Page 124 of Emperor of Wrath

Everything hurts. Before we left Valon’s house, two of Ulkan’s goons went to work on me with fists and the same rubber club they used to knock me out earlier—while I was still tied to that fucking post, I might add.

But I’m not focused on the pain or on Ulkan’s ramblings. Instead, I’m trying to gauge how badly off the rails this psycho’s original plans have gone.

I glance over at the terrified mother huddled in the corner of the kitchen, keeping her two small kids well behind her.

Yeah, whatever Ulkan had in mind, it wasn’t this.

“Everything is going to be okay,” I murmur quietly in Japanese to the woman.

Her face is pale and stricken, her eyes wide with fear for her children as she shields them behind her back.

“Do you know who I am?” I ask her.

She nods quickly.

“Then you know I will take care of this. I am sorry to have bothered your family?—”

I grunt as Ulkan backhands me across the mouth.

“It’s rude to speak a foreign language in front of those who don’t know it, Mr. Mori,” he snaps coldly. He turns to nod his chin at the woman. “What the fuck were you saying to her, eh? Telling her to rush me?”

He pulls out a vicious-looking knife and starts to advance on her.

“Ulkan!” I roar at his back, stopping him. “It’s me you want, not them,” I growl. “She’s scared. Her kids are scared. I was just calming her and telling her it was going to be okay.”

He slowly turns to look back at me with a manic grin. But just as he twirls the knife in his hand, one of his men barges into the kitchen and starts to jabber to his boss in what I think is Albanian.

Ulkan either misses or chooses not to acknowledge the irony as he barks something back in the same language. Then he whirls on me, his face clouded and angry.

I smirk. “What’s the matter, Gacaferi? Things not going as planned?”

It’s obvious that Takeshi getting away was no accident. None of Ulkan’s men seems to have followed him, and no one looked that concerned about it on our drive.

They wanted him to “escape”. They knew he would run back to my family and tell them what happened, so they’d come looking for me.

So Annika would come looking for me.

But this low-income apartment block is clearly not where Ulkan meant for us to lie in wait. Something spooked them while we were driving, and we diverted here to this unlucky woman’s home right off the highway.

He whirls to me, his eyes narrowing. “There are checkpoints set up on every highway out of the city,” he mutters darkly. “The cops work for you?”

I smile.

Yeah, that tells me Tak made it home. It also means Hana’s already called the people she knows in the police department. They don’t “work” for any one Yakuza family. But the whole system is built on favors and debts, and there’s always someone at the top you can do a favor for and bank it until you need something later.

“Whatever you’ve planned,” I spit at Ulkan, “it’s gone to shit.” I laugh coldly, coughing as the pain in my ribs slices into me. I turn and spit blood onto the floor before turning to level a withering look at the Albanian. “You think I’m just some random Yakuza muscle?”

I turn to look at the poor woman in the corner.

“Do you speak any English?” I ask in Japanese.

She nods. “A little,” she chokes back.

“Can you please tell this fool who I am?”

She nods, turning fearfully to Ulkan and pointing a shaking finger at me. “King,” she blurts. “Kyoto King.”

An uncertain look crosses Ulkan’s face as I smile coldly at him.

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