AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What the fuck.”
I stop. All of them are staring at the front page of their NDA. Slowly, my brother raises his eyes to mine, his brows arched sharply.
“You’re running for fucking Governor?!”
3
FUMI
“I should have told you, Fumi-chan.”
After leaving the hospital, where they stitched up Dad’s hand, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going back to our apartment with the kicked-in front door and the terrifying memories of guns and a fucking samurai sword. So “home” tonight is a room at the Marriot in Midtown.
I’ve never seen my father cry. Ever. So when the moisture beads in the corners of his eyes, and his good hand lands on one of mine, something in my chest breaks a little.
“Dad—”
“I’m not that man anymore, Fumi,” he says quietly, squeezing my hand. “I?—”
He looks away, his jaw tightening as he chokes back emotion.
“She saved me, you know. Your mother.”
I’ve heard the story before. How my father, who was still living in Japan and working a brutal job he hated, traveled to San Francisco for work. How he stumbled across a little jazz bar in the Outer Sunset area, and was captivated by Mom’s voice crooning from inside.
That’s the night my Korean-Italian mother, Bella, stole his heart. Three months later, they were married. A year to the day after he first walked into that bar, they had me.
Two years later, his job brought him back to Kyoto, and Mom and I followed. Three years after that, after Mom died in the car accident, Dad and I moved back to the US, to Seattle.
The story is a familiar one. But something horrible in the back of my mind whispers I’m about to hear a version I’m not sure I want to know.
“That man…”
My dad’s mouth tightens. “Takato Ito.” His eyes swivel to mine, hardening a little. “His uncle is Orochi Ito, head of the Hato-kai Yakuza based in Kyoto.”
I swallow a lump in my throat, along with the question I’ve been dreading asking: how do you know that?
Dad worked in shipping logistics in Japan. He always said that the job was soul-crushing, and that the only good part of it was driving the delivery trucks. So after he left, and we came to Seattle, that’s what he did: drove delivery trucks for a Japanese bakery. It’s one of the few happy memories I have from that time, when I was five and still heartbroken from losing my mom and leaving Japan. As sad as I was, whenever he came home and picked me up from our neighbor Mrs. Kim across the hall, he always smelled like the most delicious castella cakes, dorayaki, and mochi.
By the time I was twelve, Dad had tired of the gloominess of Seattle, and we moved across the country to New York. Dad ended up getting another delivery driver job, this time for an Asian candy company.
When he got home after that job, the smell on him was too sweet now. Saccharine. Manufactured. I never said anything, because he was so much happier in New York than in Seattle. Honestly, eventually I was, too. But I really missed his job at the bakery with the castella cakes and mochi.
“Dad…” I squeeze his good hand, our eyes locking. “How do you know that?” I whisper. “About his uncle being a Yakuza boss?”
“Fumi…”
“Why did he call me Ms. Mori?” I can feel the panic rising in my voice. “And what the hell was with the five million dollars?! Where did you get?—”
“Because that’s your name, because I stole it from his uncle, and because I never worked in shipping logistics!”
The admissions tumble from his mouth one after the other, half snarled, half choked out. The second they land, the room falls incredibly silent. I gulp, my pulse skipping.
“You…” I shake my head. “What are you saying?”
Dad looks away, taking a deep breath. “I was a very, very different man before I met your mother, Fumi-chan,” he growls quietly. Slowly, he pulls his hand from mine and sits up. His legs swing over the edge of the bed.
“Dad, you need to lie down?—”
