Olivia took one look at me and said, "Come outside on the terrace."
I followed her out into the warm fall sun and sank down in a chair with a sigh. I made a halfhearted effort to lighten the mood. "Do I look that bad?" I asked and forced a little laugh.
"Most people probably can't see it but I can," she said with a frown. "Soryu said that he thinks the kidnapping was too much for you. You really won't talk to Ran Nitta? I like her, she's helped me a lot."
I shook my head. "It's not the kidnapping," I said, suddenly realizing that I hadn't been thinking much about being kidnapped. My thoughts had been taken up with my ridiculous crush. "It's Soryu. Or well, it's me, not him. He's not doing anything wrong…"
I trailed off. I sort of felt like crying and that really pissed me off. Which described my feelings over the past few days, a pathetic cycle of upset and angry. I really was no better than a lovesick thirteen year old. I'd cut myself off from romantic feelings so long ago, I'd had very little practice dealing with doomed crushes or unrequited feelings.
Most women must have developed some way to manage their emotions but I was completely lost. I didn't know how to turn off my feelings or work through Soryu's rejection. I was lost in a torrent of just wanting him - wanting to see, hear, taste, feel, smell him. I couldn't find an escape route. Normally I would have drowned my feelings by fucking someone, but the thought of touching someone else or having them touch me was unimaginable, my brain literally refused to go there. My only recourse was anger, but I'd gotten to the point where I felt too emotionally exhausted to maintain my anger for long.
"What does that mean?" Olivia asked, watching me with concern in her eyes.
"I have a crush on him. It's no big deal. It'll go away as soon as I move out of the townhouse," I said. "I won't have to pretend to be Mei forever. After the meetings are finished, I can just go back to normal."
"Have you tried talking to him? Is he just not interested?"
"He told me that his policy is to never have a close relationship with a woman," I answered. It made me feel completely defeated just to utter the words.
"He said that to you? So he is gay?" Her eyes were round with surprise.
"No. I didn't say he was gay," I corrected her. "It's not that he's gay. It's more like he doesn't like women."
"Doesn't like women?" Olivia's voice was full of shocked offense. "That doesn't make any sense. He can't just hate all women. I mean… I guess I kind of know he avoids women, but I consider him a friend and I thought the two of you were getting closer. Is that not right?"
"We were getting closer, but-" I sighed and decided to just tell her everything. What use was there in hiding it? "We had sex after I was kidnapped. Since then he's gone back to being totally distant and cold. So, I guess he regrets it or something."
"You had sex with him and he stopped being nice to you?" she demanded. When I answered with, "basically, yeah", she started getting angry. "I never thought Soryu would be such an asshole. He's supposed to be the good mature one. Why did he even have sex with you if he was going to act like that?"
"Yeah, that's what I keep wondering," I admitted. "He was really mad at me, so I don't know if it was his way of putting me in my place or just getting his anger out. He also...he knew that I wanted him, so maybe he had sex with me as sort of a pity thing. Like, 'sorry you got kidnapped'. But it was really more angry than anything."
"He had angry sex with you after you were kidnapped? What a fucking bastard. Even Eisuke isn't that bad!" she ranted. "Eisuke was super nice after I got kidnapped. He was practically an angel and Soryu turned into a fucking jerk? It's unbelievable. How are you putting up with this? I feel like tearing his hair out."
Her words sparked an image of my fingers tangled in Soryu's hair, I let it pass through my mind with a defeated sigh. "I just don't know what to do. I'm not used to dealing with this sort of thing. I can't make him like me. There's no sense in beating my head against a wall. I just need to get the job done and get out. Once I'm back in the casino I'll be able to get back to normal."
"Oh, I just want to kill him! Why are men so stupid?" Olivia cried.
I cast around for something else to talk about. I needed to stop thinking about Soryu for a while. My eyes fell on a large wooden lid sitting on top of the terrace floor. "You got your hot tub and it's got a padlock on it," I said with a laugh and she was kind enough to take the change of topic.
"That's right, and I've got the key. Eisuke is way too casual about letting the guys use the penthouse like some sort of sex den. I mean, I know they have apartments here but still." She made a grossed out face. "I wish I could put a lockable cover on the pool. I came out here the other morning and found some panties that definitely weren't mine. Who knows how many times the maids are cleaning up that sort of thing before I have a chance to notice. I thought about turning the heating for the pool off, but then they'd just do it somewhere else."
