That night, Ryuzo tried to break every item in his house. As I sighed, another dish went flying toward the wall of the kitchen.

Jiji sat on the countertop, watching amusedly like the demon she was. In my arms, Susu clung to my shirt for comfort, flinching with the sounds that were little more than a tantrum to me.

"Ryuzo . . ." I half scolded, half called for his attention. Another plate smashed into pieces against the wall, making Susu bury her little head in my chest. I was at my limit. "Ryuzo!"

He stopped, still fuming, but hiding much more beneath his anger.

"Are you still breaking shit, or can we use our words like adults?"

He stood still, his eyes pinned to the floor. "I'm sorry," he said. "There is a lot I should explain."

"Yeah, no shit." It was difficult to hide my bad mood, even though I knew Ryuzo wasn't the cause of it. "That man. The boss. He isn't just the oyabun, he's your father."

Ryuzo looked up at me with shame. "Yes."

"Why did you not tell me?"

He shook his head with disappointment. "That is not something we share with the public. By the time I knew I could trust you . . . I no longer wanted to scare you away."

He fell for me. Had I known, would it have stopped me from falling for him? "So, what does this mean? What does that make you?"

His knuckles turned white as he gripped the edge of the countertop.

"We are well past the point of you not telling me shit anymore. Talk."

With a heavy breath, he unglued his feet from the floor, circling the island and slumping onto the stool next to me. He scratched Susu's ear to reassure her and avoid my gaze. "Osamu Yokoyama is oyabun of the Fujiwara-kai. I am his son. His only son."

"But that doesn't mean anything on its own, right? He demoted you all the way to the restaurant."

"My father wanted to show I have to earn my rank like everyone else, but in name, I will always be part of the Fujiwara-Yokoyama line."

His explanation made me shake my head in disbelief. "You told me you planned to get out."

"I do."

"And in what world would that be possible when you're the fucking heir, Zo?!"

The light behind his eyes dimmed. He leaned onto the counter and hung his head in his hands.

"I didn't mean to say it that way. I'm just . . . lost," I comforted him. "Did you really believe your plan would work?"

Ryuzo lifted his head, combing his fingers into his hair to hold it out of his face. The sadness in his eyes was too much. I had seen it in him and the men I grew up with — the desperation to break a damning generational chain, while the world did everything it could to make that impossible.

"He was losing faith in me," he said. "I thought he would give up, choose to adopt one of his officers to carry on the name instead, but he must have figured out what I was doing. Now that he knows about you, he has the perfect leverage to make me do what he wants."

The worst type of flattery. "Baby, no. He only has that power of you if you let him. There has to be something we can do."

He contemplated my words for a moment, then said, "Leave tonight."

"What? How?"

"Call your company and tell them to place you somewhere else."

I wanted to laugh. "It doesn't work like that."

"Why not?"

"I can't leave after what happened tonight. They'll assume I'll snitch and blame this on you." I knew I was right when he wouldn't look at me. "Jesus, Zo. He almost cut off your finger for being silent. What will he do to you if I leave and you don't?"

"I can't go with you. They will stop me before I get anywhere or they will find me and bring me back." He shook his head. "You have to go. You only have a little more than a week left of your contract. I can take whatever he does to me."

I cursed under my breath, knowing it was the worst time to tell him what I did. "Zo, I've been trying to tell you for weeks . . . I signed a new contract with my agency. I'm here for another six months."

His face dropped, his skin losing a shade of warmth. "What?"

"I signed it weeks ago after you took me to see the cherry blossoms. I . . . wanted more time with you."

He turned and let out a string of curse words in both languages. I thought he walked away to calm himself, but the stool he sent flying across the room showed I was wrong. I let Susu onto the floor to scurry away. Jiji jumped down and followed her.

"Baby, stop. Come here," I said calmly.

He came to me, deflated and ashamed. I wrapped my arms around him. He gripped me tightly, just shy of hurting me, his muscles warm and tense beneath my hands. Lifting me from the stool, he sat me on the counter, placing me on his level and at the perfect height to bury his head in my neck.

"I'm sorry, Mina."

I brushed a hand over his hair, unwilling to accept his apology yet, but acknowledging it all the same. "I know."

He calmed under my touch, his muscles relaxing beneath my hands. His kisses moved from my neck to my cheek. "I am so, so sorry. You are my sakura. You were supposed to leave before anything could happen to you, but I wanted every second I could have before I had to let you go. And now . . ."

