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)
The implications crashed over me like a wave. Yuki. Mami. Hina. Three women who'd been with me since they were children. Three women I'd protected, educated, and treasured.
One of them might be feeding information to my father.
Reo leaned his head to the side. "Did anything come up for your Heart?"
A long pause came.
The ocean filled the silence.
Then, I forced the words out, hating them. "She flagged Hina as suspicious."
Reo's face crumbled.
I'd seen my Roar handle torture, death, betrayal from enemies without blinking. But this. . .it broke something in him.
“Hina. . .” Reo turned away from me for a few seconds and his shoulders went rigid.
I gave him the moment, watching waves crash against the shore while he fought for composure.
When he turned back, his eyes were wet. "Are you sure she said Hina?”
“Yes.”
“She's been with you since she was four years old, Kenji." His voice cracked on the number.
“I know.”
This possible betrayal pressed down on my spine, vertebra by vertebra, like a stack of cold stones.
Four years old. A little girl who'd grown up in my household, who'd learned to bow to me before she learned to write, who'd devoted her entire life to serving me.
And my father had been watching her the whole time too.
"The Fox has had access to her since she was four just like me." I said it quietly, but the words still cut.
Reo nodded slowly. "I know."
"He could have been grooming her for years. Decades."
"It's possible."
"Hina might not even have known she was his spy." I ran a hand through my damp hair. "He could have manipulated her so thoroughly that she thought she was protecting me while feeding him information.”
"Or she knows exactly what she's doing." Reo's voice went flat, his grief hardening into something colder. "Either way, it could be her. It really could be."
“Nyomi never said anything definite. She just got a feeling. My thoughts were that. . .Nyomi figured she might be hiding something.” I sighed. “My words. Not hers.”
“Hina. . .hiding something.”
We stood there, two men who'd built an empire on trust and violence, now facing the possibility that someone we cared for had betrayed us both.
The uguisu called again.
Ho-ho-kekyo.
Even the bird's song sounded mournful now.
I crossed my arms over my chest. "I trust Nyomi’s instincts. Spy or not, let’s figure out what Hina is hiding.”
Reo nodded. “We'll monitor her movements. Get proof before we act. We could be wrong."
"We could be." But his tone said he didn't believe it.
Neither did I.
I watched Reo's face—the exhaustion, the grief, the way he was barely holding himself together.
The air between us thickened. Even the ocean held its breath.
Reo had been talking—words circling, details stacking—but none of them were the thing.
The reason he’d come.
The reason his hands trembled just enough for me to notice.
I’d given him time.
Too much fucking time.
The Dragon inside me uncoiled, impatient. My pulse slowed, heavy in my throat, and the silence that followed felt like a blade hovering an inch above my skin.
My voice came out low. “That’s enough.”
Reo’s Adam’s apple bobbed once.
I undid my arms and held my hands at my side. “Whatever it is, stop walking me toward it. Just fucking say it.”
A gust of wind caught his tie again, snapping it across his chest like a flag in surrender. His eyes flicked to mine—hesitant, apologetic.
And I knew then that whatever he was about to say would scorch everything I’d just experienced on the beach.
His hand went to his pocket, pulling out his phone.
My stomach turned to stone.
The ocean sound vanished.
The fucking spy.
There was only Reo's phone screen—too bright in the afternoon sun—and the sick certainty flooding my veins.
"Kenji. . ."
"Just say it."
He looked up, meeting my eyes with the kind of steady certainty that preceded devastation. "The spy signaled again. One hour ago and. . .this time it was about your Heart."
The words hung in the air between us.
I felt Nyomi's eyes on us from the blanket. Felt the sun burning my shoulders. Felt the sand between my toes and the salt drying on my skin.
We’d been two lovers in Paradise, relishing in our new love.
But every paradise had a venomous serpent.
And ours had just opened its mouth and tried to sink its fangs into her throat.
Chapter twenty-four
The Serpent’s Strike
Kenji
The spy tried to send a message about my Heart.
While I'd been kissing Nyomi in the water. While we'd been wrapped up in each other, tasting salt and sunshine. While we'd been resting, sharpening our blades in the forge of paradise.
The spy hadn't rested at all.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. We'd made the decision to pause, to take this moment for ourselves before the hunt began.
Strategic rest.
Necessary recovery.
But the spy had used that same time to work.
Rage burned through me.
Reo cleared his throat. “Of course the message to your father was intercepted.”
Luckily, my hackers were already in place, already cutting every transmission before it reached my father.