Emperor of Lust: Chapter 37

Consciousness slams into me like a fist to the face.

My head snaps up, my breath coming sharp and fast, filling my lungs with the bitter taste of smoke. There’s a sharp chemical taste on my tongue, and something burning at the edges of my mind.

Darkness surrounds me, thick and oppressive. I try to move, but ropes dig into my skin, holding me secure.

I’m tied up.

Raw panic lances into me, sending my pulse spiking as the familiar crashes back—in my veins, my throat, with every thud of my heart in my chest.

I can’t move.

It’s dark. It’s happening again.

And I can’t fucking move.

The panic morphs into a vicious black weight, pushing down on every thought and breath until it feels like I’m suffocating in the darkness.

My shoulders ache as I twist my hands against the restraints, trying to find even the smallest bit of give. Nothing. The ropes are unyielding. I try to lurch forward, and then my heart stops when the ground moves beneath me.

Tipping. Dropping. Then…lifting slightly, as if I’m perched on something unstable.

My entire reality blurs at the edges as naked fear grips me. I twist again, screaming, desperate to escape this hellish nightmare before it claws me back to that night. But then the ground shifts again.

A sharp, loud whistle pierces the darkness.

My head jerks in the direction of the sound, and my heart stutters when I realize I’m not alone.

The girl looks a little younger than me, maybe twenty-ish, with long, coppery-blonde hair cascading down her shoulders and wide, gray eyes that meet mine in the shadows. Like me, she’s tied to a chair, arms and legs bound, about twenty feet to my left.

When our eyes lock, she quickly shakes her head side-to-side.

I’m about to open my mouth when she looks down significantly into the darkness below. I frown as I follow her gaze to the floor beneath me.

Holy fucking God.

Cold, sharp horror sinks into me. We’re perched on a massive wooden plank that stretches like a see-saw across a blackened, charred steel beam.

I’m on one side of the fucked-up see-saw, and she’s on the other.

We look to be about the same size. The same height. And critically, the same weight.

Balanced.

As my eyes adjust to the darkness, my throat closes off and my blood turns to ice.

The abyss drops beneath our little see-saw into inky black nothingness, endless and empty, waiting to swallow us both, maybe a hundred feet below.

Panic surges up, my breathing quickens, and I start to jerk and yank at my ropes again as fear wraps its bony claws around my throat.

The floor rocks again. Instantly, three sharp, loud whistles ring out in the murky darkness. I shudder as I clamp my mouth shut and go still, turning slowly to look at her.

Again, the girl shakes her head side-to-side, pleading with me to stay still.

If I don’t, the board we’re on will rock, pick up momentum, and eventually tip to one side.

Sending us both plunging to our deaths into the darkness.

The girl’s eyes are locked on mine, intense, wide with her own fear.

“Who are you?” I whisper, my voice as raw as my nerves.

Her expression flickers but she doesn’t answer, just gives a quick shake of her head. I keep my voice low, fighting to stay still. “Please,” I ask again. “Who are you?”

Nothing. Not a word. Just the same, warning look.

“I’m Hana,” I say, forcing myself to speak slowly, keeping my tone calm. “What’s your name?”

She just stares at me, her eyes flicking to the side like she’s trying to tell me something in a language I don’t understand. I don’t know whether to scream or cry, but I force myself to breathe, to hold onto whatever shred of control I have left.

“Where are we?” I ask, louder now. I repeat it in Japanese, then in what little French I know. My voice echoes hollowly in the vast emptiness around us. She just stares back at me, silent.

I whirl my gaze around, panicking as I try to see into the darkness. The burnt smell hits me harder, and suddenly, I know where I am.

This is the office building I bought to house the Mori Holdings and Mori-kai empire in Tokyo, before it was burned to ash.

That’s where I am, balanced somewhere in the charred metal framework of the roof, teetering over the drop to the burned-out basement warehouse far below.

Helplessness, rage and dark fury surge in me as I struggle against the ropes, feeling them bite deeper with every movement as I try to remember how I even got here⁠—

Then I flinch as it all comes rushing back.

Miyamoto.

It all floods back into my mind like acid, shocking me all over again and making me sick as my heart wrenches.

It was the suddenness of it all. The phone call from him, telling me exactly what to do. To leave the apartment, dressed as if going out. Not to tell Damian a word of this conversation. To snub him. To be cold, distant and mean to him.

…or Miyamoto would trigger a bomb inside our apartment.

When I left, the motherfucker picked me up himself. He looked me in the eye and told me it would be “more realistic” if I sucked his cock.

I told him I’d bite it off if he tried, and mercifully, I think he might have believed me, because he didn’t force it. But he did drive me around for hours.

Smacked me a few times, fucked up my hair, and disheveled my dress before dropping me off again.

Then came the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I had to walk into that apartment I shared with Damian and make the man I love think I’d been out cheating on him. The club business card with the number to one of Miyamoto’s waka gashira. The empty condom wrapper.

