Imprisoned

Black Roses

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Bonten

Kakucho made his way angrily back to the Bonten mansion. He opened the front door forcefully, slamming it behind him.

"Where have you been Kakucho?" His Boss's' voice came echoing down from the balcony of the stairs. That snapped Kakucho out of his mood.

"Nowhere. Just surveying the area to make sure no one followed you guys when everyone left, Boss." Kakucho stated. It was an easy enough lie. Kakucho was Bonten's Chief of Security after all.

He didn't usually lie to his Boss. The truth was he feared him. Everyone did. But even though he was now in the cage with the tiger, he couldn't completely remove you from his mind. You were his and he felt like if he shared the truth about where he had been he'd somehow be exposing you to...them.

"I see. Thank you for all of your hard work." The white-haired man said back. "I'll be commencing a meeting shortly. There's something I wish to discuss with everyone."

"Of course, Sir." Kakucho responded, bowing to his leader and walking calmly towards the meeting room.

Mostly everyone was in the space already. Apparently everyone had been waiting on him to arrive.

"And where have you been?" Sanzu asked. He was throwing his knife up in the air and catching it in his hand. "None of your business." Kakucho shot at him passively. "Tsk tsk tsk. So sassy." Sanzu said playfully as he caught his knife from a particularly high toss.

After a minute or so of silence, the wooden doors to the meeting room opened, and the Boss walked in. Everyone stood up and didn't sit down again until the white-haired man had taken his seat at the head of the long marble office table.

Everyone was silent as they looked at their leader and waited for him to speak. "As far as I'm concerned, business as of late has gone mostly well. The signing of the contract tonight between us and our rival gang went smoothly. I would like to thank you all for your efforts." Upon hearing their Boss pause everyone in the room bowed to him in response. "most business has gone well," he continued, "However there still remains the matter of the loss Bonten has taken within these last 24 hours." At this Ran and Rindou looked at each other, some anxious tension exchanged in their shared glance. "We lost half of a profit just this morning. Ran and Rindou here have paid their price for the mishap already." Rindou winced, reminded of the bloody welts Sanzu had made on his back earlier that morning.

The white haired man continued talking, "Although Ran and Rindou have paid their price, they weren't the only ones responsible for this mishap."

At hearing this Kakucho, Sanzu, Ran and Rindou collectively felt an uneasy wave wash over them. Their Boss was talking about you. Would he punish you the way Ran and Rindou had been punished? Would he just say 'fuck it' and kill you?! They all felt their heart rates quicken. They all came to a private resolution. They wouldn't let their Boss hurt you. In each of their own minds and without muttering a word out loud they resolved to protect you no matter the costs.

The tension in the room was palpable but the Boss continued his speech. "I'm very interested in this matter. I've done some thinking and there is a possibility that this slip up wasn't an accident. That this woman was in league with our friends who just signed to us this very night."

"You think that women is working for the rival gang we met tonight at Tayaki?" Asked Koko in disbelief. The Boss nodded. "Their leader is well known for double crossing. It's possible that it was a planned hit. Being new to Bonten, it's likely that they don't trust us yet and want to be able to exploit any type of weakness from us they can find. It's very possible that this morning was their potential attempt at testing us so they could have a shot at weaken our treasury. If we were ever to betray them, maybe they would be able to gain an upper hand with our financial instability as a factor. That women might have been sent to sabotage our deal this morning in order to accomplish just that. Which is one of the reasons why I invited her to play at our club tonight. To let the other gang know, we're watching them."