"Let's talk about my dowry," Hanae said, tapping ash onto the pristine white tablecloth. "Or rather, the interest you owe me on six years of stolen life."
The ash fell in a slow, gray cascade, settling onto the fine linen like snow on a grave.
The Grand Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, only minutes ago a hive of social climbers and sycophants, was now a cavern of silence. The only sounds were the distant, muffled thunder of the storm outside and the wet, ragged breathing of Kenji Sato.
He lay amidst the wreckage of the head table. Caviar—black pearls costing three hundred dollars an ounce—was smeared across his white tuxedo jacket, looking alarmingly like rot. His left hand, the one Takeshi had crushed, throbbed with a pulse he could feel in his teeth. It was rapidly swelling, turning a grotesque shade of purple, the gold wedding band embedded deep into the swollen flesh.
Hanae sat above him, relaxed in the groom's chair. She didn't look like a woman in the middle of a violent coup. She looked like an auditor conducting a particularly boring tax review.
Smoke from her cigarette drifted through the chandelier light, creating a haze that separated the humans from the monsters.
Reina, the Viper, had hopped onto the table itself. She sat cross-legged, her muddy boots resting inches from Emi's face. She was humming a lullaby, her butterfly knife dancing between her fingers—snick, click, snap—a hypnotic rhythm that kept Emi frozen in terror.
"You..." Kenji wheezed, trying to push himself up with his good hand. He failed, slipping on a smear of foie gras. He collapsed back down, panting. "You think... you think you can just walk in here... threaten me? I am the CEO of Sato Corp! I have... I have connections!"
Hanae sighed. It was a sound of profound disappointment.
"Takeshi," she murmured. "The laptop."
The giant chef, who was currently blocking the main exit like a statue of judgment, reached into a leather satchel slung across his massive chest. He pulled out a sleek, black laptop. He walked over to the table and set it down in front of Hanae, opening the lid.
Hanae typed a password with one hand, the other still holding her cigarette.
"Connections," Hanae mused, her eyes scanning the screen. "Let's review those connections, Kenji."
She spun the laptop around so he could see it from his position on the floor.
"The Kyoto Merger," she said. "The deal that saved your company from bankruptcy three years ago. You told everyone it was your charisma that won over the Yamamoto Group. You told me to bake cookies for the meeting, remember?"
Kenji glared at her. "I closed that deal. I spent months negotiating—"
"You spent months drinking sake and embarrassing yourself," Hanae corrected, her voice flat. "Yamamoto was going to walk away. He thought you were an idiot. He was right."
She pressed a key. A document appeared on the screen. It was an email chain.
"I wrote the counter-proposal, Kenji. While you were sleeping off your hangover, I was up until 4:00 AM, restructuring your debt-to-equity ratio so the Yamamoto actuaries wouldn't laugh you out of the room. I sent it from your account."
Kenji stared at the screen. The dates. The timestamps. He remembered waking up those mornings, finding the work done, and assuming he had just... figured it out in a drunken stupor. Or that his secretary had done it.
He had never asked. He had just taken the credit.
"And the Logistics Contract with the Port Authority?" Hanae continued, scrolling down. "Last year? You thought it was luck that the Union leader suddenly agreed to your terms?"
She laughed softly. It was a cold sound.
"The Union leader, Mr. Tanaka, had a gambling debt with the Kurosawa Clan. I made a phone call. I forgave his interest in exchange for him signing your contract. That contract added forty percent to your stock value."
Hanae leaned forward, the smoke curling around her face.
"I didn't just cook your dinner, Kenji. I cooked your books. I managed your schedule. I ghost-wrote your speeches. I bullied your rivals into submission from the shadows, using the very name you despised."
She took a drag of her cigarette.
"You aren't a CEO. You're a mascot. And I'm tired of wearing the suit."
"Lies!" Kenji screamed, his face turning blotchy red. "I built this company! I am a visionary! You're just a... a thug! A housewife!"
"Am I?"
Hanae tapped the Enter key.
"I just sent an email to the Yamamoto Group. And the Port Authority. And the Banking Consortium."
Kenji froze. "What... what did you do?"
"I resigned," Hanae said simply. "I told them that the silent partner—the one who actually did the math—is leaving. And I withdrew the Kurosawa Clan's guarantee on your loans."
BZZZZT. BZZZZT. BZZZZT.
Kenji's phone, lying in a puddle of champagne on the table, began to vibrate.
Notifications flooded the lock screen.
STOCK ALERT: SATO CORP PLUNGING -15%
TEXT FROM: YAMAMOTO-SAN: "We are pulling the merger. Explain immediately."
TEXT FROM: BANK REP: "Mr. Sato, your liquidity has been flagged. Margin call imminent."
The phone vibrated violently, dancing across the table like a dying insect. It buzzed and buzzed, the sound of an empire collapsing in real-time.
Kenji stared at it. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. The "visionary" was watching his vision disintegrate because a woman pressed one button.
"Stop it..." Kenji whispered. "Make it stop."