"Oh, that is disgusting. You're kind of living in a frat house," I pointed out.
Olivia groaned. "You're so right. Soryu and Mamoru aren't a problem. Mamoru doesn't have an apartment here at all. Baba's calmed down a lot since Eisuke made him and Ota go to Sensitivity Training, but Ota is still a diehard player. I had to make them stop bringing girls to the weekly poker night. I came downstairs and this skank was all over Eisuke. I didn't know who to kill first."
I giggled at the mental image. "How are things going with Eisuke? You guys seem pretty happy."
My smile faded as I saw her eyes cloud over. She looked away from me as she answered, "I feel like I'm holding my breath. I keep forgetting to keep myself prepared for him to break up with me. I'll forget for days at a time and then it'll suddenly hit me: this isn't forever. I know that I'm not part of his plans. He doesn't have long term relationships. I'm holding him back from the things he wants to do."
"Olivia, he's lucky to have you," I said. "He must know that. Everyone knows that he only dates women for a short time, but he's still with you. That must mean something."
"Yeah, it means something today but it might not mean anything tomorrow. Right now I make him happy, I'm a novelty, but sooner or later he'll get tired of me. He'll wake up one morning and decide that I'm old news and he'll kick me out without a backward glance," she said, trying to keep her tone matter-of-fact but I could hear the thread of tears running through them.
"He wouldn't really do that-" I began, but she cut me off.
"Oh yes he would. Under everything he's just as cold hearted and callous as he appears. Even if he loves me a little bit, it's something that he can turn off like a switch." She finally turned to meet my eyes and her own eyes were full of pain. "I shouldn't have fought to keep him. I should have let things end in the summer. I fall more in love with him every day. The longer it takes for things to end, the more it will hurt when he breaks things off. Sometimes I think I should just go ahead and do it myself, but I just don't have the courage. When I think about it, it feels like cutting off my own arm."
Ice slid down my spine. This is why I had to fight my crush on Soryu with everything that I had. If I wasn't being paid so much money to do Mei's meetings, I'd be running for the hills. I couldn't allow myself to be so attached to someone, to be so dependent that I couldn't imagine life without them. Even when life with them was painful.
"Sakiko, this is delicious. I look forward to every day because of your food," Kyoichiro said with a satisfied smile. I'd made hamburgers and french fries - with a fried egg on the burgers, of course.
"Maybe too good of a job," Maki said with an evil grin. "I think Kyoichiro's putting on a little weight."
Kyoichiro frowned at Maki. "I think we're all looking a little healthier since we're being fed so well."
"Yeah, I was basically starving on your awful scrambled eggs," Kanada chimed in. "Sakiko, you can never leave us. I'll waste away."
"It wouldn't hurt any of you to try to learn to cook," Kyoichiro said. "Maybe I'll order you to start taking lessons from Sakiko."
"Sir, no way," Maki said. "Real men don't cook. We yield weapons not spatulas. You're trying to destroy our image."
"Is that right? Does that mean my image has been destroyed by trying to feed you ungrateful bastards?" Kyoichiro asked.
"Damn, Maki," Satozaki hissed. "You're gonna get us put on worse duties that learning to cook. Shut your mouth, dude."
"He doesn't mean it, Sir," Kanada said. "He's just worried about his image because we're going out to a club tonight. He just spent an hour combing his hair."
"Yeah!" Maki crowed. "We're going to get all the girls. Vanquish and vanish - that's our motto. They won't know what hit them."
"'Vanquish and vanish'?" I snapped, hiding my smile behind a frown of disapproval. "Is that the way you treat women?"
"Ah, well," Maki looked to his friends for support but they shoved their mouths full of food and left him hanging. "We just...that's just the deal, see. That's what everybody does when they're out clubbing. You know, just have fun and hook up and don't look back?"
His words struck something deep inside of me, a nerve that was raw and unprotected. For a moment I lost my mask as pain and uncertainty began to crest into a massive wave, but I pushed it back. I turned it off and turned away from it. I forced my mask back into place and lectured Maki. "You're not just any men," I said. "You're Ice Dragons. That means you treat women with respect. It's not just you in the club, it's the Dragons reputation that you're carrying. Don't fuck up that reputation by behaving just as badly as everyone else. Treat women with consideration and respect and you won't have to worry about chasing them because they'll be chasing you."
