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)
Hiro told me that later Daisuke had finally forgiven his mother and father.
I hadn’t.
Neither had Hiro. . .who secretly had them both killed.
Darkness poured over me.
My right hand curled around the ghost-weight of a stuffed rabbit by one ear. The fabric wasn’t there, yet my fingers felt the worn plush and the faint give of old stitching beneath my grip.
Tightening my hold on nothing, I looked at the next picture.
Toma's family.
His parents, him, and his ten other siblings. Their mother behind them, hands on the oldest daughter's shoulders. The father to the side in a cheap suit, standing stiff and looking angry.
Through the years the siblings had faced all kinds of tragic deaths due to their father’s brutality and torturous basement punishments. Suicides. Drownings. Drug addictions. Fatal abuse from spouses.
Toma was the final survivor of a broken home.
I looked at Toma's sisters and brothers' faces and my ears filled with the sound of siblings too afraid to sleep. I heard their shallow, uneven breathing. Their whimpers and rustling of thin blankets as they tossed and turned too terrified to let slumber take them.
Tora. . .this was not necessary.
The next picture was of the twins' mother.
My heart seized in my chest.
She smoked a cigarette and cruelly grinned at the camera. She had the twins’ sharp cheekbones and black hair cut, but hers stopped at her jaw.
They’re going to be angry for this.
Tobacco smoke threaded through my lungs like the evil woman had lit that cigarette right in front of me. I could taste the bitterness of her toxic love and how it had been edged with ash and abuse.
It was hard to swallow as I turned and shuddered at the next picture.
Nura.
Fuck. My brother’s heart is going to break again. Why, Tora?
Nura was beautiful in this image. I could tell she didn’t know she had even been photographed. Her focus was on something in front of her. Yet, her dark brown skin glowed in the soft lighting and there was this beautiful smile.
My own chest tightened around a sob that wasn't mine to release. Still, the rawness of it all pressed upward anyway.
Making me ache.
Scraping against my ribs.
My throat actually burned with the effort of holding it back, of keeping someone else’s sorrow from spilling through my mouth.
What was your plan, Tora? Cruelty or mercy?
And my Tiger kept on twisting the knife in my fucking chest.
The next picture was Hiroko.
I frowned.
She stood in a leather kimono with a wicked smirk and a large whip in her hand. And I heard that whip crack in the air with a merciless snap that echoed long after the sound itself had faded.
A sting spread across my hand.
I looked down at it, but saw no wound.
Sighing, I looked at the next picture and touched my chest.
Mother.
Suddenly I smelled jasmine tea and swallowed down the delicate sweetness. I heard my mother’s soft humming—always a quiet melody mingling with the porcelain teapot’s gentle clicking as the lid tapped against the rim.
I could see and feel the warm steam curling upward and carrying the floral fragrance of her memory.
In the picture, my mother wore a pale blue kimono and her long hair was pinned back.
And because my Tiger must have enjoyed being cruel to us, she’d placed a picture of my brother Jobon next to her.
The Wolf.
I trembled.
The sword who never hesitated.
I recognized this one from his last birthday party. My brother, Jobon wore a black suit and was laughing, probably at something Hiro had said. Only Hiro could make him boldly laugh in that way.
And then I heard my brother’s sword slice into his enemies. Wet sounds came at a brutal rhythm of steel meeting flesh over and over. I saw the red blood dripping down the blade and pooling at his feet. I breathed the scent of death that clung on Jobon’s fingers even when he’d spent several minutes scrubbing them clean.
I closed my eyes.
I don’t want this.
I didn’t know how long it took me to open my eyes again, but when I did. . .I took in the last picture.
Reo's mother.
A small woman with dark hair pulled back and gentle eyes.
She was Thai and had worked as a maid in a luxury hotel in Bangkok. Reo’s father had been a Japanese business man who traveled to Bangkok a lot. She became his secret mistress, and he’d had kids with her and kept them in Thailand away from his wife and kids in Tokyo.
That was until Reo’s mother grew sick and passed on Reo’s eleventh birthday. The man was forced to deal with his kids and brought them to Japan, but under the guise of. . .new young servants to work in his house with his real family—a wife, two daughters, and three brothers.
Reo could never tell his half-siblings that he was their brother. All he could do was serve. He did so dutifully, sleeping in the servant quarters, mopping and cleaning his siblings’ bathrooms, and washing their dirty clothes.