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. . .” Nyomi leaned his way and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Hiro didn't move. His hands stayed at his sides and his gaze found mine over her shoulder.
For the first time tonight. . .he looked lost.
I held his gaze.
I’ll kill tons of innocents and more, just to see that sadness leave your eyes.
As if he heard me, he closed his eyes. Finally, he put his arms around her and sighed. “Nyomi. . .you love me too much too.”
She buried her face into the corner of his neck. “Never that.”
My heart warmed.
The music moved through the room.
I turned to the cherry blossom tree. A third petal left a high branch. It turned once in the air and then landed on the tatami without sound.
A memory of my mother filled my head.
I must have been five at the time.
I looked up at her in the garden. “Why must they fall, mommy?”
“Leaves fall so new ones have room to open.”
I looked back at my brother and Nyomi.
Sighing, she let him go and came back to me.
Hiro pulled back from the hug and held the joint up between two fingers. The tip still burned. A thin thread of smoke rising from it in the quiet room.
Then he reached for the sake bottle on the nightstand, tipped the joint downward, and pressed the lit end into the narrow mouth of the bottle.
The ember hit the sake.
A short sharp hiss cut through the music.
A tiny curl of steam rose from the bottle's mouth.
Hiro lay down.
I watched him. "Nyomi sees it.”
Hiro looked at me. “Sees what?”
“My dragon. The shadow of it.”
Hiro stared at me. “How high are you right now? And what the fuck are you talking about?”
Nyomi snuggled closer and laughed. “Baby, I don’t think we need to talk about this.”
“Do you remember what my mother would say about the animal shadows?”
“Aww.” Hiro nodded. “Wait a minute. That stuff is true? I thought it wasn’t.”
“She sees it.”
Hiro looked at Nyomi. "You see his shadow?"
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Different times.”
“What about now?”
She looked up above us. "Yeah. It’s. . .I don’t know. . .high like Kenji and floating on its back. I’ve never seen him like that before. Kenji must be pretty fucking high.”
Hiro's gaze moved to the space above us. He squinted. “I wish I could see that.”
“You don’t. Sometimes Kenji’s dragon-shadow is scary.”
I quirked my brows.
“And let’s not forget about the fact that seeing it at all is a bit creepy.” She yawned. “It’s like. . .making me question my reality and all that.”
Hiro watched her. “Do you see an odd shadow with me?”
“No.”
“Then, I probably don’t have one.”
“I bet you do. You just need your true love to see it.” I smiled.
Nyomi nodded. “I agree.”
He gave her an odd look. “But you’re my true love.”
I frowned. “Careful.”
They laughed.
I didn’t.
Hiro let out a long sigh. "My true love. She's out there somewhere having a terrible time without me."
Nyomi closed her eyes. “Facts.”
He chuckled, but I saw the flicker of grief beneath the sound. The place where Nura's death still lived. His expression went serious again. “Hiroko smiled before they shot her. Did you see that Kenji?”
Tension gathered in my shoulders.
Nyomi opened her eyes. “What?”
I sighed. “Hiro. . .”
“It’s just. . .” Hiro shook his head. “I didn’t need another smiling woman being shot in front of me. That’s all. I needed to say that out loud.”
Nyomi’s eyes watered. She shivered against me and I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t think she needed the gory details, but I also knew she deserved some rationalization.
Tears left her eyes and she turned to me and buried her face in my chest.
I held her closer.
We were all grieving. Hiro for Nura. Nyomi for Hiroko. Me for every man I'd put into the ground and every man I knew the ground was waiting for soon.
And beneath the grief, a truth lived that I wouldn’t speak to anyone.
Not to Nyomi.
Not to Hiro.
Not even to Reo.
A son killing his father is not a natural thing. It will haunt me, even if he deserves it.
I wanted him dead.
I wanted him removed from the earth the way one removed a disease. The Fox had earned every bullet and blade coming for him. He'd earned it with Nura's blood. With Hiroko's. With every man and woman he'd destroyed to maintain a grip on a world that had already moved past him.
But my wanting my father’s death and surviving my killing him were different things.
I could want him dead and still know that putting him in the earth would change the shape of my soul forever.
The son who killed his father would carry that act in his hands for the rest of his life —in every touch, every gesture, every time he reached for the woman he loved and wondered if his hands had finally become clean.