"I can't," Hanae said. "The market hates instability. And you, Kenji, are the definition of unstable."
She turned her head. Her gaze shifted from the broken husband to the trembling sister.
Emi shrank back in her chair. The sequins on her pink dress rattled. She clutched her silk handkerchief to her chest, her knuckles white.
"Sister," Hanae said. The word sounded like a curse.
"I... I didn't do anything," Emi stammered, her voice thin and reedy. "I'm sick, Hanae! You know I'm sick! The stress... my heart..."
She let out a cough. Kah. Kah. It sounded practiced. The cough of a Victorian tragedy heroine, perfect for manipulating sympathy.
"Reina," Hanae said.
"Yes, Boss?" The Viper stopped twirling her knife.
"Check her purse. I want to see her medicine."
"NO!" Emi shrieked. She lunged for her clutch bag, which sat on the table.
Reina was faster. Her hand blurred. She snatched the jeweled clutch bag before Emi's fingers could graze the silk.
"Gimme," Reina giggled.
She upended the bag onto the tablecloth.
The contents spilled out. A lipstick. A compact mirror. A gold credit card (Kenji's). And three orange prescription bottles.
Reina picked up one of the bottles. She shook it. It rattled.
"Read the label," Hanae ordered.
Reina squinted. "Hmm. Not heart medicine. Not chemo. It says... Oxycodone. And this one..." She picked up the second bottle. "Adderall. And this one is just... breath mints?"
Reina popped the cap off the third bottle and sniffed. "Yep. Peppermint. To cover the smell of the booze, I bet."
Hanae looked at Emi.
"You aren't dying, Emi. You're a junkie."
Emi's face went pale. The "fragile flower" mask cracked, revealing the desperate, hollow addict beneath.
"You don't understand!" Emi cried, tears streaming down her face—real tears this time, tears of exposure. "It hurts! Being me hurts! I needed it! And Kenji... he was so easy! He gave me money whenever I coughed! I just wanted to be taken care of!"
"So you poisoned me," Hanae said.
The room went deadly silent. Even Ryuuji, standing by the pillar, straightened up.
Kenji looked up from the floor. "What?"
Hanae picked up a silver fork from the table. She examined the tines.
"Six months ago," Hanae said softly. "I started getting headaches. Nausea. Dizziness. I thought it was stress. Then I found the powder in your room, Emi. Rat poison. Arsenic base. Small doses. Just enough to make me weak. Just enough to make me 'fail' at my housewife duties so Kenji would look at you."
Emi trembled. "I... I just wanted him to see you were weak! You were always so perfect! So strong! I hated it! I wanted you to fall down!"
"I didn't fall," Hanae said. "I stood up."
She stood up now. The movement was fluid, powerful. She towered over Emi, who looked like a child caught stealing candy.
"You poisoned the Asura," Hanae whispered. "You have courage, little sister. I'll give you that."
"I'm sorry!" Emi wailed. "Please! We're family!"
"Family doesn't put arsenic in the tea."
Hanae turned back to Kenji.
"The money," she said.
Kenji blinked, wiping snot and caviar from his face. "What?"
"The money you stole. The allowances you gave her for her 'treatments.' The salary you paid yourself for the work I did. I want it back."
"I don't have it!" Kenji sobbed. "It's tied up in assets! The house! The cars!"
"Then sign them over."
Takeshi stepped forward. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a document. It was thick, stapled, and horrifyingly legal. He slammed it onto the table, right next to Kenji's vibrating phone.
"Transfer of Assets," Takeshi announced. "Real estate. Vehicles. Liquid cash. And the controlling stake of Sato Corp."
He clicked a pen—a cheap, plastic Bic pen—and threw it at Kenji.
"Sign."
Kenji looked at the document. "I... I can't. If I sign this, I have nothing. I'll be destitute!"
"You're already destitute," Hanae said coldly. "This is just the paperwork."
"I won't do it!" Kenji found a spark of defiance, fueled by sheer panic. "You can't make me! This is duress! No court will uphold this!"
Hanae looked at Ryuuji.
The Demon King pushed himself off the pillar. He adjusted his charcoal suit jacket. He walked slowly toward the table, the sound of his dress shoes echoing in the silence.
He stopped next to Hanae. He looked down at Kenji.
"Actually," Ryuuji said, his voice smooth and conversational. "The courts won't be involved."
Kenji looked at him. "Who... who are you?"
"Ryuuji Ryuguji," he introduced himself with a slight bow. "Head of the Ryuguji Clan. And, as of twelve minutes ago..."
He pulled a slip of paper from his breast pocket. It was a bank receipt.
"...the owner of your debt."
Kenji's eyes bulged. "What?"
"Your liquidity crisis," Ryuuji explained, waving the receipt. "The bank panicked when the Kurosawa guarantee was pulled. They put your debt portfolio up for immediate sale. Distressed assets. Very risky. Nobody wanted to touch it."
Ryuuji smiled. It was a predator's smile.
"So I bought it. For pennies on the dollar."
He leaned down, placing his hands on his knees so he was eye-level with Kenji.
