Page 119 of Divine Obsession

“Still feel like a king?” I asked, voice low.

His hands twitched like he wanted to fight back, but fear kept him still. The bodyguards hesitated, waiting for his order.

“Tell them to stand down. Or you’re bleeding out on this overpriced leather.”

A long, tense silence.

Then, in a shaky voice, Kazuo said, “Back off.”

The guards didn’t like it, but they listened.

I studied him, feeling the slight tremor in his pulse under my blade. Kazuo was reckless, loud, arrogant. But he wasn’t smart enough for this kind of cyberwarfare. He was a brawler, not a tactician.

“You’re not behind it,” I said, almost disappointed.

Kazuo swallowed hard. “No shit.”

I eased up, just slightly. “Then who is?”

His throat bobbed under the knife. “There’s a guy. Runs Chinatown’s black market. Not Yakuza, not Triad – somewhere in between. Name’s Jin.”

“Why would Jin come after my family?”

“Not him. But if someone’s moving digital weight in Chinatown, it goes through him.”

I let the silence stretch a beat longer, just to watch him sweat. Then, with a flick of my wrist, I pulled the blade away and stepped back. Kazuo stayed frozen, chest rising and falling fast, as I wiped the knife clean on his shirt before pocketing it.

“Kuso,” He muttered.

“Pleasure doing business.”

Then I walked back to the elevator, leaving him to drown in his own fear. The moment the doors slid shut, the unmistakable echo of gunshots came through. After the embarrassment those guards had witnessed, Kazuo could never let them live to talk about it.

Time to meet Jin.

Chapter 32

Present

“What’s the matter this time?” Zach spoke low enough only for me to hear.

Matteo and Tony were busy discussing design improvements a couple feet in front of us, by the stages, while we hung back by the bar.

“I don’t like this shithole.”

The low bass of the music thrummed faintly in the club.

“So, the most exclusive strip-joint in the city, is now a shithole?”

“I don’t give a fuck who says what. A shithole’s a shithole.”

Even in the middle of the afternoon, the place reeked of perfume, alcohol, and desperation.

The entire atmosphere – the dim lighting, the flicker of neon, the suffocating air of the aftermath of too many bodies packed into one place – wasn’t my preferred place to talk money.

I was here on behalf of the Sus, to provide new, improved models of security.

But business was business, and DeMone’sInfernowas the kind of place where certain transactions could happen quietly, without prying eyes.

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