Page 46 of Emperor of Lust

His hands aresoakedin blood.

“Kitsune—”

A loud crash explodes though the lounge as one of the sliding glass doors to the gardens splinters inward. Four more masked attackers all in black rush in, theirkatanaswords glinting in the low light.

The planning minister I was talking to about scooping up real estate chokes on his own blood as a blade rams into the back of his neck and comes out his mouth. Everything erupts into chaos: I catch sight of Isaak as one of the attackers slashes toward him, leaving a bloody gash across his shoulder. Kai charges forward with a roar, his movements brutally efficient as he takes Isaak’s assailant down to the ground, stomping on the man’s head repeatedly until he goes still.

Damian doesn’t waste a second. He grabs the blade from the fallen first man and charges the others, cutting down two of them as Miyamoto’s guards flood into the room.

Miyamoto himself steps forward, grunting as he grabs the last attacker around the neck, wrestling him to the floor before he pulls out a blade and buries it in the man’s throat.

Damian moves to my side as Miyamoto’s men surround us, blades out, shouting, checking perimeters. One goes to his boss, but Miyamoto just nods and waves him off before kneeling next to the man he just killed. Our host yanks up the attacker’s sleeve to examine the man’s tattoos.

He lifts his eyes to Damian and me, his face grave. “Ishida-kai,” he grunts, disgust and warning in his voice. “It appears your enemies wanted to welcome you to Tokyo personally.”

I nod, struggling to keep my voice steady as my head spins. “Yes…we…” But the room begins to blur, my vision cutting in and out as my knees buckle, and the last thing I feel is the cold floor beneath me before everything fades to black.

14

DAMIAN

“Christ, what a fucking shit-show,”Kir growls on the laptop screen, shaking his head. We’re all back at the Conrad Tokyo—Hana up in our suite, and Isaak and I in his room, the weight of everything that just went down hanging over us as we speak with Kir via video call.

My uncle’s expression is as cool as ever, ice-blue eyes flicking between Isaak’s blood-streaked shoulder and my own tense demeanor as I tell him everything that happened. He’s outwardly calm, but I can still see the fierce intensity behind his gaze, coiled rage barely contained as I detail the ambush.

Kir’s always like this: total poker face on the surface while on the inside his mind forms plans, and backup plans, and backup-backup plans.

“And Miyamoto?” Kir’s quiet voice cuts through the silence like a blade.

“He’s good,” I confirm. “I think he’s better aware of the stakes now.”

“That could go either way,” Kir grunts.

I nod. “I think that this just cemented Miyamoto to us and the Mori-kai, actually. He breaks ranks now and he’s truly fucked, he knows that. They knew we were together. I mean, they came right at Hana,” I growl, my hands tightening to fists as my mind replays the blur of that first attacker lunging for her. “If he leaves us, the Ishida-kai will burn his empire to the fucking ground. No, it’s us or death now for Miyamoto.”

Kir nods slowly. “And howisHana?”

The mention of her name brings back the memory of her fainting in my arms back at Miyamoto’s house. I remember how frighteningly gray her skin was as I carried her back to the car, then held her in the back seat as we drove back to the hotel.

That woman always presents herself to the world as tough as nails. Unbreakable. Unflappable. Completely put-together.

But tonight, I saw her vulnerability. I saw that she’s strong but not invincible.

And fuck, itgot to me,more than I’d have ever imagined.

“She’s…fine,” I grunt, though my voice loses its edge. I know Kir especially has a soft spot for Hana, after the two of them and Freya were held for days in that dark hell where my uncle almost succumbed to sepsis after a bad infection. “Shaken, but unharmed.”

Kir’s gaze flickers with concern. “We knew the Ishida-kai wouldn’t take our expansion into Tokyo lying down. But this is a pretty fucking strong shot across the bow.”

“More like a shotintothe bow,” Isaak grunts next to me.

Kir nods. “I think we need to consider things escalated. Tread carefully, Damian.”

After the call ends I turn to Isaak, nodding at the wound on his shoulder covered by a bandage he applied himself.

“Gonna live?”

Isaak smirks and shrugs nonchalantly. “To remind you, I was Special Forces for years before your uncle found me. This is just a scratch.”

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