"That's right!" Kanada said excitedly. "That's exactly the sort of strategy that we need to use. And, yeah, we should be thinking about the Dragons' reputation."
What the fuck had I done? The voices of the guys around me faded out as I fell into my thoughts. I'd started talking as a joke. I was going to admonish the guys and pretend to be a hardass. Instead I'd struck so many fucking chords within myself that I may as well have been a guitar. Soryu had essentially 'vanquished and vanished' as Maki had called it. He'd fucked me and moved on and as much as he claimed to want to protect women, he'd failed this time. I'd been lecturing the young men planning on hitting the club, but my words could just as well have been meant for him.
And me. I'd lived my life vanquishing and vanishing for years. I'd never questioned it. I'd never thought twice. I hadn't allowed myself to. I'd kept moving, kept working towards this goal or that goal. I'd kept running away from anything that bothered me, any time, all the time. That was supposed to be me, that was supposed to be who I was. I was comfortable and happy with it but now I'd caught a glimpse of it from a different direction and it suddenly didn't look the same.
I closed my eyes and tried to push my thoughts away. I didn't have to listen to them. I didn't have to let the pain in. I was supposed to be eating dinner, relaxing, enjoying hanging out with the Dragons. I wasn't supposed to be evaluating my life plan.
I opened my eyes to see Kyoichiro and the other guys standing up from the table and saying their goodbyes. Leaving me alone with Soryu. I hadn't looked at him during the entire meal. I'd been trying to ignore his presence just as I was trying to ignore how much I wanted him. He'd been silent as we ate but now, when all of the other men had left the room, he finally spoke.
"Sakiko, I'm sorry. I-"
I stood up suddenly, looking down at my plate rather than at him. There'd been too much emotion in his voice and there was too much emotion in me. I hadn't been directing my poorly planned comments at Soryu. I hadn't been looking for an apology. "Don't you apologize to me," I said before hurrying out of the room without looking back.
"Eisuke wants to speak to you upstairs," Soryu said, his voice revealing a hint of stress.
I frowned in response. I'd assumed that we'd come to the penthouse because Soryu wanted me to talk to Olivia again. Things had been more strained than usual between the two of us since my mouth had run away with me during dinner two days ago. Now I looked at him suspiciously, wondering if his plan was to have Eisuke take care of me.
But that didn't sound right. Soryu was the type to handle his own problems - well, unless the solution involved talking about feelings. If he'd wanted to send me back to the casino or something like that, he'd have done it himself. There was no reason to involve Eisuke.
When I reached the second floor living room I found Eisuke sitting behind his desk with a smirk on his face.
"I see you're still wearing those Chinese dresses and pretending to be the princess. You didn't get your fill when you got kidnapped?" he asked.
I rolled my eyes at him. "A job's a job," I said. "This one's paying well and there's no reason to think there's anyone else targeting Mei. So you shouldn't have to worry about rescuing me again."
"I'm not worried. My friend tells me that your matchmaking meeting with him went well. He's ready for another taste," he said.
"That's right," I said with a smile, remembering the sexy bachelor. "I think he's a good match for Mei. I wanted Soryu to figure out the best way to tell him that I'm not really Mei and arrange a dinner or something. He must have forgotten."
Eisuke let out a laugh. "Pass up a chance to find Mei's match and put an end to those stupid meetings? He's forgetting on purpose. Looks like I won. I'll arrange the dinner. You and Mei can go together and explain the situation. I'm sure the three of you will have a lot of fun."
"Well, Soryu will have to go too. So that makes four of us," I reminded him.
"That's right, but Soryu won't be having any fun," he said.
"Okay, whatever," I replied with an irritated shake of my head, I was already getting tired of his attempts to play mind games. "It'll be exciting to introduce Mei to your friend. It will be awesome if Mei finds her match."
"A little excitement now and then is good for the heart," he said. I could tell that he was mostly talking so that he could judge my reactions. I frowned at him and he laughed at me. "I've got a bonus check here for you. You went above and beyond the call of duty when you got yourself kidnapped. I deducted the cost of repairing the hood of my car from the total."
