Chapter 9
The night after the Miraculous Language of Angels acting test, Lory had sent the girls home ahead of him with Sebastian. He had a meeting with Ren that he was told was very important. He made his way up to his office to find Ren waiting for him impatiently.
"Boss... I need to talk to you about something. It needs privacy." Ren told him.
Lory nodded and waved for him to follow him into his office. "It's safe here." Lory told him as he poured tea for the two of them that had been brewing while he was out. Lory sat in the chair across from him. "What did you need to talk about?"
Ren looked up at him with concern. "Boss... It's about Kyoko-chan. They were finally able to arrest the men involved with the auctions the other night. My contact at the police department may be contacting you to speak to Kyoko-chan about her time there." As Ren explained, he could feel the subdued fury behind Lory's eyes.
Lory was silent for a good long while. "No... She's been through enough." Lory told him flatly.
"I...I just wanted to warn you Boss. Ryuu told me she was under no obligation to even meet with them." Ren quickly explained.
"Ren... She's still having nightmares about it. I don't want anything to take her back to where she was when you brought her to me." Lory told him.
Ren could hear the heartbreak and distress in his voice. "I have a pretty good idea what she went through Boss... Like I said, I just wanted to give you a head's up. I didn't want you or, her to be surprised if it came down to that." Ren explained.
Lory nodded. He would need to bring up this matter with her therapist. He didn't want to say or, do anything that would jeopardize the amount of progress that had been made, especially since he had no idea on her frame of mind at the moment. She seemed alright and Miki-san had told him she had been doing exceptionally well, all things considered. She had been focusing her hatred and anger in her diary.
"I'll think it over and talk to her. See what she wants to do. Thank you Ren. I appreciate you telling me this. How did he know how to find her?" Lory asked out of curiosity.
Ren sighed. "If Ryuu hadn't been there that night, I wouldn't have been there. He's the one that gave me permission to come along. I was his cover." Ren told him sheepishly.
Lory looked at him in shock and shook his head and in an angry fatherly tone told him. "Ren... although I am glad you were there and you found her... Don't you EVER do anything that fucking stupid again! You could have been killed if they knew who you were or, what you were up to. You go home. I will think of an appropriate punishment for you later, but tonight I am just to overwhelmed and exhausted to think about it."
Ren sighed inwardly with relief. He was glad that little conversation was over. He felt like a child that had just escaped the wrath of the school principal after doing something he knew he shouldn't do. Fortunately he would only come out with detention. "Thank you Boss."
Lory watched him walk out the door and shook his head, then sighed deeply.
Ren finally got down to the parking garage and sat quietly in his car as he stared at the business card in his left hand and his phone in his right. He pressed the send button after contemplating for several minutes.
"Yes... May I speak to Detective Yamato please." Ren breathed nervously into the phone.
"This is he. How can I help you." Ryuu asked.
"Hey Ryuu, this is Ren. I did what you asked. You're going to have to speak to her father first. I don't know if he'll allow it. He didn't sound too keen on the idea of you talking to her." Ren explained.
Ryuu sighed. "I kinda had a hunch he wouldn't, knowing what those girls go through before they're sold."
"Ryuu... What does the Black Lotus tattoo mean?" Ren asked hesitantly. He looked it up on the internet but, he wanted to hear it straight from someone that actually knew, not the internet.
The phone was silent for a moment. "She's got one?"
"Yeah..." Ren told him quietly.
"Ren... We don't need to talk to her that bad, if you think her father will say no, but I would still like to talk to him." Ryuu told him.
"What does it mean?" Ren prodded.
Ryuu sighed. "Ren... There's really no way to put it gently. They did a lot of damage before we found her. She's lucky she was put up for auction."
Ren could feel the anger and hot tears forming behind his eyes. He closed his eyes tightly and swallowed the hard lump in his throat. "Thanks man. Thanks for letting me get her out of there."
"No problem. I'll try to find another way. We've got time with the judge we have on this one. Have a good night." Ryuu told him and hung up.
Ren closed his phone and his head fell to the steering wheel as he let the tears fall freely. He cursed himself for not getting to her sooner, even though there was no way he could have.
Saena Mogami never claimed to be a good mother or, a mother at all. She was a lawyer, a prosecuting attorney and a damn good one at that. That being said, she had access to many things and one of those things would be evidence. Evidence could be a murder weapon, drugs or, even financial records and a list of people that they had received merchandise from, of a certain group of individuals that had been arrested for human trafficking. This was the job that she had worked so hard for, for a very long time and she was taking it as seriously as she had when she had first began practicing. She and only a few select others like her had been assigned this case, these people needed to pay for their crimes.
On this particular day at the end of April, she had been going through their records for last year and as she did, she found two familiar names. The first name shocked her, but the second turned her blood to ice. She paled and she could barely breath at the thoughts that flooded her mind. She wanted to scream. She felt light-headed and that's when tears she never dreamed she would have, flowed freely.
She slammed the book shut and screamed. "NO!"
Her office door flew open and in rushed the man that she wanted nothing to do with at the moment. "Mogami-san!" Ken'Ichi Katagiri found her in tears. "What happened?"
"You..." She hissed. "You promised she would be safe." She tossed the book at him and stood up. "Page 34 line 8. Read it!" She told him, shaking in anger, with aura thick and black.
He opened the ledger to the page and read as she had asked in a whisper. "Aug 3/ Fuwa, Shotaro... 2 million yen... for acquisition of 15 year old female, Kyoko..." The note in the margin read. "gold eyes, black hair, virgin. SOLD 750K USD/ Oct 25." There was a tiny black lotus stamped next to the information. Ken'Ichi Katagiri turned pale. He couldn't believe what his eyes were reading. "It can't be them." He told her in denial.
"Call him..." She growled. "You signed his consent forms for Akatoki. You know he's here. Call him. I want to know if this is my daughter! I want to know now! Bring him in, I want to see his face when he tells you. I want to know if he's lying!"
Katagiri could feel a coldness swirling around him and felt as though something was pinning him in her office. He felt he had no choice, but to obey her demand. He nodded shortly. "I'll have him come in."
She left the room to find Todoh-san and call Yayoi, she slammed the door behind her. She never claimed to be a good mother or, a mother at all, but this was too much.
