Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 104141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Then another second.
The fire crackled somewhere behind the walls. My pulse hammered against my temples. I opened my eyes and made myself catch up to the conversation that had already moved past me.
I cleared my throat. “We may have longer than an hour.”
“Oh God! It hurts!” Kiko shook against the nurse.
Hiro turned to the other Scales. “Get her out of here and into the Bamboo Garden.”
The men lifted her up. She screamed. They took her away and the nurse followed.
I rubbed my temples. “Even if Akiro and his men left from Tokyo when she called, it will take ninety minutes by air. We have antiaircraft guns on the guard posts in the outer ridge to blast anyone heading here. We should be able to blow up some of them. Let’s have Scales there and ready to use them.”
“Okay.” Reo typed into his phone.
Hiro looked at me. “What do we do?”
“We get ready to fight.” I walked off with my hand still shaking from the trigger I had not pulled.
Ruined.
That was the only word that sat in my fucking head.
Kiko ruined everything.
I had been about to bury my soul in the earth with my Tiger tonight.
Instead. . .tonight. . .I might be burying my men and their families.
I should have fucking killed her this morning. Next time, I won’t make that mistake again.
Chapter twenty-nine
Tingling Bones
Nyomi
Something was wrong.
I didn't know what.
I just knew it the same way I had known it as a little girl when my grandmother would go quiet at the kitchen table and start watching the front door—not looking at the door, just keeping it in her sightline. Some part of her soul always heard bad news coming up the road that her ears couldn't have heard yet.
That was the feeling.
One minute I'd been on Hiroko's porch with Deja, Nika, the assistants, and a snoring Zo. Weed ran thick in the air. The next, Yoichi was in the doorway with my men and explained that we should leave now.
My cart was already running outside.
I got in. “Where’s Kenji?”
“I believe he is heading to take the DNA test with Hiro and Reo.”
“Then, what’s wrong?”
“I’ve just got a gut feeling that you should head back to the mansion. My bones are tingling. I’m hoping you will humor me on this. Will you?”
I studied Yoichi’s face, using my skills from interviewing politicians, predators, grieving mothers, liars, CEOs, escorts, cops, addicts, and billionaires.
I’d learned that the mouth lied first and the eyes lied second. Real truth lived in the seams between expressions.
In word timing.
In facial tension.
In what a person tried to suppress before emotion leaked through anyway.
Yoichi had always been one of the easiest men in Kenji’s world for me to read.
Loyalty saturated him so thoroughly it reshaped the structure of his face. It existed in the stillness of him. In the way he positioned his body slightly between me and open spaces without seeming aware he was doing it. In the way his gaze checked exits, windows, shadows, and reflections. In the way he listened more than he spoke. Everything about him communicated one thing with terrifying consistency: Protect the Dragon and what belongs to him.
“Yes.” I nodded. “I’ll humor you.”
“Thanks for humoring my tingling bones. Worst case scenario will be that I have to apologize for interrupting your fun with your friends.” Yoichi climbed in beside me. “But, better safe than sorry. You’re important.”
“Thank you.”
The driver rushed us off.
I sat in the cart with my pulse climbing. "Do you always get these bone tinglings?"
"I do."
"And are they always right?"
"Yes." He turned his head slightly and scanned the trees. His fang charm caught the last of the sunlight.
"How are they always right?"
A small smile touched the corner of his mouth, but he kept his eyes on the path. "The world is older than people understand and layered in ways most never learn to see."
"But you see it?"
“I do, but others could. Human beings carry more than they understand. Their bodies know things the mind has not been told. A scent on the wind."
I smiled. “That’s funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“You say human beings like you’re not one.”
He snapped his view to me. “Did I?”
“Yes.”
“Just a simple mistake. Of course I’m a human being too.”
“Interesting.”
“What is interesting?”
“For some reason, I don’t think you make many mistakes.”
“I do.” He frowned. “Like just now.”
“Hmmm.”
He lowered his view to the soul pin that Reo had given me. “Now that’s even more interesting.”
I touched the pin. “Why is this more interesting?”
“When did Reo give you that?”
“Today.”
“And he told you what it represents?”
“His soul.”
“That’s an understatement.”
I parted my lips. “Then. . .what else does it represent.”
“When he was young, his mother died. He sat with her on the bed and held her hand and when she took her last breath, Reo took that pin from her dress and never let it out of his sight. All know this.”