Page 2 of Ruling Scar
From everything I’ve heard, the food is great.
But what most don’t know about Fujimori’s, is that it’s the site of some of the most notorious business deals among the criminal world.
When two crime lords want to meet this is the spot.
Not that it happens often. But lots of other meetings happen here. When someone wants to hire a triggerman, this is where they go.
I don’t need to hire a hitman, but the idea of going home after proudly declaring to my family I’m joining a book club is too sad.
Pushing the doors open, I’m greeted by a petite woman behind a hostess stand. She waves her hand and says, “Pick any booth.”
The restaurant is small despite its larger-than-life stories. The booths are made out of red, the backs high enough that it feels like your own small nook of the restaurant.
I pick a booth at random, passing one person sitting on their own, eating sushi. A family of tourists speaks tiredly to one another.
The hostess comes over, placing a menu on the table. “Something to drink?”
“Uh, water, please.”
She turns, every move quick and sharp. A second later, she plunks a red plastic cup in front of me. “I’ll give you time to look.”
She’s back to the hostess stand, speaking to a newly arrived group.
It’s fascinating, watching the mixture of people come into Fujimori’s without understanding how important it is to the city.
Or maybe they’re just pretending not to know.
I ignore my mother’s voice. Everyone knows about my mother’s kidnapping. It happened after she married my father. She survived for three days after being taken.
She doesn’t talk about it much, but I rarely go anywhere without a guard.
That’s partly why tonight was so important. At nearly twenty-six, I’m much too old to beg my parents to be able to go out without a guard. But nobody messes with Gia’s orders. And so long as my mom orders the guards to follow me, they follow me.
“I can’t go to book club with a weird looking bodyguard,” I told her earlier.
Mom shrugged. “You go to work with them.”
“In the middle of the city.” Where guys in suits don’t cause warning bells to go off. Plus, I know my mom checked the building my office works out of and made them hire guards on our payroll. That way they have eyes on me everywhere.
“It’s weird,” I argued, “if I show up to an indie bookstore with some beefy, bald guy, silently lurking behind me.”
Mom continued to cut vegetables, unbothered. But I wore her down, which turned out to be a good thing. They didn’t witness my pathetic attempt which saw me turning tail.
They would’ve never let me come into Fujimori’s on my own.
Not that anyone in my family’s ever mentioned it’s off-limits. It just seemed like a given since despite my last name, I have no need of hiring a triggerman.
A guy comes out from the kitchen, yelling over his shoulder. He stops short in front of my table. “You wanna order something?”
I stare dumbly at the menu. I rarely eat Japanese food and I don’t want to admit I don’t know what to order.
He guesses anyway, sighing. “Look, just tell me what you’re craving and I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’m not. . . I’ll just take some fried rice please.” I can’t quite meet his eye.
But I know he appears disappointed until a loud bang from the kitchen draws his attention.
“Abe,” a voice calls out to him. Not from the kitchen, but a booth tucked a few feet away.
