Page 37 of The Dragon 1
“You’ll both be in the room,” I said. “Watch the Lion, but stay silent, even if he is disrespectful. Let him believe he’s being entertained.”
“And if he’s here for blood?” Hiro asked.
“Then we show our teeth. But we don’t bitefirst.”
Reo nodded slowly, eyes narrowing in thought. “He’s young, yes. But not stupid. If he brought bombs to Tokyo, he would’ve dropped them by now. He’s here for diplomacy. . .at least on the surface.”
“And underneath?” Hiro asked.
“We’ll find out what he’s looking for underneath.” I smiled faintly and left the window. “Now let’s go deal with the fucking Lion so I can get back to my beautiful Tiger.”
Hiro shook his head. “I’ve never been a fan of cats.”
Chapter six
The Whole Beast
Kenji
I left my office with Reo on my left and Hiro on my right.
The rest of the Dragon’s Claws followed behind us. Each Claw had been personally sharpened by Hiro.
He’d been born and raised in the alleys of Nishinari, one of the most violent wards in Osaka, before my father dragged his mother and him to Tokyo. She’d been my father’s favorite prostitute turned live-in mistress.
Because of that, Hiro had grown up in the shadows of both power and neglect. My father always saw him as a mistake. His mother was too broken to love him properly.
But where most children cracked, Hiro sharpened. He learned to stab before he learned to write. To kill before he could kiss.
So the ones who walked behind us—the Dragon’s Claws—they were his. Hiro’s brothers by bloodless bond. They’d scraped life together in dark corners.
Kaede walked with eerie calm, platinum-blond hair tied into a low knot at the nape of his neck. His face was too perfect like something sculpted for a museum display. But the illusion stopped at his eyes—one real, one glass—both cold. His hands could snap a wrist mid-conversation and never spill a drop of blood.
Kaede didn’t like mess.
He preferred his violence clean.
Daisuke drifted behind us, never too far from Hiro, but never fully seen either. His mohawk—a sharp black ridge cutting over his otherwise still silhouette—was the only loud thing about him. He moved like smoke—elusive—and when he struck, it was a brisk wind through dry leaves.
Sudden, quiet, and final.
Toma flanked the other side with swagger and threat. Both sides of his head were shaved, leaving a single unruly strip of bright purple hair running down the center like a wild flame.
Tattoos crawled up his throat and vanished beneath his collar—inked stories of pain and rage. He wore a grin too wide to be sane, like someone who’d bitten into something feral and liked the taste.
Toma didn’t care about subtlety.
He wanted to be seen.
He wanted to be feared.
Then there were the twins—Aki and Yuki. As always, their pace was in perfect sync and their black hair was slicked-back. They both had identical scars beneath their chins. Apparently, they’d been burned from a night long ago, when Hiro pulled them out of a house fire.
The twins rarely spoke, but when they did, it was usually in fragments, as if finishing each other’s thoughts. They fought the same way—mirrors reflecting the exact same violence.
The Claws didn’t just follow Hiro—they worshipped him. And because they gave their loyalty to Hiro. . .they belonged to me.
Next came the Dragon’s Fangs.
