Emperor of Lust: Chapter 38

I call Freya the second I leave the restaurant.

“So was he there when you⁠—”

“Freya,” I growl tightly, my jaw clenching. “Can you track Hana’s phone?”

There’s a deafening silence on the other end of the line for a second.

“Okay, hold up,” she says quietly. “I was willing to go on faith before, when you wanted to find Kolya and told me it involved Hana but that ‘everything was fine’. I’m not doing that any longer. What the fuck is going on?”

My throat bobs. “Frey, I need you to trust me. Can you or can you not trace Hana’s phone.”

“Obviously, but⁠—”

‘Freya,” I hiss. “I just need you to do this. I need you not to ask questions, and I need you to fucking trust me. Okay?”

She quiet for a half a second before she exhales.

“Okay,” she says, her voice tight. “But only because I love you. Gimme a sec.” I hear the clicking of her laptop keyboard in the background. My fingers clench tight around the phone.

It’s only that sick feeling—the one that eats at my gut like acid—that’s driving me right now. The knowledge that something’s deeply wrong.

Hana swears, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“What?” I blurt.

“There’s nothing. Hana’s phone is off. No data transfers or tower pings either, which means the SIM card is out.”

Fuck.

I glance around nervously before I lower my voice. “Frey—you’re at the house?”

“Yeah.”

“I need you to trust me again,” I growl quietly. “How quickly could you…”

I trail off as Ryu steps quietly in front of me, smiling thinly as he shakes his head and wags his finger side-to-side.

“Give them any warning,” he murmurs quietly, “and triggers get pulled. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Nikolayev?”

My eyes pull to murderous slits, but I nod slowly.

“I’m glad we understand each other, Mr. Nikolayev.”

“What?” Freya says into the phone. “How quickly could I what?”

“Nothing,” I say mutter, fury throbbing under the surface. I can’t warn her or Annika without getting them killed, because that fucking psycho asshole Kolya⁠—

I freeze, my brow furrowing tightly at the memory of something Kolya recently said.

I believe we’re both being played, Mr. Nikolayev. Make of that what you will.

I’m absolutely being fucking played. But why the fuck did he say “we”?

I shoot Ryu a venomous look before I turn away and stride toward my car parked at the curb. He doesn’t follow as I slide in behind the wheel and shut the door, wrapping me in silence.

“Frey,” I growl quietly. “If I tell you something, can you promise to stay calm?”

“Sure,” she murmurs back cautiously. “Talk to me?”

‘Hana’s missing. At first I thought it was Kolya, but now⁠—’

“What?!” My cousin shrieks. “Fuck, Damian! Does Kenzo⁠—”

“No,” I growl. “He can’t know. Not yet.”

“What the fuck!?” she hisses. “Why not?! Damian, we need to⁠—”

“Freya!”

The sharpness in my tone silences her. I exhale slowly.

“Freya,” I say, quieter now. “Please. Trust me on this.”

There’s a pause. “Okay, what do you need?” she says tightly.

‘Who would benefit from pitting the Mori-kai against the Ishida-kai?’ I ask. “Assuming neither side wins.”

She’s quiet for a second, thinking. “Any other syndicate in Tokyo, for one,” she finally replies. “Take out the two biggest players, it’s open season. Anyone and everyone would try to fill the power vacuum.”

I nod slowly as it settles into place. “But they’d have to be big enough and strong enough to back that up, right? And they’d need to move quickly—be ready the split second a war started to swoop in and pick up the pieces.”

She takes a sharp breath. “You don’t think this is a random player…”

My jaw clenches. “Freya, think. Who would be able to fill the gap and already have the pieces in place?”

There’s a beat of silence, and then I hear her gasp quietly at the same moment it clicks with me, too.

Holy fuck.

I close my eyes, bitter rage clawing up my chest. “Miyamoto.”

“Wait, seriously?” she whispers.

“He rallied a ton of smaller families to his, with the promise that they’d be absorbed into the Mori-kai once the merger happened. But that means, with all those guys reporting to him, he’s the third biggest Yakuza family in Tokyo right now.”

“Fucking hell, Damian,” she says. “We have to tell Kenzo⁠—”

“No.”

“What?” She blurts. “Damian⁠—”

“Frey, if you tell Kenzo, Kolya will kill him,” I hiss darkly.

Okay, that’s not what Kolya said. But I’m not worried about Kenzo right now.

I’m worried about Freya, and the fact that Kolya has a sniper on her. If I say anything or tell her to run, there’s a chance she’ll be killed before she can get away.

I also don’t want to scare the hell out of her.

“What the fuck, Damian! We⁠—”

“Yeah, still need you to just trust me,” I hiss. “Please, Frey.”

She draws in a shaky breath and then exhales.

“Okay,” she says quietly. “I’m all ears. What do you need?”

“One, trace Miyamoto,” I mutter. “And two, how easy would it be for you to shut down a tracking device?”

“What kind of tracking device?”

“The kind strapped to my ankle right now.”

She swears. “Fucking Kolya?”

“Fucking Kolya,” I reply.

Freya exhales slowly. “Okay… Take a picture of it and text it to me. And see if you can find a bar code or serial number. I doubt I can remotely disable it, but I might be able to track it.”

“It’s a start,” I mutter, pulling up my pant leg, taking a photo. Then I slip the phone closer to my foot and snap a pic of a series of numbers I find printed there. “Texting you now,” I say.

“Got it.”

“Priority, though, is⁠—”

“Hana. Yeah, no shit,” she mutters, clicking away at her laptop. “Hang on, I’m trying to trace Miyamoto’s phone… Yes!” she hisses triumphantly. “He’s on the move, definitely in a car. Looks like he’s on the way to his house.”

I start the car and ram it into drive. Suddenly, my brow creases.

That’d be too easy, him keeping her at his house. Plus lazy and stupid. And there’s clearly nothing lazy or stupid about Miyamoto for him to have orchestrated all this.

“Can you tell where he’s driving from?”

“Good, an actual challenge,” Freya mutters, clicking away. “Yeah, I can triangulate his data patterns and sub-node transmitter cache⁠—”

“Translate the nerd-speak, Frey,” I growl.

“It means shut the fuck up and let me work,” she snaps back, fingers clacking on the keys. “Got it!” she crows. “He was just at the destroyed Mori Holdings office building.”

The tires squeal as I explode from the curb, roaring into the night to find the woman I love.