Fire and Ice (Ice 5)

Unlikely. “You know, if you brought me here to kill me like you did the other man, then you might as well get to it,” she said in her most annoyed voice. “I’m really getting tired of all this drama.”

One man lifted his head to look at her, and she had no doubt at all that this was the notorious Hitomi-san. His eyes were flat and cold, and he emanated an ugly kind of power. “You are very brave for a gaijin,” he said in heavily accented English. “But we have no plans to kill you if Hiromasa-san does what he’s ordered to do.”

“Who?”

Hitomi’s lips curled in contempt. “I believe he calls himself Reno. If he agrees to come here and trade his presence for yours, then you can go back home and never have to think about this place again. And that is what I would advise. Tokyo is not a very healthy place for you.”

“I don’t think I’ll have the option. Reno isn’t going to put his life on the line for me.”

“He has been doing just that for the past four days. Why should that have changed?”

Well, because we slept together and he found me wanting? No, that was the last thing she was going to say. “You didn’t give him the choice of him or me before,” she said instead. “I don’t think he’s going to sacrifice himself for my sake.”

“Then you do not understand Japanese honor.”

“Do you?”

The silence in the room was absolute, and the man who’d brought her there, the one who’d hit her before, took a threatening step toward her.

Hitomi-san held up a hand to forestall him. A hand that was missing parts of several fingers, and he wore a gaudy diamond ring on one stump.

“For your sake, Miss Lovitz, I hope you are wrong. In the meantime you may sit over there and keep quiet. My men will never hurt you unless I give them the order, but it wouldn’t be wise to test me.”

Jilly had gone beyond fear, gone beyond hope, but she hadn’t gone beyond common sense, so she swallowed her instinctive retort and let yakuza-boy push her into a chair in the corner. “I don’t suppose the condemned woman could have a last meal?” she said.

Hitomi-san looked confused for a moment.

“I’m hungry,” she said. “Can I have some food before you kill me?”

Hitomi’s amusement wasn’t the most reassuring thing she’d ever seen, but he sent yakuza-boy off with orders that were too muffled for her to understand. He’d probably bring back tentacles.

She sat, absently rubbing her wrists where the rope had chafed her. Her cheek was throbbing—she’d probably have a bruise, assuming she lived long enough for one to form. Life had taken on an air of absurdity—and she fully intended to treat it as such. If she was going to die in a warehouse in Tokyo, then she was going to do it with style. Lianne would be proud of her.

The door opened again, and she looked up, hoping it was yakuza-boy with tentacle-free sashimi, but instead the giant bodyguard filled the entrance. He bowed, and Hitomi-san gestured him to enter.

And then Jilly saw what was hidden behind his massive bulk. Reno.

She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just watched him as he strolled into the room as if he owned it, never glancing in her direction. There was a time when she thought that swagger was obnoxious. Right now it filled her with ridiculous hope. Maybe they weren’t doomed.

Hitomi-san gave a short, sketchy bow, and Reno returned it with a flare that somehow reminded her of the Three Musketeers. “I believe you have something of mine, Hitomi-san,” he said in Japanese.

“It was kind of you to join us, Hiromasa-san,” he replied. “Though I felt sure you would come.”

“Did you?”

“If not for the sake of the annoying gaijin, then for your esteemed grandfather.”

At that point Reno shot a cool, ironic glance in her direction. “She is a pain, is she not? But hardly worth the trouble it would cause if she were to disappear. And you are a very smart man, Hitomi-san. You would never need

lessly complicate matters over someone so trivial.”

Hitomi-san’s malicious smile didn’t help matters. “Aah, but Hiromasa-san, you know I’m a man who pays attention to even the smallest detail. It is the reason behind my success. There’s no way to trace her disappearance back to us. Enough people know that Russian mercenaries were in the country and she got in the way.”

“With your help.”

“Of course. Details, Hiromasa-san. Your grandfather is old, and his organization belongs to another age. You and I both know that. We can bring it into the future. As your grandfather’s natural heirs, both you and your cousin are welcome to join us, of course.”

“I don’t think so,” Reno said, his voice cool.