Page 16 of Emperor of Wrath

“Bullets.”

We whip around when we hear Kir’s voice—the accent a mix of polished Oxford English and grubby Russian prisons—as he steps into the room. He and I didn’t speak much on our drive back into the city from Cillian’s estate, and even if we had, it’s honestly all been a blur since I opened that goddamn safe.

A blur of Kenzo scaring the shit out of me, dragging me downstairs, and telling the whole party that I was his fiancée.

Yeah.

It came up in the silence of the car ride back to New York. Kir had just shaken his head.

“Not now, Anni,” he’d murmured quietly, staring out the window in a daze. “Not yet.”

My heart twists. Damian is like a brother to Frey and me, but he’s basically a son to Kir…has been since Kir’s sister and her husband passed when Damian was seven.

“Bullets do this,” he says quietly. Freya’s chest hitches as she runs over and throws her arms around him, hugging him fiercely as he pats her back.

“What’d the surgeon say?”

He exhales. “He’s cautiously optimistic. They removed the bullet fragments close to his lungs, so he’s in the clear there. The shooter missed his artery by about a millimeter.”

“Thank fuck,” I croak.

“But he’s not out of the woods yet. They’re going to keep him in a medically induced coma while they figure out the best way to get the fragments near his heart.” Kir’s eyes glisten. “I’m bringing the best specialist in the world over from Dubai.”

I stand and walk over to them, hugging them both as I twist my head to look at Damian.

This is the ragtag family I’ve put together since mine was lost. Obviously Taylor, now that we’ve found each other again, is my other half. But even after reconnecting, and even though she’s married to Drazen Krylov of all people, I feel I need to distance her from this side of my life.

Drazen isn’t just some street thug. He’s arguably one of the most powerful Bratva kingpins in the world, if not the most. He’s next-level, meaning Taylor is protected in a way I can’t even fathom.

But even so, my life is…messy, and complicated, and dangerous. And I won’t bring that to her door.

She’s found a perfect balance. I would bring chaos to that balance.

Chaos like Kenzo Mori.

A shiver ripples up my spine as the words I can never forget replay through my head.

I’m going to remember you.

In your dreams, sunshine.

No, princess, in yours, which I’ll be fucking haunting.

I’d cringe at the cocky tone I used back then if it wasn’t so fucking serious.

In your dreams, sunshine.

I mean I literally said that to the heir to a Yakuza empire I’d just drugged as I was robbing him with the taste of his sinful lips still on mine. Who the fuck did I think I was, Anne Hathaway playing Catwoman?

And now it’s all coming back to bite me in the ass.

Hard.

Five years ago, Kenzo was an easy mark. A young hotshot in the Yakuza world, flashing money and sports cars all over Kyoto, practically begging to be robbed.

But the man I stole from that night was barely a man at all. He was still outrageously hot—dark brooding eyes, lean muscle, Yakuza ink for days. But he wasn’t even thirty yet. Still a twenty-something carefree playboy gangster. Emphasis on “boy”.

The Kenzo that grabbed me tonight, wrapped his hand around my neck and stared into my very soul is another beast altogether.

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