"The hood of your car? That was yourcar?' I asked, trying not to blush. "Why am I paying for the repairs? Shouldn't Soryu do that?"
"Is his ass the one that fucked up my car?" he shot back.
I opened my mouth to argue, but I knew that's just what he wanted. Everything was a joke to him, a joke and a chance to test people. "Just give me the check," I said and reached my hand out.
The hand holding my check didn't budge. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "What were you and Olivia talking about on the terrace the other day?"
"I don't think that's any of your business," I said, remembering Olivia had said that basically everything she did got reported to him.
"You're my employee," he reminded me. He was pushing me, testing my loyalty.
'Fuck him.' I could play games, too. I could wield my knowledge like a knife. "She's thinking about breaking up with you."
I could tell that I'd shocked him because he didn't move a muscle. "She knows you're just going to break her heart eventually, you're a selfish ass after all. She thinks if she gets there before you, it will hurt her less."
He was still staring at me with his smirk frozen in place. Was he a deer in the headlights or was he staying quiet to get me to keep talking? Either way, I was going to take advantage of his silence. "I think she's right. It doesn't make sense for her to waste her time on you. There are plenty of men out there who would devote themselves to her. Men who she could really trust with her heart. She needs to walk away from you and find one of them. She should be thinking about marriage and children, not spending her time kept like a pretty bird in a cage. She should be happy."
"Maybe happiness is overrated," he said, handing over the check.
"That's the sort of thing someone who can't guarantee her happiness would say," I countered, taking the check and walking away.
Eisuke had been true to his word, he arranged for us to have dinner with the sexy bachelor - who's name was Eichi Sanjou - that very evening. His high-handed fucking with our schedule had obviously infuriated Soryu. He'd been visibly steaming ever since Eisuke had informed him that we were to meet Sanjou at the Purple Horizon at eight o'clock.
"Ichinomiya explained to me that you were simply posing as Mei Ling Lee in order to keep her safe," Sanjou greeted me with a warm smile. "I must say that I was more than a little disappointed. You really had me bewitched during our last meeting."
I felt myself flushing under his flirtatious gaze and smiled back up at him. "I'm so sorry that I had to deceive you Mr. Sanjou. I'm sure that you'll find Mei much more interesting than me."
While Sanjou moved to greet Mei, I turned to look at Soryu. He was glowering down at me. He looked so angry that I had to remind myself that he wasn't the sort to get violent. Although, I had no idea what would happen if he were ever pushed to his limits, but there was no reason to think that having dinner with Sanjou would anger him that much. He had said that Sanjou wasn't some kind of enemy.
"So, tell me," Sanjou said after we'd placed our orders. "All of those things that Sakiko talked about - wanting an open marriage, threesomes and seducing servants - was she really speaking for you, Mei?"
"Oh, yes. Certainly that is the sort of marriage that I would wish for," Mei said with a bright smile. "To be accepted for who I am and allowed to do as I like. What more could a woman ask for?"
"It isn't often that you meet a woman who is so attuned with her sexuality and completely open about it," he replied, pouring on the charm. "It's so refreshing. I love the idea of not having to play games or hide things."
"Yes, a marriage with no need for lies and trickery. That would be perfect for me," Mei said. "But I do worry that you are in the professional world, not the world of the mafia. Will you understand my world and be comfortable in it? There will be responsibilities and strings attached if you marry me, but no strings with a normal woman."
"I think there's always strings, no matter what, and I'm not afraid of a challenge. I've done quite a lot of research to familiarize myself with what I can expect if we decide to move forward with our relationship," Sanjou explained. "Having met the real you, I am still just as interested in pursuing you. If I'm lucky, I'll convince you to accept me."
"Things appear to be so promising," Mei said flirtatiously. "Perhaps you would like to come up to my apartment after we finish with dinner."
I shouldn't have been surprised by Mei's invitation, but I nearly choked on a bite of shrimp when I heard her invite Sanjou to the penthouse. I'd thought maybe she would use some decorum or take things slowly since they were talking marriage, but I was obviously wrong. She was ready to take this guy upstairs and put him to work slapping her tits.
"It makes a lot of sense to see if we are compatible sooner rather than later," Sanjou answered. "And there's no way that I could turn down an offer like that from a beautiful woman like you."
