. Everyone who gets close to him. He turns them into betrayers."
"My father has been playing this game for a very long time. Decades of patience. Decades of manipulation. He knew exactly which people to target—the ones Kenji would never suspect."
"Because suspecting them would mean questioning his entire childhood."
"Yes."
I suddenly felt exhausted by the weight of what we'd uncovered. “Alright, but we’re not completely done.”
“What do you mean?”
"I want to check the passageways."
He shook his head. "No."
"If Sako's been using them to spy, then maybe there is more information that we can gather to—"
"No." Hiro stepped in front of me. "Absolutely not."
"There could be evidence in there. Hidden cameras. Recording equipment. A whole surveillance setup we don't know about."
"And there could also be Sako waiting in the dark with a knife." Hiro's voice went hard. "Those passageways are a maze. Dim lighting. Exits that the servants know by heart. Whereas I’m not in there much, neither are the twins. It would be new territory for us which is fine, if we are not carrying priceless cargo.”
I rolled my eyes. “Priceless cargo?”
“We can’t risk losing you or getting you harmed in any way.”
“But what if there’s something in there that could help us? What if there's more to this plot, more snakes that we haven't uncovered?”
“Too risky. Sako is just as deadly as me. That’s why he manages the Dragon’s homes. And if he was able to have the Eyes working for him and Mami. . .”
“Then, he could have even more people we don’t know about.”
“And they could be waiting in those passageways.”
"Okay. I understand completely what you’re saying, but I also think we need to be thorough."
"The answer is no, Nyomi. We found the phone. We found evidence. The spy hunt is over."
Frustration boiled up in my chest. "We found a phone. We found some evidence. But we don't have the full picture yet. We don't know how deep this goes, how many people are involved, how they've been communicating—"