Page 25 of Emperor of Havoc

The thought of her sends a rush of raw heat through me, dark and all-consuming. I picture her face—the heart-shaped mouth,the prominent cheekbones. The gray eyes, wide and startled, her lips, parted in shock when I pinned her to her bed the other night.

She’s beautiful in a way that’s dangerous, in a way that makes men do stupid things.Iknow better than to be so stupid, but still…

There’s something about her that keeps crawling under my skin, scratching and demanding more.

“Takeshi.”

Hana’s voice slices through the basement like a blade, and I glance over my shoulder to see her standing at the bottom of the stairs. Her bleached-blonde hair hangs in twin braids over her shoulders, her expression calm despite the grisly scene before her.

My sister has seen worse. Hell, she’s helped meclean upworse.

“You’re making a mess,” she says, folding her arms over her chest.

I shrug, glancing at Higashi. “I thought it was time to break the new place in.”

Hana shoots me a look. “Tak.”

I exhale slowly. “I’m in control, all right? This is…necessary.”

“For what he did, or for you?” she murmurs quietly.

“Little of column A, little of column B?”

My twin frowns. “Tak, come on?—”

“I’mkidding, Hana.”

Sort of. Mostly.

“It’s because of him slipping secrets to the fucking enemy. If that isn't enough for you, feel free to boot up the laptop over there and read all about his hobby of re-tooling girls’ faces with his fists.”

Hana’s eyes darken. Her gaze slips past me, zeroing in on Higashi.

“That true, motherfucker?” she says coldly.

I chuckle. Hana never disappoints. She can be the tether that keeps me from slipping entirely over the cliff into the darkness. But she can also bring the fucking fury when it needs to be brought.

Higashi sobs, spit and blood dribbling down his chin as he trembles against his bonds.

Hana walks past me, stopping to look down at Higashi. Her lip curls in disgust. “Coward,” she spits before turning back to me. “What do we know about the infiltration?”

I tilt my head at Higashi. “I got everything I need from him.”

“Yeah, but who was the spy?”

“Just…one of their guys,” I lie, not understanding why. “I handled it, Hana.”

Oh, andhandle it—or her, rather—I did.

“Was it a direct order from Kolya, though? Because if it was, that's totally different from just one of their people trying to scope out our new compound.”

There’s a zero percent chance that Kolya knows his daughter snuck into our initiation the other night.

ZEE. ROW.

Kolya has spent the last thirteen years hiding his darling daughter away from the world and erasing any mention of her from before that. It’s so extreme that if you ask around the various underworld circles of Tokyo, people aren’t even really sure if he everhada daughter at all. Or maybe he did, but she’s dead now. Or maybe not.

Hell, I wasn’t even sure what to believe myself, until I started the machinations that brought us here, and to tonight's earlier events.

---