"Wonderful," Mei trilled. "Will you join us, Sakiko?"
My mouth dropped open. Once again I'd underestimated Mei. Before I could formulate an answer, Soryu broke the silence that he'd been maintaining. "Sakiko has responsibilities to take care of tonight."
"Oh, of course," Mei said, rolling her eyes and turning her attention back to Sanjou. "I suppose it will be just the two of us, then. I'll focus all of my attention on you tonight."
I continued eating my food while Mei and Sanjou flirted. My mind was bouncing between thoughts and realizations, threatening to pull me under in a sea of self-awareness and change. Once again I was being presented with a discussion about promiscuous behavior and it was striking the wrong note in me. I was interested in Mei meeting someone that she might be able to have a happy life with, but my feelings beyond that were a muddle. I should be excited, aroused by all the sexy talk, and more than ready to follow the two of them upstairs.
Instead, I'd passively accepted Soryu turning down the invitation that was given to me. I knew that if I questioned it, he would have let me go with Mei and Sanjou. But I didn't wanted to accept the invitation. The thought of joining the two of them in bed felt like more than a step in the wrong direction, it felt like walking into a different world, a world that I was no longer a part of.
'Fucking Soryu.' He'd totally fucked up my head - my life - and he ignored me, treated me coldly, made decisions about what I would do as if it were his right. This was exactly what I had always been afraid of. Allowing feelings for a man to change me, control me, make me dependent. Soryu wasn't even fucking interested in me. We were to the point where we were barely speaking and I still felt as if I were tethered to him.
He was far too dangerous. I couldn't allow myself to be so caught up in him. Not only was it pathetic and futile, it was exactly where I had never ever wanted to be. I was lucky that he wasn't interested in me. It was my one saving grace. Who knows how far I would have sunk if I'd been able to dive right in. He probably could have just done whatever he wanted with me and tossed me to the side whenever he was finished.
I refused to be that person. I was going to start putting more effort into obliterating my feelings for him. I was going to do whatever I could to hurry Mei's decision about getting married or returning to Hong Kong. There couldn't be an unlimited number of men who met the requirements to marry her, we had to be coming to the end of the list. Maybe I would just refuse to do any more meetings if they wouldn't end soon. One way or another, I needed to get away from Soryu before I lost myself entirely. In the end, it might even be necessary to quit working for Eisuke and Tres Spades. Whatever it took, I had to eradicate this man from my mind.
Olivia called while I was preparing breakfast the next morning. "Sakiko? Do you have meetings today?" she asked, her voice a whisper.
"No, not today," I answered. "What's going on?"
"Chisato found Eisuke's sister!" she hissed excitedly. I could hear the sound of a running shower very close to the phone. She must be trying to drown out her words so that Eisuke's spies wouldn't overhear her.
"What? Really? That's great," I said.
"So, we're going to go get her today. We're not going to tell the guys or anything, and we want you to come with us," she said.
"What? Where is she?" I asked.
"I don't have time to tell you on the phone," she explained. "If you don't have meetings, then come with us. Just convince Soryu to let you come to self defense class today. Wear regular clothes, don't dress like Mei. Dress to go out for lunch. Meet us at the gym at ten thirty."
"Okay, I'll try to be there," I said. Olivia hung up and I looked down at my phone for a moment. What exactly were she and Chisato planning?
"As far as I can tell, Nikaido planned this thing really well," Chisato said, smiling. She was obviously very proud of herself for finding Hitomi. "He had one of the foot soldiers in his yakuza take in a younger sister that was around the same age as Hitomi. The foot soldier and his family were transferred to Fukuoka and when they moved, the sister was switched out for Hitomi. When the soldier and his family came back to Tokyo over a year later, no one even noticed the difference. Really, no one pays that much attention to other people's kids. They could have just switched the girls without moving the family. Nikaido was being very careful to make sure that Hitomi would be really hard to find if anyone went looking."
"But you found her," I pointed out. "Olivia said that other people have looked."
"I just didn't give up until I'd followed every possible lead," she explained. "If anyone else had taken the time, they would have found her."
