1.1 | The Yakuza Bride

Chapter 8

Leon came to a stop.

Some paragraphs were in English.

Had she been using this as a diary? A practice book?

He found the page on which she had carefully printed their wedding vows. She must have practiced it in her own time, for she had made notes in the side of the pages in neat characters on how certain words were to be pronounced.

For someone who detested this marriage, she sure had put a lot of effort into it.

He paid more attention to the last few entries. Dates were written on the top of some pages, but the entries from the day of her arrival had been written in Japanese. No matter. He snapped a picture of each entry with his phone, then returned her belongings into her drawer.

With a last glance that everything was in order, he moved on to their walk-in wardrobe. He was abashed as he checked through coat pockets and drawers, undergarments and shirts. It was an outright invasion of her privacy but he had to ensure her innocence or lack thereof.

Did they really send me a sheep? he thought, a little disappointed that his search had brought him nothing.

Her cello was left, but he didn't want to touch it. Not yet.

The vibration from his phone broke into his reverie.

'She's in the Kei-Shiragata's part of town,' Mickey reported, 'with a guy with blue hair. He's one of Kai's men. They're in a cafe now. I'll send the pictures to you.'

~

Hana didn't know how long she could keep this up for, this running around, hiding from the Federov's, sneaking out to see Osuke.

She was glad to see her boyfriend, truly. He brought her peace, a sense of normality. But he was slowly becoming a fragment of her quickly fading past that she couldn't bring along with her in this strange future.

It upset her, that they could no longer meet each other when they wanted, that she could no longer chat with him over the phone when she was home, that she was torn between her duty and her heart. Somedays she felt like an ancient heroine, sacrificed to an enemy state as an unwilling bride to their Prince.

'Are you alright?' Osuke asked, his fingers inching across the table to hers.

They were sitting in a quiet cafe, far away from Federov land where their scouts could catch them.

After that odd conversation with Leon, she wondered if he'd merely been baiting her or being sincere. Truthfully, such a meeting wasn't wise, but she could no longer bear being cooped up in that lonely house...

'I'm fine,' she reassured him, shooting him a quick smile.

She didn't want to talk about her own troubled thoughts with him, for it would only spoil what time they had together.

'What are you up to?' she asked. Maybe she shouldn't have asked about that either, for it would only lead them back to the situation surrounding them now.

He made a face as he stirred his drink. The ice cubes clinked noisily against the glass.

'The same thing,' he muttered without interest. 'We'll be starting discussions soon. Your brother wants me to be involved.'

'Is it a lot of work?'

The bad thing about being born into a Yakuza family and having friends who worked in the same business was how much she worried about their safety. Things weren't as tense back in Tokyo as the Kei-Shiragata largely moved about their own turf.