Page 57 of Emperor of Havoc

Then he’s gone, leaving me sprawled naked and alone in the dark, with nothing but the echoes of his words and his lingering touch.

15

KATARINA

The sunlight streamingthrough the window is too bright and clean for how filthy I feel.

I stand under the pounding spray of the shower, letting the scalding water wash away everything—the venom, the tension, the memory of his hands on my skin and his voice in my ear.

The water is far too hot, but I don’t turn it down. The burn keeps me grounded, focused. Steam fills the room, wrapping me in a haze that does nothing to clear the whirling thoughts in my head.

Last night was…a mess. But it’s one I can’t stop replaying.

As soon as the venom wore off and I could move again, around two in the morning, I hobbled to the bathroom, to this very shower. I scrubbed my skin until it was raw, trying to wash away the unwelcome heat that Takeshi left in his wake.

Until my body betrayed me, that is, and instead of rubbing myself clean of him, I rubbed my clit raw, shame flooding every movement, even though the need was unbearable.

Now, in the harsh light of day, I’m back in the shower, scrubbing again, as if I can undo what happened and the way I responded to him.

When the water finally turns cold I step out, wrapping a towel around my body. My reflection in the mirror is blurred by steam, but there's no hiding the faint flush in my cheeks or the shadows under my eyes.

My gaze drifts lower, to the scar across my abdomen. The pale, jagged line has faded with time, but it’ll never completely go away. My fingers brush over it lightly, the memory slicing into me with surgical precision.

Their family name was Chibari, and they were a powerful Yakuza clan that once rivaled my family for power and in influence.

Today, you won’t find a single mention of their name or a shred of proof of their once far-reaching power. It’s like they’ve been erased from existence.

Because they have been.

That would be my father’s doing.

I was nine when Nakamoto Chibari sent his men to kidnap me from the park where I was playing. They slaughtered my nanny and guards, took me hostage, and kept me in a completely dark, cold, wet basement for almost a week, trying to destroy my father.

The dark was suffocating, an endless void that swallowed my screams and left me a shattered wreck. Then came the day I thought they'd found me, when I heard the commotion upstairs and Ryu’s voice shouting.

My father and his men were here to rescue me!

That's when Nakamoto’s men panicked. They grabbed me, shoved me into the back of a car, and tried to flee.

They didn’t get far.

In the attempted escape from the Ishida-kai men, my kidnappers’ car smashed through a guardrail and off a cliff. All I remember is the deafening cacophony of metal and screams, and then the silence.

When I woke up, I was broken, both physically and emotionally. Metal shrapnel had torn through me, destroying one ovary and leaving the other severely damaged.

The doctors said I’d never have children. At nine, I didn’t fully grasp what that meant.

I’ve heard the saying “what does not kill you makes you stronger” about a million times since then. No. What doesn’t kill youdoesn’tmake you stronger. It makes you harder. More Scarred and walled off.

Differentthan you were before.

Okay, maybe that’s a kind of strength, but… It’s a lonely one.

I shake off the memory, wrapping the towel tighter around myself. I reach for the small pill case on the counter, popping a single birth control pill onto my palm and swallowing it dry.

Obviously, I don’t take these to not get pregnant. Even if I physically could, unless my name has changed to Mary and I’m suddenly in a manger in Bethlehem, I’m pretty sure getting pregnant without ever having had sex is an impossibility.

But they do help with regulating my cycle. So I take them.

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