Page 40 of Bound by Blood

“I think you’ll care,” Laney said with a smile and pulled the gun from between her thighs. She flipped the safety off and pointed it steadily at Dimitri. “Say goodbye, big bird.”

He was so startled he didn’t move. Then he started babbling. “I can give you whatever you want. Money, property, safe passage back to Japan. I will make sure you are reunited with Jin immedia…”

She didn’t give him the chance to finish, she shot him between the eyes and watched dispassionately as his big body fell backwards. It landed half on the bed and then slid to the floor. She stood over him and watched as he died.

“Say her name again, asshole.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“It’s done,” Laney said into the phone she’d pulled from Dimitri’s pocket. “I will send the pictures, but I was brought into Russia and I need a way out.”

She listened for a moment, amazed that the Master wasn’t asking more questions. He didn’t seem to care that Boris had made it home alive, only that he was dead now and Laney could prove it. Thank goodness for identical twins. She would use Dimitri’s extreme deadness to prove that she killed Boris and then run home and collect Jin. Once the Master found out she’d killed the wrong brother, she and Jin would be in hiding.

Laney texted the pictures of Dimitri to the Master and then waited for him to send her coordinates. He would guide her off the property and away from Moscow. Somehow, she had to get out of Russia and back to Japan without her passport. Not easy, but not entirely impossible with their connections.

She desperately wanted to go back to the mansion and see how Boris had fared and if he needed her help, but her first loyalty needed to lay with Jin now. It was time for Laney to enact her retirement plan. She’d been working on it for years. Since the moment the Master had parted Yuki’s head from his body.

She had enough money and connections to escape the Master’s influence and go into hiding. Always in the past her biggest worry was Jin. The Master kept them mostly separated so Laney wouldn't have the chance to take her and run. It was as though the Master sensed Jin was the only thing keeping Laney on a leash and under his control. But he’d promised to let Laney see Jin. One meeting was enough. Laney was ninja assassin. She would whisk them away into the night and no one would see them leave.

***

Boris stared down at the body of his twin. Rage flowed through his veins, consuming him to the point that he could barely see. He wanted to punch something, to murder and tear apart anyone that dared to come near. He had spent years protecting and covering for this man and this was how it ended. On the dusty floor of their fathers old hunting lodge.

It was the buttons surrounding Dimitri that caused the pounding mayhem in Boris. The buttons that he knew came from her dress. That she would not have parted with willingly.

“What the fuck did you do to her, you sick fuck!” he snarled, unleashing his anger and kicking the body of his dead brother. He wished Dimitri was alive so he could let loose his rage in the worst possible way and show the man why his name was so feared on the streets back home in America.

He swung away before he could do worse, knowing it wouldn’t make him feel better. Dimitri was dead. Thank god Boris had given Laney a gun. He’d felt the tension in the mansion from the start. Suspected his brother of foul play before he’d even set foot back in Russia and decided to take steps to ensure certain loyalties. One of the men Dimitri had placed in the dining room actually belonged to Boris.

It had been unfortunate that Boris had unintentionally placed Laney in such danger. He hadn’t thought his brother so unstable as to make a move this quickly. Boris was damn fucking proud his woman could hold her own. He just wished like hell he knew where she was now.

Hell, who was he kidding. He knew exactly where she was. Running back to her mysterious Jin. Though he knew Jin was not a fiancé, he was still jealous. Apparently this Jin held her first loyalty, no matter what she felt for Boris. And she loved him, of that he was certain. So, who was Jin?

He was going to find out. He would spend the next twenty-four hours securing his holdings and then he was going to find his woman and bring her home. He just prayed she stayed safe until he found her, and her Jin.

CHAPTER TWENTY

It hadn’t been an easy trip home, but she’d finally made it. She had a new appreciation for her passport and clean travel records. Her least favourite part had been bribing a dirty transport official into letting her cross the border between Russia and China in a smelly chicken truck.

Getting into Japan, though, had been the hardest part. Crime was extremely low and finding a dirty cop or official nearly impossible. She’d had to rely on an old retired assassin friend to hide her on a fishing boat and sneak her through customs. The Master had sent a car for her once she was on Japanese soil, so at least she had been able to travel in luxury to the compound outside of Osaka.

Now she was home and anxious to see her beloved Jin. The gates of the compound opened easily to her, welcoming her into the only home she had ever known besides her apartment in King Tower. The Master walked toward her, his back straight, face giving away no emotion. He looked ageless, the same as he did the day he found her on the bottom of the closet hiding with her mother.

“Daughter,” he said gravely, looking her over, taking in her exhausted form.

She nodded at him and replied, “Master.”

The day Dana had committed suicide by jumping off the Eastern wall of the compound had been the last day Laney had called the Master father. She didn’t know if her lack of familial feeling toward him bothered him. He rarely showed emotion, except for that day, when he’d held Dana’s broken body and raged. That was the only time she had seen her father cry. It had also been the day after he had sent Laney on her first assignment. Her first kill. Laney had been twelve. She supposed they both now lived with the guilt of what that had done to Dana. In their own way.

He reached out and touched her arm for the barest of seconds before stepping away from her. He turned on his heel and headed toward the housing section of the compound. “Come, you will want to change before meeting.”

Laney ran to catch up with him. “I want to see Jin,” she said quickly, trying to make her voice sound less demanding.

He sighed impatiently. “In time, you will see her. For now, you will wash yourself and then come to me in the great hall where you will explain how you ended up in Russia.”

Laney opened her mouth to argue, but remembered where she was and with whom. One did not argue with the Master. Years of beatings instilled that much obedience into her. She nodded swiftly and entered the women’s dorm. He turned away and left her alone. Laney sighed and opened the sliding door to her old room. It was untouched and austere as always.

There were few-to-no women in the clan compound. Married Yakuza tended to live elsewhere. Laney’s existence there had been a tough, lonely one until Jin. Of course, she had not been allowed to see Jin often, but when they had been allowed together it had been like rainbows and sunshine. Like what life on the outside could really be life. Like the glimpse of life she had gotten in America. If she got a chance she would take her Jin to America and introduce her to all of her friends, especially Addison. Addison would love Jin and treat her like the special person she was. Maybe not Anya though, Jin did not need to learn things from Anya.

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