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“You have exactly fifteen seconds to tell me where?—”
“She’s getting married.”
I flinch and pull off the balaclava, letting my eyes stab into him. “Excuse me?”
Orochi smiles benignly. “Married, Mr. Black. Surely you know what blood she has flowing in her veins.”
“Neither she nor her father has anything to do with?—”
“You don’t simply walk away from the Yakuza, Mr. Black,” he growls. “Blood carries much weight in our world, and your wife’s blood holds the weight of an empire.”
My jaw grinds.
“Let me tell you a story, Mr. Black. Years ago, I thought I’d beaten my competition, your father-in-law. I had his wife killed. I chased him from his world, exploiting his weakness for family. But when the king was in exile, his subjects didn’t take the knee as expected.”
I smile coldly. “You mean the men and families loyal to him didn’t kiss your ass after you tried to kill the entire Mori family?”
“You could put it that way.” His lips curl. “But as I said, blood carries weight in our world. Specifically, in this case, the blood of Hideo Mori’s only heir. And when my nephew, Takato, marries Fumi, the scattered remains of the Mori empire will take the knee and bow to the Ito clan.”
“There’s the small issue of her already being married,” I spit. “To me.”
Orochi smiles, lifting a shoulder. “Yes, well, we have ways of negating that.”
“The hell you do,” I hiss.
“Mr. Black, your entire marriage to Fumi is built on fraud.”
“It’s built on a deal,” I growl. “One, I might add, that resulted in you making millions of dollars and settling whatever beef you still thought you had with Hideo.”
Orochi doesn’t blink. “We are in agreement, Mr. Black. It was indeed built on a deal. But a deal that you dishonor by not fulfilling your end of it is no deal at all,” he snarls, anger rising in his eyes.
I scowl. “I didn’t dishonor?—”
“You’ve insulted me, Mr. Black,” Orochi hisses. “You ignore my nephew’s warning. You have him banned from entering your country.” He smiles a mirthless smile. “Taking Fumi was the last way I could think of to make you see how poor a choice it is for you to disrespect me.”
“I haven’t?—”
“Then where the hell is my money, Mr. Black!” he snarls darkly.
The wheels grind to a halt in my head.
Hang on.
“You were paid, Mr. Ito,” I growl. “As agreed, five million?—”
“And yet, I wasn’t.”
“Then I suggest you look again,” I hiss. “Because I was there when the transfer went through. The money left one of my shell companies, was deposited into one owned by my wife, and was then—immediately, I might add—transferred to your accounts. I literally saw it all happen with my own eyes. So, Mr. Ito,” I snarl, pressing the edge of the blade against his neck. “Where the fuck is my wife.”
“Your wife,” he snaps back, “is up there right now”—he jabs a finger past me at the mountains rising over the further outskirts of Kyoto—“marrying my nephew and cementing my dominion over the remains of the Mori-kai.”
Suddenly, it hits me so obviously it almost knocks me off my feet.
Orochi is a proud man. And old-school, steeped in the traditions and the honor system that the old guard of the Yakuza, much like any organized mafia, is built on.
It wouldn’t just be weird and against his honor for him to lie about not getting that money. It literally would not happen.
Which means he’s telling the truth about never having received it. And in a flash, I think I know where it went.