The catch is his throat didn't allow him to continue. His grip tightened instead.

My brow furrowed. This was bad — very bad — but something would not let me believe he had anything to do with his father's scheme.

"Why don't you go outside and take a breath? You're on ten right now. Scaring the babies isn't going to help us figure this out."

He let me go with a nod, avoiding my eyes to hide the emotion in his. He went through the sliding doors, giving me space to breathe as well. Behind me, the kitchen was a wreck. For some reason, seeing his anger helped ease my own.

After gathering the things I needed from his bathroom, I went downstairs and found him sitting on the deck outside. He leaned against the glass door, his knees propped up, a lit cigarette dangling between his bloodied fingers. He moved to stamp it out. I waved away his gesture. One wouldn't kill him any more than the last thirty thousand had.

"I am going to quit," he commented on my unspoken thought.

"I know." I closed the door behind me and sat next to him, upwind, and took his injured hand in mine.

The cut was bigger than I thought — the injury more severe than he let on. Blood had coverd the side of his hand and trickled down to his wrist, some of it dry, some of it fresh. His hand quivered when he held it out. Adrenaline most likely, but it wouldn't have surprised me if part of it was fear. As calm as I was, just a flash of him pinned down on that table made my heart race all over again.

"So . . ." I broke the silence. "I see why you hate your father now."

A dark chuckle rumbled in his chest as he took a drag of his cigarette. He tilted his head back against the door, letting the smoke waft slowly from his lips before exhaling the rest. I desperately needed to cut the tension, for my sanity as well as his. 

"I know this is a horrible time to bring this up, but your dad is fine."

Finally, I got a laugh out of him. "Shut up."

"I'm deadass. It's good news for you, if that's what you're going to look like at fifty. I love you for real, but if I didn't . . . he could get it."

Ryuzo covered his eyes while he cackled, his beautiful cat-like smile on full display. I chuckled with him. Breaking his shame spiral made me feel so much better. I barely recognized how easily I love you had come out of my mouth. 

There was an answer to the complicated problem we were in. I had to see the situation for what it was and find a way to regain control.

Powerful men, as tough and emotionless as they pretended to be, always had a weakness that would shatter them in a second. I learned what Ryuzo's was. I could do the same with his father.

"How much did you tell him about me?" I asked.

"Nothing. Maybe I said your name, or maybe he didn't even need that. Anything that is public record anywhere, he can find it." He took one last drag and stamped out the cigarette in the dish next to him. "If you think I'm bad about meddling, he is one hundred times worse."

I smirked at his joke, finally done cleaning his hand. "I'm just trying to figure out why he is testing me this way. Why manipulate me in order to manipulate you?"

Ryuzo hummed as if he knew the answer already. "Do you want to know what first made me hate my father?"

"Tell me."

"I was a child. Maybe three or four. My earliest memory. I had done something wrong, spilled a drink on the floor or something small like that. He went to strike me, but my mother stepped between us and he struck her instead. I remember the way he held her, and how they cried together. I had never seen him cry before that, and I haven't seen him do it since. But then, the moment she was away from us, he beat me for 'making' him hurt her that way."

"I'm so sorry, baby," I said with a broken heart. Picturing a small, innocent Ryuzo was difficult to do, but it was easy to see the trauma he had from it. "You didn't deserve that. You know that, right?"

He glanced at me with a smirk before looking back at his cigarette and taking a drag. "What I know is that my mother was more important to him than anything. He broke every rule for her. She had a past, she did not come from money or have political connections — nothing that would benefit the family or add to his empire. But he didn't care," he explained.

His story sounded eerily similar to ours. I focused on wrapping his finger, letting him continue.

"When my mother was sick, her only treatment options were experimental and not allowed in Japan. He used his connections to get the drugs for her, the start of our trafficking. When she died, his grief made him vengeful. He sent us deeper into the drug trade, straying from the code we swore to live by."

"And no one has said anything about it? There's no one else who thinks what he is doing is wrong?"

Ryuzo shook his head slowly with dismay. "He has a way of convincing people. He makes them believe he is an honorable man, that he cares for those close to him and would do anything to protect them. But that is not true. He only cares for the people who serve him. The only one he truly protected and cared for was my mother."

