I hadn’t.
Neither had Hiro. . .who secretly had them both killed.
Darkness poured over me.
My right hand curled around the ghost-weight of a stuffed rabbit by one ear. The fabric wasn’t there, yet my fingers felt the worn plush and the faint give of old stitching beneath my grip.
Tightening my hold on nothing, I looked at the next picture.
Toma's family.
His parents, him, and his ten other siblings. Their mother behind them, hands on the oldest daughter's shoulders. The father to the side in a cheap suit, standing stiff and looking angry.
Through the years the siblings had faced all kinds of tragic deaths due to their father’s brutality and torturous basementpunishments. Suicides. Drownings. Drug addictions. Fatal abuse from spouses.
Toma was the final survivor of a broken home.
I looked at Toma's sisters and brothers' faces and my ears filled with the sound of siblings too afraid to sleep. I heard their shallow, uneven breathing. Their whimpers and rustling of thin blankets as they tossed and turned too terrified to let slumber take them.
Tora. . .this was not necessary.
The next picture was of the twins' mother.
My heart seized in my chest.
She smoked a cigarette and cruelly grinned at the camera. She had the twins’ sharp cheekbones and black hair cut, but hers stopped at her jaw.
They’re going to be angry for this.
Tobacco smoke threaded through my lungs like the evil woman had lit that cigarette right in front of me. I could taste the bitterness of her toxic love and how it had been edged with ash and abuse.
It was hard to swallow as I turned and shuddered at the next picture.
Nura.
Fuck. My brother’s heart is going to break again. Why, Tora?
Nura was beautiful in this image. I could tell she didn’t know she had even been photographed. Her focus was on something in front of her. Yet, her dark brown skin glowed in the soft lighting and there was this beautiful smile.
My own chest tightened around a sob that wasn't mine to release. Still, the rawness of it all pressed upward anyway.
Making me ache.
Scraping against my ribs.
My throat actually burned with the effort of holding it back, of keeping someone else’s sorrow from spilling through my mouth.
What was your plan, Tora? Cruelty or mercy?
And my Tiger kept on twisting the knife in my fucking chest.
The next picture was Hiroko.
I frowned.
She stood in a leather kimono with a wicked smirk and a large whip in her hand. And I heard that whip crack in the air with a merciless snap that echoed long after the sound itself had faded.
A sting spread across my hand.
