A single drop of blood slid slowly along the coiling dragon tattooed across Kento's bare chest.
The wooden door of the room swung open and shut with a frantic click. Kento stood there gasping, leaning his back against the frame. His face bore a fresh bruise, and blood trickled from his split lower lip—the price his father, the Grand Boss, had extracted for his refusal to give her up.
Emma watched him from the corner of the room. She quickly tucked the sharp shard of glass deeper into the folds of her black silk kimono.
Kento approached her with staggering steps, heavy with the weight of a terminal despair. He didn't speak. He collapsed to his knees before her and buried his face in her lap, coiling his powerful arms around her waist like a child seeking sanctuary—yet with the heat and hunger of a man on the verge of a breakdown.
"Emma... oh, Emma..." he whispered her name feverishly, his hot breath piercing the thin silk to sear the skin of her stomach.
Emma slowly raised her trembling hands. (Kill him now,) a dark, terrified part of her mind shrieked. (Drive the glass into his neck and run!)
But the cold mind, forged by the brutal streets of Michigan, silenced that voice. (I have no protection code here. If the heir to the clan dies in my room, his men will tear me apart. I need him alive... as a shield and a way out.)
Instead of glass, Emma lowered her fingers to thread them through his messy brown hair. She began to stroke his head with a false, angelic tenderness. This deceptive gentleness was the spark that ignited the powder keg inside Kento.
He snapped his head up. His hazel eyes overflowed with a savage glint—the look of a man who realizes his end is near and wants to consume every drop of life before he dies.
He lunged at her, driving her down onto the tatami mat, moving to tower over her completely. There were no preliminaries. He devoured her lips in a desperate, deep, and intensely violent kiss. He preyed upon her mouth harshly, his tongue penetrating her as if searching for his lost soul within her. The taste of blood from his split lip mingled with their saliva, giving the kiss a metallic tang—the flavor of death and lust.
His large hands slid beneath the kimono with a boldness she hadn't felt from him before. He touched her bare skin with a heat that melted the illusory ice she had wrapped herself in. He gripped her thighs firmly, lifting them to coil around his solid waist, and pressed his burning hardness with a titan's force against her core through her thin lace.
Emma gasped loudly, arching her back toward him, faking submission and ecstasy.
"You're mine... I swear I'll get you out of here... even if I have to kill my father," Kento whispered against her neck. He began to plant searing kisses and possessive bites along her collarbone, trailing down to the cleavage of her chest.
Her body jolted with every touch. His heat was contagious, and his violent friction against her awakened primal physical desires she couldn't deny, but her mind... her mind was pure ice.
While Kento was occupied preying upon her neck and chest, his eyes squeezed shut from the sick pleasure he derived from her surrender, Emma's right hand slid with the agonizing slowness and grace of a serpent along his waist.
She felt for his leather belt in the dark. She wasn't looking for the glass. She was looking for something far more important.
(The small tactical knife... and the magnetic card for the hideout's rear gates,) she remembered seeing him tuck them into his rear belt.
While Emma let out a long, deliberate, and provocative moan that made Kento lose his focus entirely and increase his physical pressure on her... she snatched the card and the knife with a terrifying dexterity, hiding them beneath her pillow in one fluid, covert motion.
"I'll protect you..." he whispered, burying his face in her hair, utterly unaware that the girl melting in his arms had just stolen the keys to her salvation—and perhaps... the tool for his murder.
Simultaneously – Police Tactical Operations Base (Okutama Mountain Foothills)
Rain poured in sheets, washing over the black SUVs of the Japanese SWAT units. Dozens of officers, laden with black tactical gear and shields, made their final preparations.
Amidst this terrifying military scene stood Rin Tae-min.
The movie star was gone. He wore a bulletproof vest over a black shirt, his raven hair completely soaked, and his eyes... his eyes were entirely empty, like twin pits of cold hell.
Sayuri, his new fiancée (the police chief's daughter), stood beside him, holding a black umbrella to shield him from the rain. She reached out her delicate hand and placed it on his muscular arm. "Everything is ready, Tae-min. My father's forces will wipe the hideout off the map. We will get her back."
Tae-min looked at Sayuri's hand on his arm. He felt nothing. No heat, no disgust, nothing. He had extinguished his soul entirely to strike this diabolical bargain.
He brushed her hand away with absolute coldness, not even looking at her.
"Tell the commander my final order," Tae-min said in a raspy, booming voice that cut through the roar of the rain like a blade. He turned toward the mountain peak where Kento and Emma were hiding.
"I want no prisoners," Tae-min growled, his tone carrying the cruelty of an angry god. "Whether they raise a weapon or not, kill them all. Burn that goddamn hideout over their heads. Spare only Emma... and if you find Kento Sasaki... leave him to me. I will rip out his heart with my bare hands."
Sayuri trembled at the bloodlust in his eyes. She realized in that moment that this man would never be hers. He had sold his soul to marry her legally, but his heart, his mind, and his madness circled around one woman alone—and he was prepared to ignite a bloody gang war for her.
11:30 PM – The Yakuza Hideout
Kento had finally drifted into a shallow sleep from physical exhaustion and minor blood loss, his head still resting on Emma's chest, his heavy arm coiling around her waist.
Emma opened her eyes in the dark. There was no fog in them.
With a smooth, incredible slowness, she eased his arm off her. She held her breath as she slid out from under his massive frame. He didn't wake.
She snatched the tactical knife and the card from beneath the pillow. She slipped into her shoes silently. She looked at the sleeping Kento for a single second. (You were my sanctuary once,) she thought without a shred of regret, (but you became my jailer. I hope I don't have to kill you tonight.)
Before she could place her hand on the door handle to slip out...
CRASH!
The wooden shoji door of the room was completely shattered into splinters!
Kento surged from his sleep, drawing a pistol from beneath his pillow with a professional killer's instinct in a fraction of a second. Emma recoiled, the small knife clutched in her trembling hand.
In the shattered entrance stood four senior Yakuza men, their faces twisted with rage, their submachine guns aimed directly at Kento and Emma!
"What the hell are you doing?!" Kento roared, aiming his muzzle at the nearest man. "Lower your weapons or I'll empty my clip into your skulls!"
"Orders from the Grand Boss, Sasaki-sama," the leader of the group said with a lethal chill. "SWAT teams are breaching the outer perimeter. Someone betrayed us and leaked our location to Tae-min. The Boss has ordered the girl moved immediately to the front courtyard... to be our human shield against the bullets."
"You won't take her!" Kento screamed, standing before Emma as a human shield.
"The Boss said you'd resist," the leader replied, flashing a bloody smile. "And he told us... not to hesitate to put down the Clan's heir if he chooses a foreign whore over his family."
Click! Click! Click! The slides of the four submachine guns were racked.
In that exact moment, while the Yakuza's eyes were fixed on Kento...
A terrifying sound from the sky shook the mountain's very foundations.
WHOP-WHOP-WHOP-WHOP!
The sound of black police helicopter blades tearing through the rainy night sky directly over the hideout! Massive searchlights from the choppers pierced through the rotted wooden roof, bathing the room in a brilliant, blinding white light, exposing Emma standing in the corner, the knife gleaming in her hand.
Gunfire began to rain down like metallic hail from outside, shattering the paper walls, and the screams of Yakuza men filled the air.
The massacre had begun. The zero hour had struck.