Page 15 of Love on the Run

“I have a gift for you.” I speak over the phone, finally ending my fast, taking tea for the first time in weeks. A man who cannot keep his family does not deserve sustenance. I have only eaten to keep my strength till I found her and my son.

The clam and burdock soup is one of the first meals we ever shared in my in the penthouse suit I purchase for her when she agreed to be mine exclusively for six months. Though I will miss it and it is one of our favorites, I will tell my chef never to fix it again. I want nothing to remind me of what used to be. That is all over. She threw it away. Drugged me and left me to lie in my own filth for days while she kidnapped our son, hoping to keep him from me forever.

“This gift — where shall I receive it?” The voice over the phone is just as cold and dead as mine. Good. I send the encrypted file, waiting until I hear he’s received it.

“Hai. Arigato, Takeda-sama.” Hearing the smooth satisfaction in his voice that only a fellow sadist recognizes. I smile to myself.

The gift will be his atonement for the dishonor his sister paid my family by canceling her recent engagement to my cousin, Kiyoshi.

“Do you want it back?” He asks, bemused. I imagine he’s looking over the file.

“It wasn’t mine. Do with it what you will,” I say dismissively, already bored.

“Hai. It will be my pleasure.” Comes the calm reply.

Hanging up, I attend to the matter at hand. I watch the images before me, feeling nothing. No anger. That was spent weeks ago. Dispassionately, I depress a button to the yacht’s physician. “Is it done?”

There is a blanket pause. She looks up at the screen, nodding grimly. “Hai, Takeda-sama.” She bows in deference. “I have given her something for the pain. When she awakens, she will be disoriented, experiencing soreness from the anesthesia, cramping, bleeding. Would you like for me or the nurse to attend her until she awakens?”

“Ie.” The ‘no’ rips from my lips with cool precision. She doesn’t deserve comfort. I watched the way my son cried and begged her for me while she lied to his face, giving him lame excuses why he couldn’t see me. She’s lucky to be alive at the moment. I want to choke the fuck out of her so badly, it makes my dick hard. I was seconds away from doing it.

“I want a full workup on Asa reported back to me.” I give her the clipped instructions.

“At once.” Watching her give instructions to the three nurses, then leaving with one while the other two are left to clean, sterilize and set the room to rights.

They move her to the massive king-size bed. She whimpers while they adjust the covers. After taking her vitals again, they dim the lights, leaving her alone to rest.

Despite my intentions, I watch her while she sleeps. Minutes tick on to hours and still I watch her sleep fitfully. Compassion is nothing. I feel nothing. Watching as she frets locked in the throes of the anesthetic. All I can think is, good. She deserves every fucking nightmare she is having until she wakes up to the one she now lives.

I will give her no quarter. I will show her not one ounce of mercy. That she’d take my son, steal him away out of the country where he’s loved and protected, to be a house-guest at the mercy of strangers he’s never seen. To see him handled and held by others all is anathema to me. Flower knows this. Knows she has dishonored not only me and herself but our son.

Everything I have ever done and will do is for my love of my family. Her actions have proven not only is she unworthy to be my wife. She is unfit to be Asa’s mother.

She shoots up in the bed as if she has hears my words, though we are separated by hundreds of feet with me keeping to the business suite on the other side of the yacht where the family and leisure suites are housed. She pulls the top cover and duvet back, stumbling from the bed. Blood smears her garments and the bed.

She takes in her surroundings, her eyes wide with fear worrying her bottom lip like she used to in New York, in a way, I haven’t and hoped to never see again once we got past all the early trauma in our relationship. Now, I can only think again, good.

She slowly maneuvers around the room, familiarizing herself again with the layout. We don’t use this vessel much. It’s mainly used for corporate events.

Pain stretches across her face. She holds her tummy. I assume she’s having cramps. Good. Her little lying ass.

All this time, she fucking knew I wanted another baby. I wanted to grow our family, and she lied to me. She had an IUD. I don’t know for how long.

The line buzzes. I already know who it is.

“Takeda-sama.” The doctor’s cool tones fill the line.

“See that she is bathed and have her sheets changed.”

Within seconds, two nurses rush into her suite and carry her into the shower to wash the remains of the procedure from her body. While they are doing that, the yacht staff come in, strip the bed, setting the room to rights.

Once they return her to the room. They settle her in bed with pillow propped high so she can sit comfortably.

“May I ask, where is my husband? Where is my son?” She gives them her sweetest smile. Like she didn’t have a motherfucker looking for her the world over.

“Lady Takeda.” I roll my eyes at the honorific they give her. She is no longer deserving of that title. “Please rest.”

“What happened to me?” Gaze racing between the two women, her voice breaks. “What did he have them do to me?” I see them wavering.

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