"They changed her name to Yukari Todo and she's working at a nail salon," Olivia interjected. She was driving the car that we were in. I have no idea how she managed to ditch the bodyguards that usually followed her around and get access to a vehicle. She and Chisato had put their phones on airplane mode to block phone calls and tracking. I'd done the same when they'd asked, but I'd refused to ditch my panic button. There was no way that I would go that far. "That's where we're going now. We're all going to get our nails done and I'm going to convince her to come to lunch with us."
"The nail salon is owned by Nikaido's yakuza," Chisato explained. "It's a front for money laundering. So we'll have to be careful, this isn't a normal nail shop. There will be yakuza there."
"Don't worry," Olivia said before I had a chance to question our visit to the salon. "I have a plan. There shouldn't be any trouble."
"If you say so," I said as we pulled into a parking garage. I wasn't feeling very confident about whatever plan Olivia and Chisato had come up with. We were entering a dangerous place and we didn't even have any bodyguards with us. Three women with a few self defense classes were not going to be able to fight back against a bunch of yakuza if something went wrong.
The nail salon was only a few doors down from the parking garage. As we walked, I rubbing the sleeve of my shirt. My tracking device was hidden just under the soft fabric. I couldn't help but wonder if I should go ahead and push the button, summoning Soryu to our location, but it felt too risky. What if I pushed the button but nothing went wrong? He might not take it seriously if I pushed the button in the future. And what if Soryu and a bunch of his men stormed into the nail salon? How would the yakuza in the shop react? Would it start some sort of fight?
In the end I followed my two friends into the shop without pushing my panic button. The salon was large and very busy, but Olivia had made reservations for us. She'd arranged it so that Hitomi was the one doing her nails. Chisato and I sat on either side of her. I was distracted for a few minutes as I chose how I wanted my nails done. It was the first time I'd ever had them done be a professional. Long nails were a hindrance to shuffling and dealing cards and flashy colors were a distraction. In the past I'd envied women with brightly colored and patterned nails, but now I shunned those choices. I felt depressed over the situation with Soryu and worried about the danger of being in the salon. I wanted to hide rather than stand out. I chose a soft pearly pink and decided not to have any designs added.
While the nail artist got to work on my nails, I put on my poker face so that she wouldn't notice that I was listening to every word of Olivia and Hitomi's conversation as if my life depended on it. I was also keeping an eye on the men in the salon. There were three of them, one sitting at a desk in an office behind a large window and two of them wandering around the large space.
Olivia kept up a friendly conversation with Hitomi until her fingernails were about halfway completed, then she suddenly said, "I know this probably sounds crazy, but I just can't get rid of the thought that I know you from somewhere. Did you go on vacation to a beach when you were little?"
Hitomi smiled politely in response to Olivia's question. "Well, yes, but didn't almost everyone?"
Olivia laughed and said, "You're right. But, here, let me see… I've scanned a bunch of pictures from back then into my phone. We stayed in Okinawa and there was a boy and a girl that I became friends with. It know it must sound silly, but I look back at that vacation as one of my best memories."
Olivia used her free hand to tap her phone until she found what she was looking for. "I guess I only have three pictures and I'm not in any of them," she said with a laugh. "My mother always says that I wouldn't sit still for a picture. Could this be you and your brother?"
I watched as Hitomi looked down at the phone, she paled as she stared at the screen. "That is me," she said, her voice shaky. "That's me and my older brother."
I quickly looked around at the men in the salon, but none of them were paying attention to us. With a quiet sigh of relief I turned my attention back to Olivia and Hitomi.
"This is just amazing," Olivia was saying. "Do you mind if I ask if you've had lunch yet?"
"No… No I haven't had lunch," Hitomi answered hesitantly.
"My friends and I are going to eat now. Would you mind joining us? I'd love to talk to you more," Olivia said with a smile.
"Oh, I don't know…" Hitomi said. She wasn't sure about accepting the strange invitation, but her eyes also kept going to the picture on Olivia's phone. "Can I see the other pictures? You said there were three?"
"Yeah, sure," Olivia said, swiping to a picture of two children sitting on the edge of a pool and then to another picture of the same children standing under a palm tree. "If you give me your information, I can send them to you. And please say that you'll come to lunch. I know I probably seem crazy and you don't even remember me, but I've remembered you and your brother all this time. I was an only child. After that vacation I used to pretend that you were my secret brother and sister who had been taken away from me."
