Page 98 of Dangerous Deceit

“Go fuck yourself.”

I reach for the open door to the guest room. He clicks a button on his phone, and I flip around. He’s holding his device to his ear, and I know what that means.

“You made a promise,” I say, reminding him he said he would never touch Uncle Jay. Promises matter to Kenzo. I have to hold on to that.

Kenzo glares at me but doesn’t acknowledge what I said. He turns to his phone.

“Capture him,” he says.

CHAPTER 43

KENZO

The next morning,Ronin is silent as we go up the elevator to the penthouse. I use my phone to unlock the door, but before I twist the knob, I turn to him.

“I’ll get you a key,” I say.

We’ve had our fair share of problems, but lately, I’m too tired to even think about why I shouldn’t trust Ronin. Theyubitsumemay be a scam, but cutting off your finger is an enormous commitment. How much is Vi willing to do to get what she wants? Marry a man? That’s pretty extreme too.

But the fact is Ronin was right about Vi from the beginning. Hell, my instincts were right too, but I thought it was an innocent lie. A game to play. Not a vicious trap. Maybe I need to give her credit for that.

Ronin bows his head in thanks, and we enter the penthouse. Vi shuffles in one of the back rooms. I can take her by myself, but with my dick already twitching at her scent, I know myself. If someone isn’t here, I’ll fuck her when I’m supposed to punish her, and I can’t keep doing that anymore.

She keeps choosing Jay over me. It fucking breaks me. I would never hurt her like he does.

Maybe I am jealous. I want her loyalty.

Vi swings around toward us, her eyes widening at me, then flicking to Ronin. She grabs a book off of the nightstand and throws it at us. Ronin deflects the book toward the wall, and I grab her. She’s no match for my strength, but she gives one hell of a struggle, and my cock pulses. I wrangle her until I’m able to present her wrists to Ronin. He cuffs her, and we put a canvas bag over her head.

The room fills with screams. It breaks me to be doing this, but I have to make Vi listen to my side of the story. Ronin’s expression is blank, unfazed by her torment. The media must be wrong; there must be more violence in Tokyo than they’d like us to believe. Maybe that’s a story meant to save face for the yakuza.

“Staff and neighbors?” Ronin asks.

No one is going to do anything if they see her, but if they do, it won’t help her anyway. The sheriff is on our payroll.

“If they see, we’ll kill ‘em,” I say. Ronin’s brows press together, but then he nods, and we’re back to work.

Luckily, the concierge is out on break. No one sees us.

We throw Vi into the back of one of Samurai Corporation’s work vans. Vi thrashes like a wild animal, but once the engine hums to life, she stills. A knot at the bottom of my stomach rolls around, growing into a huge fucking ball.

I don’t like this. Ronin, even if he is biologically Tomo’s son, is still a stranger to me. Just because there are certain rules in Japan, doesn’t mean hefollowsthose rules. Hell, he cut off his own finger to leave his original gang. I trust him with some things, sure, but I don’t want him around her.

But Ihaveto keep him with me. He’s earning his trust, and I need him to hold me accountable. I need to focus. This is for the Endo-kai. Nothing else matters.

The maintenance site is two huge warehouses on the outskirts of Henderson, a city just outside of Las Vegas. It’sgray and bleak. The first building is actually for maintenance: supplies, offices, meeting rooms. But the second building has two sections. The front of it hosts a laundry facility; the back is for the yakuza.

We clear out the staff doing honest work in the front of the building, then bring Vi to the back section. We tie her arms and feet to a chair.

Once that’s done, Ronin leans against the wall and smokes a cigarette. Every surface is gray—the walls, the ceiling, the floor—and the lighting is terrible, but I set up a video camera anyway. The red light flicks on, and I shift the lens until it’s aimed at the canvas bag over her head. I pull it off, and Vi blinks. I stand to the side of the camera with a plastic bag in my hand.

She’s just a liar,I tell myself.She means nothing.

“Give. Me. A. Name,” I say.

“Fuck you,” she snarls.

I slap the plastic bag over her head, keeping it sealed around her neck. She jerks around, the thin film of plastic sucking in and out of her mouth. Part of me wants her to bite it—tomakeherself a hole. I want her to keep fighting.

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