Page 61 of Emperor of Havoc

Mal and FreyatolerateTokyo, but Kyoto is where they feel at peace, which is something they both deserve after the lives they’ve had.

My sister Hana and Damian will probably be on the move for a while. They love Tokyo, but Kyoto is where Hana has her jazz club, and New York will also always call to them, too.Me, I’ve never really known where to call home. For much of my life, it was the manor home in the English countryside where our mother raised us and Akira helped me become the man I am today. Kyoto was fantastic while I was there—racing through the mountain roads on my bikes, basically living out of the garage.

I’d been to Tokyo before, but it wasn’t until we moved into the city, set up our operations and bought this compound that I really started to get a sense of it.

I like it here.

A lot.

It’s loud. It bleeds neon and excitement. It’s endlessly, relentlessly "on". In a weird way, it speaks to me like no other place I’ve ever lived has.

But tonight, my mind isn’t on the city. It’s onher.

Katarina.

She’s been a key piece on a chessboard no one even knows I’m playing for longer than she, or anyone else, knows.

That’s how I saw her at first—a pawn. A means to an end. The plan was always to marry her to gain access to the Ishida-kai and efficiently stake the Mori-kai’s claim on Tokyo. But she’s proving to be far more complicated than I anticipated.

…It would appear that I like complicated.

“You look like hell.” Kenzo’s voice cuts through the quiet. I glance up as he approaches, wearing his usual scowl that deepens whenever he’s about to lecture me.

“You sure know how to boost a guy’s ego,” I say dryly, getting off my bike. “What’s up?”

Kenzo doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he glances around at the city looming around us, inhaling slowly.

“Gun to your head: this place or Kyoto?”

“Depends.”

He smirks as he glances at me. “On?”

“How big the gun is, cause I’m dodging the question.”

My brother chuckles. “I like Tokyo. But I think what I like most about it is what we canmakefrom it. Kyoto, though…”

“I get it,” I shrug. “It’s where you and Annika fell in love.”

He smiles. “Look at you, so romantic all of a sudden.”

“Must be my newly minted married status.”

Kenzo sighs. “I’m still mad at you about that, you know.”

“Which I fail to understand. It was always part of our plan, right?”

He frowns. “Yeah, until you jumped the gun on our timeline by about six months.”

Originally, yes, Kenzo was in on my plan to infiltrate the Ishida-kai—although I may have sold him on the idea by presenting it as way for me to diffuse tensions with Kolya.

I didn’t mention my other reasons for wanting to slip under the Ishida-kai's skin. And Icertainlydidn’t tell him what sped up that timeline.

“I have to know…” Kenzo begins, eying me warily.

“What?”

“Was that you, at the wedding?”

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