"You owe the bank 500 million yen, Kenji. But now, you owe me 500 million yen. And the Ryuguji Clan collects with interest rates that aren't exactly... legal."
Kenji started to hyperventilate. Owing a bank meant bankruptcy. Owing the Ryuguji Clan meant waking up in a bathtub filled with ice and missing a kidney.
"So," Ryuuji continued, tapping the document Takeshi had placed on the table. "Hanae is offering you a kindness. You sign over the assets to her, and she assumes the company. Which means she assumes the debt."
He pointed at Hanae.
"She is offering to pay your debt to me. In exchange for your everything."
Ryuuji stood up and winked at Hanae. "She's a very generous woman. I would have just taken your legs."
Kenji looked at Hanae. He looked at the document. He looked at the meat cleaver on Takeshi's hip.
He realized, with absolute clarity, that his life was over. The only choice left was whether he wanted to live in poverty or die in pieces.
With a shaking, blood-stained hand, he picked up the cheap pen.
He didn't read the contract. He just signed.
Scritch. Scratch.
The signature was messy, written with a broken hand and a broken spirit.
"Done," Kenji whispered, dropping the pen. He slumped onto the floor, defeated.
Hanae picked up the document. She checked the signature.
"Takeshi," she said. "File this."
Takeshi took the papers and tucked them safely into his satchel. "Yes, Boss."
Hanae looked at the two of them. Kenji, the ruined CEO. Emi, the exposed addict.
They looked small. They looked pathetic.
The rage that had fueled her for hours—the fire that had driven her to tear her dress and jump out of a window—finally began to cool. It didn't leave her warm. It left her cold. Empty.
But it was a clean emptiness. The emptiness of a room that has finally been swept of trash.
"Get up," Hanae said.
Kenji and Emi looked at her.
"Where... where do we go?" Emi whimpered.
Hanae reached into her pocket. She pulled out a coin.
It was a 1 Yen coin. Aluminum. Lightweight. The smallest denomination in the Japanese currency. It couldn't even buy a piece of gum.
She flicked it.
The coin spun through the air, flashing under the chandelier light. It hit Kenji's chest and bounced off, rolling across the marble floor with a tinny sound.
"Start over," Hanae said.
"Without me."
"And without Tokyo," Ryuuji added helpfully. "If I see either of you in this city after sunrise... I collect on the rest of the debt."
Kenji scrambled to his feet. He grabbed Emi's arm, pulling her up. She stumbled, clutching her pills.
They didn't look back. They ran.
They ran toward the kitchen exit, slipping on the spilled champagne, looking like frightened rats fleeing a sinking ship. The Ghost Squad stepped aside to let them pass, their faces masks of stone.
The kitchen doors swung shut behind them.
Thud-thud.
They were gone.
The ballroom was quiet again.
Hanae stood alone by the head table. She looked at the wrecked cake. She looked at the empty room.
"Well," Reina said, breaking the silence. "That was fun. Can we get ramen now?"
Hanae let out a breath she felt she had been holding for six years. Her shoulders dropped half an inch.
"Ramen sounds good," she whispered.
She turned to Ryuuji. "Thank you. For the debt."
"Don't thank me," Ryuuji said, checking his watch again. "You owe me 500 million yen now. Plus interest."
Hanae smirked. "I'll put it on my tab."
RIIIIIING.
The sound cut through the room like a siren.
It wasn't Kenji's phone. It wasn't Ryuuji's.
It was the heavy, encrypted satellite phone in Hanae's pocket—the one she had used to call the army.
She frowned. Only the Ghost Squad had this number. And they were all here.
She pulled the phone out.
The screen lit up.
UNKNOWN CALLER.
COUNTRY CODE: +7 (RUSSIA)
Hanae's blood ran cold.
The Russian Cartel. The ones Jiro had been selling the streets to. The ones whose mercenaries she had just slaughtered in the tower.
They weren't calling to surrender.
She pressed the answer button. She put the phone to her ear.
"Moshi moshi," she said, her voice ice.
A voice answered. It was deep, heavily accented, and distorted by a synthesizer. But the menace was crystal clear.
"Asura," the voice said. "You broke my toys."
"They were cheap toys," Hanae replied.
The voice laughed. It was a dry, raspy sound.
"You killed Jiro. That is fine. He was weak. But he owed me a shipment. A very... volatile shipment. It is sitting in the Port of Yokohama. And now that you are the Boss..."
The voice paused.
"...the debt is yours."
"I don't pay debts for traitors," Hanae said.
"You will pay this one," the Russian said. "Or I will turn Roppongi into a crater. You have twenty-four hours to release my container."
Click.
The line went dead.
Hanae lowered the phone. She looked at Ryuuji, at Takeshi, at Reina.
The victory party was over before it began.
"Ramen?" Reina asked hopefully.
Hanae put the phone back in her pocket. She adjusted her blood-stained collar. The Dragon on her back seemed to stir, sensing the next fight.
"To go," Hanae said. "We're going to the docks."
[End of Chapter 8]