Page 7 of Dangerous Deceit

“Yes,” he mumbles. “She has to.”

An unsettling pressure lands on my shoulders at those words. I lick my teeth, my tongue scraping over my canines. It’s almost like the uncle said that last sentence as athreat.Like he’ll punish her if she fails. Once again, the urge to keep her safe from him flickers in my chest, but I shove it away.

Until she passes my test, she’s just her uncle’s pawn. I don’t owe her anything, nor does she owe me.

“What’s her name?” I ask.

“Vi. Short for Vivian.”

Vivian.It’s a long, powerful name. On the other hand, the nickname Vi seems sly, like she can be hiding anything she wants and using it to gain the upper hand.

If it comes down to it, we can still kill her uncleandher.

Maybe I’m going soft, wanting to save this sweet niece from her uncle who’s dumb enough to mess with the yakuza, or maybe I want to ruin his “virgin” niece until there’s no mistaking her lack of innocence. For fuck’s sake, none of us are innocent. Why should her virginity keep her in the purity chambers?

“Well, Uncle,” I say, putting my hand forward. The uncle immediately jerks his uninjured hand in mine, disfigured hand forgotten, an eager fool once again. We shake, sealing the deal. “Let’s see how your niece works out.”

CHAPTER 5

VI

“You told himwhat?”I gasp.

“Calm down, Vi,” my cousin mumbles, but it doesn’t stop me. He’s not the one who woke up to being detained by yakuza soldiers.

“It’s bad enough they treated me like I was the one who touched thekanbu’swife, but now the man I’m supposed to marry thinks I’m a virgin?”

Uncle Jay smiles sheepishly at me as he leans back on the headboard. He’s puffy and blue, the red cut on his face still swollen, and I swear I want to punch those jerks myself for what they did to him.

I won’t though. Because if it was up to me, wewouldn’thave agreed to take on a job targeting the yakuza.

The freaking yakuza.

But what do I know? I’m just the researcher.Notthe con artist.

My cousin, Patrick, laughs. “What? It’s not like he told them you’re an aeronautical engineer.”

“But avirgin?” I ask. “Why is that even necessary?”

Patrick squeezes my shoulder. “You can handle it. Don’t worry, Vi.”

He walks over to the motel bathroom. I rub my shoulder until his touch evaporates, then I plop down on the edge of Uncle Jay’s bed.

“Easy for you to say,” I mumble. “You’re not marrying the guy.”

“Well,” Uncle Jay interrupts. “I guess you have to pass his test first.”

“A test? What does that mean?”

“You’re going to a gala tonight.”

“A gala?”

No one says anything. I guess the gala is the easiest hurdle when you consider the last few hours, and I try not to think about how unnerving it was to sit in the cell, thinking they had killed Uncle Jay while I waited for my own fate. At one point, I was sure I was going to be executed, just like Uncle Jay, but the weird part is they didn’t even touch me.

Once they released Jay, he was escorted by some soldiers to retrieve me from my cell. And they didn’t even let me take off the blindfold until I was in the casino, almost like they didn’t want me to see anything, a concern born out of some strange need to keep me calm, I guess.

Was my future husband—no, he’s only my date for the gala right now—was my date the reason they let me go? Did he release me because he wants me to feel comfortable with him? Or did my comfort not matter at all when it came to those decisions? Was it standard yakuza protocol?

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