Kobayashi bowed in agreement, lower than Reno would have expected. Maybe it was true that the old man would eventually die, but that wasn’t going to happen for many years, no matter how frail he’d suddenly become. He’d outlive Hitomi-san and his fellow traitors—hell, he’d outlive them all.
“Tell them I’m coming,” Reno said wearily.
“They already know, young master.” He jerked his head toward the black sedan waiting by the curb, one of many at the upscale hotel.
No time to get in touch with Kyo, no time for backup of any sort. If he was going to keep Jilly alive, he was going to have to walk into the lion’s den, just like that stupid story he’d learned in the Bible class he’d been forced to go to to learn some of his mother’s culture. A waste of time, even if there were occasionally good stories.
He nodded. “Let’s go, then.” He yanked his long red braid from underneath his jacket, letting it hang loose down his back, put his sunglasses back on his nose and composed his face into a faint sneer. And then he strolled toward the sedan at a leisurely pace. Ready to do battle.
Why didn’t she ever learn not to run away when things were difficult? Jilly thought. Not that there was anything else to do but think—she was tied up and dumped in some kind of a storeroom, filled with boxes and one narrow cot. Just to make sure she couldn’t investigate, they’d tied her to the cot, and while she could probably hop across the room, dragging the metal bed with her, it didn’t seem to be worth the effort.
How stupid could she have been? Almost three years ago she’d done the same damned thing in California. She’d run away from people sent to protect her, straight into the arms of a madman, and if it weren’t for Isobel Lambert and the Committee she would have been brainwashed or dead or both.
And now she’d done it again. No matter how hurt, how angry she was, she still should have stayed with Reno. He was the only one who had managed to keep her relatively safe, from everyone else, if not from him. She could have given him the cold, silent treatment. Reno was unbelievably tough, but even the strongest man eventually cracked under the silent treatment. Even her ruthless father quailed.
But no, she had to run out of the room, straight into the arms of what could only be Hitomi’s men. She was learning to tell yakuza from a distance—they wore garish suits and had carefully arranged hair, the polar opposite of Reno’s red-dyed mane and black leather. But there was no mistaking the coldness in their eyes, the way they carried themselves.
She hadn’t even gotten to the elevator. In fact, she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened. Someone had put a cloth over her face, and everything went dark. They must have used chloroform or something equally nasty, because the next thing she remembered she was alone in this cold, dark room, bound and gagged. Presumably back in the huge cement warehouse that provided the front for Ojiisan’s headquarters.
Were they going to kill her? If so, why were they waiting?
At least Reno would be relieved—she was no longer his problem. If she had any sense at all, she’d be much more upset about the fact that she’d been kidnapped and would most likely be killed. Not still obsessing over the night she spent with Reno in her bed.
Then again, she’d learned one thing in the past few days. Being a child brainiac with an astronomical IQ didn’t do a spit of good if she had absolutely no common sense. And where Reno was concerned, she was brain-dead.
Whoever had tied the ropes was far too good at it
—it probably came from practice. They weren’t tight enough to cut off the circulation, and she could move her muscles enough to keep from cramping up. But there was absolutely no way in hell she could even begin to untie them.
She looked at her bound wrists. Maybe she could try her teeth….
Unbidden came the memory of Reno suggesting she undo his fundoshi with her teeth. She dropped her head down on her knees with a groan. It was bad enough being kidnapped and, probably, eventually murdered. Did she have to be haunted by the biggest mistake in the history of the world?
Though, maybe it wasn’t that big a mistake. She’d never expected anything from him, and the fact that they’d had mind-shattering sex could be construed as a good thing. At least she wasn’t going to die a semivirgin, even if she’d been as bad at sex as he’d told her.
But if she’d been that bad, that uninspiring, then why had he come back to her, over and over again? Why hadn’t he walked away?
She lifted her head from her knees, leaning back against the wall with a groan. There was no way she was going to make sense of it, make peace with it. She wasn’t going to be seeing him again—that was at least one small blessing of being kidnapped by a Japanese gangster. She could live out whatever days or hours she had left knowing she’d never have to look at his far-too-pretty face.
The door to the storeroom opened, and one of the blank-faced men appeared. Except that he was young, probably younger than Reno. He had a nasty-looking knife in one hand, and she wondered if it was going to be over that quickly. Why had they even bothered bringing her here if they were going to kill her so quickly?
If they thought she was going to go down without a fight, they were wrong. She waited until he got close enough, and then she kicked out with her bound legs, trying to knock him off balance.
He scrambled to his feet and backhanded her across the face, hard, and she saw nothing but a red haze for a moment before she shook her head to clear it. He was already slicing through the ropes, not through her. Okay, she could put up with being slugged if it meant she got to live for a while longer. She wasn’t big on going gently into that dark night.
He hauled her to her feet, smart enough not to cut the ropes on her ankles while she could still kick him in the head. He only came up to her shoulder, and he had a sullen expression and a slick, black pompadour, but she didn’t make the mistake of underestimating him. He was the one who held the knife.
He leaned down and sliced through her ankle bonds, roughly, the blade nicking her skin as he jumped away, wisely not trusting her. She was considering making a run for it when he put the knife away, only to pull out a small, serviceable-looking gun instead. Maybe not; he was probably a decent shot and she didn’t want to die with a bullet in her back, running away.
Without a word he pushed her out into the barren hallway, gesturing for her to precede him. For a moment she didn’t move, wondering exactly what he’d do, but then she thought better of it. Her face still stung from his backhanded blow—yakuza-boy would not hesitate to hit her again to get her to do what he wanted. So she put her head down and began walking.
The hall was ill-lit and cold, and it looked like the corridor she and Reno had run down, stark and empty, the kind of corridor a trapped rat might race down. That eerie, trapped sense got worse as she turned the corner three times, at her captor’s prodding, and each corridor looked exactly the same.
“Dozo,” he said, stopping her in front of a door, and her stomach knotted. It looked like the room where she’d seen the murder. But all these rooms looked alike, except for Ojiisan’s throne room, and what were the chances of her being taken to the same room where she’d seen murder committed?
Very good, it turned out. She was pushed inside the large room, and the first thing she saw was the bloodstain on the floor, where she’d last seen a dead body.
There were half a dozen men in the room, talking in low voices, and they didn’t look up when she came in. Her surly guide closed the door behind them, and she stood still, wondering if she could make a break for it.