They were so similar in ways Ryuzo didn't realize. Trauma shaped them both. Their forbidden love clouded their judgment and made them more willing to go against tradition and expectation.

Wait. A thought came to me suddenly.

Done with Ryuzo's hand, I held it in both of mine. "Baby . . . Are you sure he knows?"

"Knows what?"

"Does he know you are trying to get out? Or is he just worried you will be as blinded by me as he was by your mother?"

His brow furrowed with confusion. "I don't understand." Men, as I said before, can be so obtuse.

"You said your mother was the exception. She made him go against tradition and your code. He changed because of her," I said, watching the gears turned in his mind. "I don't think he's trying to use me to manipulate you. I think he's testing me because he thinks I will manipulate you."

His confusion grew. "How?"

"Think about it. The amount of pills he wants is worth pennies to him, but it's enough to get me fired or arrested again. If I wasn't a nurse — someone heavily monitored for drug theft and usage — it wouldn't be as much of a risk. He's testing my dedication to you. He's trying to see if I will snitch."

His eyes fell away to trace his thoughts in the air. "Maybe."

"If you keep with your plan, acting unfit to lead, it will seem like you were being careless again, fucking with a gaijin. Then, if I fail at getting him what he asked but prove I won't talk, the only thing he confirms is that I'm not a threat."

Ryuzo shook his head. "He will never accept less than what he asked. And when he gets it, he will only ask for more." He took my face in his injured hand, turning me to see the intensity of his message in his eyes. "You do not know him the way I do, Mina-chan. You haven't seen the things he has done. He is ruthless."

"But you don't know if he'll do anything yet."

"I do. Which is why I cannot let you do this," he said.

Of course he didn't want me to do the infamous Yakuza favor. It was what I was told to avoid at all costs, just like I was supposed to avoid him, but it was too late now.

"Then what should we do instead?" I asked.

His thumb stroked against my cheek, then his hand fell. "I don't know. But I will not let him hurt you again."

I sighed with defeat. "Zo, stop. I know I can do this. You just have to let me." When he started to protest, I cut him off. "Do you remember what I am?"

He sneered but said it anyway. "You are strong enough to take care of yourself."

"That's right." I smiled at him, but the last of his humor was gone. "It's going to be okay, baby. We have time. I'm not going anywhere. Not yet. And not without you."

I draped my arms around his shoulders, hugging him. Pulling me over onto his lap, he hugged me tighter against him and didn't let me go. The wood deck would bruise my knees, but I didn't care. As he held me close, I relaxed in his arms, feeling his heartbeat calm against my chest.

"I missed you," I whispered.

"I missed you more, my sakura."

His words made me breathe my first calm breath in weeks. I took his face in my hands and pressed my lips to his. His kiss was the panacea I needed after weeks of pain.

I pulled my lips slowly from his, watching him look up at me with worry-tinted reverence. "Did you mean it?" I asked him. "When you said you love me?"

"Yes," he said as if it were obvious. The fire burned brighter behind his eyes as he looked into mine. "Did you mean it when you told me?"

"Yes, unfortunately." I brushed his hair from his face while his smile spread. "You are complicated and frustratingly stubborn . . . but you are also the most accepting, compassionate human I have ever met."

A smirk. "I was going to say the same about you."

I shared his smile. We were the same brand of mess. "You make me happier than I've ever been in my life, baby. I know it's too soon to tell, but . . . I fear you might be it for me."

He tried to pin his smile and pulled me closer. "I know you are for me, Mina-chan," he whispered. With a sigh, he parted my lips with his and kissed me.

Ryuzo breathed life into me again. His touch made it impossible not to believe what he said was true. He made me feel like the most important person in his world, even without saying a word.

Every ache in my body faded the longer he held me, the hungrier his kisses became. The warmth that had been missing since the last time he touched me returned. But I wanted more than that. So much more.

The warmth settled between my thighs as he kissed me deeper, held me tighter. My hips moved on their own. 

I pried my lips from his. "Let's go to bed."

He shook his head. "I don't think I can sleep right now."

The innocence in his words made me grin. I slid my hand between us, rubbing it against what I really wanted. He looked down, his mouth dropping open with a silent moan when I gave it a little squeeze. "When did I say anything about sleep?" I asked.

That night, I truly believed I could get us both out of this mess. Realism and rationality, however, belonged to Future Mina. 

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A/N: Thank you for reading! Don't forget to add this story to your library and follow me for update alerts!