To the disaster where there’d once been order.
After leaving Pim, I’d requested Selix to drive me there for no other reason than to make sure my mother was truly gone. I stepped over the threshold full of stupid fantasies that my okaasan and uncle would finally decide to talk to me—to sit and listen and forgive and move on. That there might be a future where she wouldn’t hate me.
After all, I’d earned the love of one woman.
If I could do that…didn’t I deserve a second chance from my family? What I wouldn’t give to have a network of loved ones to introduce Pim to. To show her how good a big family could be—how protective and wild and heartbreaking all at the same time.
But those dreams were dashed and pointless as I entered my house, noticing the Chinmoku had done what I’d always feared and found me.
Tables were upended, drawers open, windows smashed. The cupboard housing the shrine to my father and brother wrenched wide and massacred with brutal force. My temper turned black with fury that their memory had been desecrated by the same filth who had killed them.
This was where I came to pray, to forgot, to beg for forgiveness.
Snippets of happier times played in the silence of the house. My father’s laugh. My brother’s tiny punches. It physically hurt to remember them.
But the fucking Chinmoku’s version of a cleaning crew had been through and yet again destroyed my temple.
I stood in my ransacked lounge and breathed war.
My mother should never have used her passport to travel here. She should never have left the anonymity of her new home with family members the Chinmoku didn’t know about.
Now, they knew where she would return to and where I was.
It had finally begun.
In a way, I was glad.
I’d been waiting for this day for far too long.
They wanted to kill me for leaving their brotherhood and I wanted to kill them for murdering my loved ones. This deadly chase would end in either their deaths or mine—it was just a matter of who found who first.
Game on, motherfuckers.
Stalking around broken pieces of furniture and eyeing up the kitchen knives imbedded into my walls, I sought clues as to how many had trespassed and if they’d left a calling card—just like they had when they’d burned my childhood house to the ground.
Moving into the master bedroom—where my mother had made herself at home—I found it.
Not written in blood this time but just as invasive in black dripping spray-paint. The acrid stench of chemicals replaced any comfort the house naturally permeated.
My eyes skated over their message: ‘Once a Chinmoku always a Chinmoku. You ran like a coward. Now you will die like a traitor.’
The promise was reminiscent of the last one. My rage turned into a tar ready to creep and suffocate anyone who so much as touched me and mine.
Pim…
She was out there...on her own.
The heartbreak at losing my father and brother was nothing compared to the heart-destruction at the thought of Pim being executed by the bastards of my past.
I had to find her.
I had to protect her.
I had to do a better fucking job than I did when I was thirteen.
The ocean called to me—its waves urging me to sail away and never return to shore. Out on the watery horizon, no one could sneak up on us. Alrik might’ve asked me to install weaponry on his ill-fated yacht, but his suggestions were nothing compared to what I’d adorned the Phantom with.
She was a floating fortress. An ark.
And it was time to return to her.
But your promise…to make love to Pim.
My hands curled even as my pulse remained steady in the face of the upcoming battle. Pim needed one more night of affection. Shit, I needed one more night of affection.
I wanted her too much to be chased into hiding by these cocksuckers.
One more night.
In that case, I needed something to ensure I behaved.
Ignoring the oozing spray-paint dripping onto the bed and pillows below, I picked up the kicked-over bedside table and pulled free the bamboo box from its interior.
Pim had wrung a promise from me that I didn’t know if I could deliver. Tonight would either be in my realm of capabilities, or it would send me into a dark, dark place I would struggle to climb out of.
Either way, I wouldn’t return to that hotel without being prepared.
Weed wouldn’t help me tonight.
My other crutches would fail.
I had to come up with another plan. One that might, just might, circumnavigate my useless brain. A plan that could technically help Pim as it did me. It would force her to take accountability for what she was asking me to do.
Stroking the bamboo lid, I didn’t need to open it to remember what was inside.
Gifts from the men who’d torn apart my house.
Tools of my trade as a fighter for their cause.
Making sure I had the key to the box in my pocket, I called the service I used to maintain this mausoleum and requested an urgent tidy up.
I didn’t know why the Chinmoku hadn’t hung around to finish the job when I entered. I didn’t know where they’d gone. But I’d been ready for them for years. It was me they should fear, not the other way around.
Storming outside, I slid into the car, and ordered Selix to drive me to the warehouse.
There, I’d found he’d had my cello delivered, and all thoughts of working were dismissed.
And now that I’d had my musical fix, I was ready to find Pim.
Ready to hunt her, watch her, and somehow find the strength to love her.
*
I’d followed her for the past ten minutes.
She hadn’t seen me thanks to my habits as a thief and my training as a killing ghost.
Normally, my heart rate didn’t spike when stalking my prey. I remained focused and sharp, locked on one mission and one mission only.
But Pim?
Fuck me, this girl made my entire body disobey me. My palms sweated as she weaved between travellers and locals. My heart raced as she bumped into strange men and battled with her training to drop her eyes ready for a fist, to tentatively smiling and believing she was safe from harm.
The two guards I’d demanded follow her did a good job; shadowing her but not suffocating her, they diligently watched foot traffic and made appropriate calls on what and who were a threat.
I scanned the crowds for any sign of the Chinmoku, but all seemed normal. If they were here, I’d sense them before seeing them. For now, the hairs on the back of my neck remained unchanged. Knowing them, they’d retreat to plan an attack now they knew where I lived.
Unfortunately for them, they thought I resided in the house upon the hill and not in a garrison on the open waters.
Apart from my mess catching up with me, Monte Carlo was too drunk on its own superiority to be a danger to most. The worst crime in this city was a high-powered poker game with a million dollar buy-in followed by the tears of those who lost. Petty criminals weren’t here. They were outcast by the masterminds who operated in full view under the guise of well-known businesses.
In fact, the only person who was a threat to this city was Pim.