Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 101427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
“I’m the head, Hiro. That means I’m perfect bait. They’ll keep their eyes on me, more than you.”
Hiro sneered.
And I caught the flicker of fear in his eyes that he always tried to bury.
Then he whispered, “Please.”
For a second, something cracked under my ribs.
That was Hiro’s version of desperately begging.
I offered him a small, crooked smile. The kind I only ever gave him. Then I winked. “I’ll be safe, brother. I just met my Tiger. I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.”
I moved deeper into the forest with the twins, keeping myself visible in the moonlight so both watchers could clearly see me.
I knew the plan the second Hiro raised his fist.
We weren’t going to shoot.
Not yet.
Distraction first.
Kaede would draw attention with a silenced shot on the far edge—somewhere it would echo off the bamboo and confuse their sense of position.
Toma would let his chain clink. Just once. Just enough to make the watcher on the ground glance left instead of up.
Daisuke would release a canister of scent-flood—something sharp, fungal, laced with blood and rot.
Nothing deadly.
Just disorienting.
And Hiro?
He was going for the one in the trees.
I didn’t need him to tell me. I felt it. Knew it like instinct. He would climb from behind. Wrap a hand around the bastard’s jaw. Slice through his neck with silence and finality.
And then he’d disappear back into the sway.
Meanwhile, the twins would wait, shielding me.
Those two will be dead soon. The bigger problem is. . .where are the other three psychos?
Chapter seventeen
The Hunt for Traitors
Kenji
The farther the twins and I went, the more grotesque it became.
One man had been stripped naked and tied to a central pole. Dozens of tiny bamboo shoots had been stabbed into his skin—arms, thighs, stomach, chest. Not deep enough to kill. Just enough to puncture and fester.
Each shoot had splintered inside his muscle, curling beneath the surface like barbed hooks.
His mouth hung open in a frozen scream, lips blistered and blue. His tongue had been sliced clean. Reo’s work, no doubt. My Roar had placed the man’s tongue neatly on a silk napkin at his feet—folded, elegant, obscene.
Only my Roar would think to present a mutilation like a dinner course.
And even crazier, the man wasn’t dead.
His lashes fluttered. His stomach heaved in tiny jerks. The shoots had missed his vital organs on purpose. I didn’t recognize this man, but I trusted Reo and knew he deserved it.
We stepped over another man clawing at the ground.
One of his legs had been impaled by a black bamboo tree. Blood soaked the moss in wide rings. His nails scraped uselessly at the ground.
He murmured in Japanese, “Please. . .please stop this. Give me. . .mercy. . .”
I frowned. “Quiet him.”
Aki moved without a word, stepped forward, slid behind the man’s head, and wrapped the garrote wire once around his throat.
Aki didn’t let go until that final twitch came of the body surrendering.
Mercy delivered.
The wire unspooled. Aki stepped back into position beside me.
And then just like silently planned, the forest cracked open behind us.
First came the muffled thump of Kaede’s silenced shot, sharp and clean. A punctuation mark.
Next the chain. Toma’s metallic serpent clinked once—just once—and then came the first scream.
Wet.
Gurgling.
A gun fired.
Then the unmistakable sound of someone hitting the moss-covered ground. Lots of screaming came next.
Daisuke and the rest are torturing him. Good. That should draw out the others.
I turned my head west, just in time to catch a silhouette of my brother racing up the bamboo like a goddamn shadow with muscle. One hand gripped a stalk, the other flicked upward with a blade.
He was fast.
Fluid.
Unnatural.
His body arched in the air, knees bent, blade out. Death, climbing toward the stars.
The second man will be dead soon.
And that’s when I felt it.
Wait a minute.
Another prickle came again. This time, it hit my chest. The pressure. The chill. That third eye sensation that made my skin tighten across my ribs.
Another watcher. Not in the East or West, but right in fucking front of me.
I didn’t have time to think.
Just felt and heard the click—metal on metal—somewhere in front of me.
I screamed, “Drop!”
The word tore out of me before I even heard myself.
Me and the twins hit the ground at the same time, trained instinct snapping our bodies flat against the moss.
The bullet kissed my skin—just a whisper—but it sliced a line across my cheek. Hot. Immediate. I didn’t flinch. Couldn’t. I was already calculating distance, trajectory, wind.
A warm line of blood bloomed across my face.
I didn’t stop to wipe it.
Now I knew where the third bastard was.
“Straight ahead.” I jumped up and launched forward—low, fast, blood trailing my jaw. I raced that way and spotted the piece of shit.
His shadow bolted—zigzagging through stalks like he thought the bamboo would shield him.
Adrenaline spiked.
My legs took over.
Leaves slapped my arms as I shot through the thicket.