Looking Damian right in the eye and stabbing him in the heart as my own bled out, knowing if I didn’t do all these things, Miyamoto would kill him.

That motherfucker made me hurt the person I love the most in this world.

Later, I remember him coming to get me and leading me back out to his car. That’s the last thing I recall before it all goes black.

My eyes close as my heart wrenches painfully.

Miyamoto was clear: no notes, no warnings left for Damian. His men combed over the whole apartment to make sure.

But they didn’t notice the origami cranes bound together. The Miles Davis song on repeat.

I only hope to God that Damian does, and understands their significance.

I shudder, forcing back the sob that threatens to rip from my throat. I look around, my pulse jackhammering as I try not to think about the ropes, or the see-saw, or the dark abyss below. With a snarl, I snap my head to the girl tied up next to me.

“Who are you!?” I bellow.

Her eyes plead with me, but she doesn’t say a goddamn thing, and it’s infuriating.

“Why?!” I scream at her. “Why won’t you fucking talk to me?!”

“She can’t, Hana.”

I whip my head around, a shiver chasing down my spine as a familiar voice comes from the shadows, smooth and cold.

Miyamoto steps into view, standing on a flat, unburned piece of what was the top floor of the building across from me. He’s watching us cruelly, his eyes glinting with dark satisfaction.

“You motherfucker,” I hiss, voice trembling with rage. “You traitorous, backstabbing motherfucker!”

Miyamoto just smiles, tilting his head as he contemplates me.

“What the hell do you want?” I yell.

He chuckles, taking a slow step to the edge and peering down into the darkness. He looks back up, his gaze drifting between me and the girl. “Tokyo,” he growls. “I want Tokyo. I want to be the last man standing when the dust settles.”

I clench my jaw, bitterness rising in me like poison. “I thought you were retiring,” I hiss. “Pledging your empire to the Mori-kai, in return for my father helping you when you were younger.”

He raises an eyebrow, smirking. “I did say that, didn’t I?” he murmurs. He sighs. “That’s the thing about people when they’ve already decided they have an enemy. They don’t see anything else. They put blinders on. And they welcome help wherever it may come from.”

Miyamoto smiles as he spreads his arms. “Your family was so hungry for Tokyo. Meanwhile Kolya was desperate to defend his empire and his city. All you both needed was enough fuel, and a match to light the whole thing on fire.”

“You’re insane,” I whisper, my voice tight with fury.

He chuckles, dark and mocking. “No. Simply thorough. Strategic. I know how to play the long game—how to play the right pieces at the right time.” He shrugs. “Hiring men to attack you in my home and blaming the Ishida-kai. Encouraging you to buy this building, lying firmly within Kolya’s territory—a move he could only, would only, see as an act of aggression that required a response. Of course, then Kolya called for that ridiculous cease-fire and I had to get more aggressive in my approach. But now…well… Here we are.”

My God. He’s orchestrated everything.

He smiles at me. “Please. Go ahead. Tell me Damian will come save you, or that I won’t get away with this.”

“He will,” I spit, glaring death at him. “And you won’t.”

Miyamoto’s smile widens, his eyes gleaming. “Ah, but that’s the beauty of it, Hana. Someone actually will come—for one of you. And when they do, they’ll save the one they want, letting the other die.”

He gestures to the plank the girl and I are sitting on.

“Whoever comes will have to make a choice. They can save you…but if they do, she’ll fall.” He points to the girl, who’s staring at him, pale and tense. “Or they can save her, and you will fall.”

My stomach twists, the dread settling heavy and cold. I look at the girl, see the fear in her wide eyes, and I know he’s right. Remove the weight from one side of the scale, and the other side drops.

“And I’ll get what I’ve always wanted,” he says mildly. “Tokyo. Power. Control. Whatever happens here tonight, one side will have killed someone the other side holds very dear, pitting the Mori-kai and the Ishida-kai against each other until they’re both ashes. And when they’re gone, I’ll be the one left standing.”

My throat tightens, rage boiling inside me. “You’re a monster,” I spit.

He just laughs, unbothered. “I’m a survivor. In the end, survivors do what they must.”

I want to scream, to fight, to make him hurt for all the pain he’s caused. But all I can do is sit here, trapped, as he smiles that cold, mocking smile.

He takes one last look at me, his eyes glinting. “And now…” He smiles. “We wait.”

He turns away, his footsteps echoing in the silence as he disappears back into the shadows, leaving me alone with the girl, heavy silence and the weight of darkness settling over us.

I close my eyes, trying to block out the sound of the board creaking under me, trying to hold onto something, anything, that can keep the fear away. I think of Damian, his face, his strength, his fire. He’s out there. I have to believe he’ll come for me.

But as the silence settles in, and darkness closes around us, I’m not sure belief is enough.