Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 161615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 539(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 539(@300wpm)
Thirty more fucking names.
Thirty more snakes hidden in my organization.
Gardeners.
Cooks.
Guards.
A whole network he'd been managing for fifteen years while pretending to be my friend.
Sighing, I checked behind me and realized the guards took several more steps back, but I caught the glance that passed between them.
Quick.
Uncertain.
Uncomfortable.
I'd seen these men gut enemies without flinching. Watched them clean blood from their knuckles like it was nothing more than dirt. But something on my face tonight made them look away.
Perhaps, even monsters recognized when they were standing too close to the abyss.
My jaw ached from clenching.
From holding everything in.
I'd burned Sako's father alive in front of him. The old man who had wept silently through his son's entire confession. The man who had nodded once—just once—when Sako mouthed "I'm sorry" through his broken jaw.
The pregnant sister, I'd released. She'd screamed and screamed as they dragged her away while I torched her husband, and Sako had vomited against the ceramic tile.
One mercy.
That was all I could afford.
I reached out, my hand hovering over the handle.
Arata had stopped screaming by the time Totoro’s flames kissed his mother's nightgown.
He just. . .watched.
His body had gone rigid against the chains, every muscle locked, his eyes fixed on the small woman who had raised him. She was still confused—had been confused since they'd dragged her from her bed.
Her milky eyes couldn't see well in the harsh fluorescent light, and she kept asking where she was, why it was so cold, why her sons were crying.
She never got an answer.
The flame caught the cotton first.
A small bloom of orange at the hem.
Almost pretty.
Almost gentle.
Then it climbed.
"Mama," Arata whispered.
Just that.
Just her name.
She didn't scream at first. The confusion held her still for two eternal seconds—her aged mind trying to process why she was suddenly warm, why there was light crawling up her body, why her skin felt tight and then tighter and then. . .
The screaming started.
But it wasn't hers.
It was Arata's.
A sound I'd never heard from a grown man—high, keening, broken. His throat tearing itself apart as he thrashed against chains that wouldn't give.
His wrists splitting open against the metal, blood streaming down his arms, and he didn't notice, didn't care, because his mother was burning and he couldn't reach her.
His brother just stared in this broken way, watching his mother's grey hair ignite into a flaming halo.
Her lips peel back from her teeth.
Her nightgown melted into her skin.
Her frail hands clawed at the air, reaching for sons who couldn't save her.
And I watched Arata break.
Not his body.
His mind.
I saw the exact moment it happened—the light leaving his eyes, something fundamental snapping behind them. His screams cut off mid-breath, and what remained was silence.
A shell.
A man-shaped thing staring at the blackening remains of the woman who had given him life.
His lips were still moving.
Mama. Mama. Mama.
But no sound came out anymore.
The rest of the families were burned alive, before I set flame to the traitors. They had to see what they’d done, before they met their deaths.
All the parents.
The college boy.
Dead by fire.
Screaming to the end.
Ashes.
Tons of ashes.
And the smell of burning bodies.
I should have showered longer. Should have scrubbed harder. My Tiger will smell the death on me. She'll see it in my eyes. She'll know what I am. She’ll want to run.
On the other side of my bedroom door, Nyomi was there.
Clean.
Warm.
Untouched by what I’d just done.
Everything I wasn't right now.
She already knows what I am. Doesn’t she?
I turned the knob, pushed the door open, and walked in.
The lights were low. Moonlight streamed through the windows, painting silver streaks across the floor. And there, curled in the center of our massive bed, my Tiger slept.
Nyomi.
My heart clenched at the sight of her.
She lay on her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, her braids fanned across the pillow. The sheets had slipped down to her waist, revealing the soft curve of her shoulder and the elegant line of her neck.
Beautiful.
So fucking beautiful it hurt to look at her.
Sako's father had wept the entire time. Quiet tears streaming down his weathered face as his son confessed to years of betrayal and began spitting out every name.
The old man hadn't said a word.
Hadn't begged or pleaded.
Just wept and shook his head.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Stop. Stop. They’re dead. It's done. Stop.
When I opened them again, I focused only on Nyomi. Let her steady breathing become my anchor. Let her warmth pull me back from the edge of whatever pit I was falling into.
I moved closer, my bare feet silent on the floor.
On the nightstand beside her, a book lay open and face-down. I recognized the cover immediately.
When the Dragon Swallowed the Moon.
She must have been reading it before she fell asleep.
Waiting for me to return.
For the first time in hours, a smile tugged at my lips—small, private, nothing like the cold mask I'd worn in the prison.