Page 24 of Emperor of Havoc

I’ve faced enemies before. Men twice my size, armed to the teeth. But this is different. This isn’t a fight I can win with a blade or a gun. This is something deeper, darker.

And I don’t know if I’m ready for it. At all.

7

TAKESHI

The basementof the Mori compound smells like oil and blood. The oil is from the select cars and handful of bikes I moved here from Kyoto when Kenzo went ahead and pulled the trigger on this place.

The blood?

That’s from a more immediate and present source.

Higashi groans where he’s tied to the chair, blood dripping down his face and pooling beneath him like he’s a broken spigot. It’s poetic, really, the way his body slouches, the gasps of pain escaping his lips.

He looks fucking pathetic. Like a worm. No, less than a worm.

A fucking snitch.

Beneath the bruises and blood, his expression alternates between defiance and terror as I loom over him.

“I’m curious, Higashi,” I growl quietly. “Howthe fuckdid you think I wouldn’t find out?”

Higashi bleats in terror, like a farm animal about to be slaughtered.

“You really thought you could sell out your own brotherhood, to an active enemy no less, and get away with it?” I murmur, crouching down to his level. The steel-toed boot of my left foot rests against his knee, applying just enough pressure to make him wince. He’s shaking now, the sputtering sound of his breath reminding me of an engine that’s about to die.

“I didn’t—" Higashi chokes, his voice a watery mess of snot and pleading. “Please…Takeshi-sama…”

I smile, slow and deliberate. It’s the kind of smile that makes men wet themselves.

No, really. I’ve seen it happen.

“Didn’twhat?” I whisper. “Didn’t sell out your boss? Didn’t betray your family to a woman? What was it, Higashi? Did she send you a dirty picture of herself? Did you have a little crush? Or was it just for the money? And don’t fucking lie to me, Higashi. I know every word you said, every move you made.” I press down harder with my boot until he cries out, his screams echoing around the basement like music.

Higashi is garbage. Not just because I know he’s a fucking sellout now. He was garbagebeforeKatarina paid him a tidy sum of money for insider information about our organization.

BecausebeforeHigashi discovered his new favorite pastime of pocketing bribes and selling out his brothers, he had a nifty little hobby of beating the shit out of women.

Girlfriends, the woman who lived down the hall from him, girls working at hostess bars. He hid this, of course—I mean it’s not like I knew and decided to just let it be.

Fuck that.

But after I discovered that Katarina knew how to get into our initiation the other night—where to be and when, how to dress to blend in—because of Higashi and his big fat mouth, I dug up every fucking skeleton in his closet.

Yes: garbage. The world’s better off without him, and he knows it.

I know it, too, which is why he’s leaving here tonight in a body bag.

I tap the bloodied wrench against my palm thoughtfully and stand up, rolling my shoulders. Higashi whimpers, the sound fading into the distant hum of my thoughts as my mind wanders.

I turn to survey the garage I’ve been setting up down here, now that the Mori-kai is establishing a more permanent, powerful presence here in Tokyo.

Motorcycles. Engines. Building something powerful with my bare hands brings me satisfaction—the pure, raw thrill of creating something that hums with power and is under your control. That’s what it feels like when an engine roars to life. When a plan comes together.

Katarina Ishida. My little prey.

Myplan.

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