Hitomi flinched at Olivia's last comment. It must have struck a nerve, but it seemed as if it were the right one. "Yeah," she said. "I'll go to lunch with you. And I want a copy of those pictures. I'll give you my info while we eat."
Olivia was all smiles, but my heart started pounding in my chest. When our nails were finished we took turns paying at the cash register. I watched as Hitomi stuck her head in the office door to talk to the man behind the desk, probably to tell him she was going to lunch. As we walked out of the salon I kept expecting to hear men shouting, bullets exploding into the air, hands grasping for us, but everything was quiet. We walked out of the salon, to the parking garage and got into the car without a whisper of trouble.
We'd been in the car for about five minutes when I heard Hitomi's voice from the backseat. "Hey, what are you doing? Give that back."
I turned to see Chisato's usually kind face twisted into a determined frown. "I'm sorry, but I have to take this. I'll give it back in just a little while." She was holding Hitomi's cellphone.
"We just need to talk to you, Yukari," Olivia said. "We have some things to tell you and we're going to take you to meet someone."
I felt rage explode inside of me. I glared at Olivia, but her eyes were focused on the road. I took a few deep breaths before I opened my mouth. I didn't want to scare Hitomi with my anger. I turned to look her in the eye, doing my best to appear kind and caring.
"It really is going to be okay, Yukari. These two are just being insensitive. Olivia has something to tell you that I think you're really going to want to hear. And if it turns out you aren't interested, you can just go back to the salon," I said with a smile. "You aren't being kidnapped."
I looked at Olivia and said, "Go ahead and tell her now, you're freaking her out."
Olivia pouted, "But I wanted to see her face."
"You know how it feels to be kidnapped," I reminded her.
"Okay," she said with a sigh. "I lied, Yukari. I don't remember you from that vacation. I'm actually your brother's girlfriend. He's been looking for you for a very long time, but he hasn't been able to find you. But Chisato found you. We want to take you to Eisuke as a surprise."
"You couldn't just tell me that at the salon?" Hitomi snapped. "You had to trick me and scare the shit out of me?"
"Oh my God, Olivia," I said with a laugh. "She's smirking. She looks exactly like Eisuke."
Turning back to Hitomi, I said, "I'm sure you know there are yakuza in your shop. We were afraid that if we discussed things openly, they would have stopped you from leaving with us."
"Why would they do that?" she asked. I could tell from her expression that she wasn't as innocent as she was pretending to be. She was well aware that she was being kept from her brother.
"We don't know why," I said. "We just know that Nikaido doesn't want Eisuke to find you."
As we approached the hotel, Olivia asked me to take her phone out of airplane mode. As soon as I did it started ringing in my hand. She told me to answer it.
"Where the fuck are you?" Eisuke's voice demanded before I even had a chance to say hello.
"Uh, hey Eisuke, it's Sakiko" I said, following Olivia's instructions. "We're almost to the hotel. Can you meet us in the penthouse?"
"Just hang up on him and turn my phone off," Olivia instructed when Eisuke responded with a tirade of questions laced heavily with profanity. I followed her instructions with a pang of regret. I just had to hope that I wasn't going to get in too much trouble for my involvement in today's escapade.
"He's going to kill you," I warned her. "You ran away, you made it so that he couldn't call you and you must have stopped sharing your location on your phone. And did you take one of his cars without permission?"
Olivia just laughed. "Chisato rented the car and had it parked at the gym. I know he'll punish me, but I don't mind."
I watched her shrug and heard the sexual excitement in her voice. "Oh my God, I did not need to know that," I said. "I've been feeling sorry for you, but I've changed my mind. Now I feel sorry for Eisuke. I agree with him, you're too much trouble."
When we stepped into the penthouse, Eisuke charged over and grabbed Olivia by her upper arms. "What the fuck did you think you were doing?" he barked. "Are you playing some sort of game?"
Chisato, Hitomi and I stepped past the two of them. Mamoru, Baba, Ota and a few guards were standing in the living room.
"Eisuke," Olivia said, her voice was shaky. "I just went to get you a present. This is Hitomi."
I watched Eisuke's face. He looked annoyed for a moment until he made the connection. Shock and wonder flashed over his features before he regained his self control and put his typical cold mask back on. "Hitomi? Are you my sister?" he asked.
"Uh, yeah. I think so," Hitomi answered, her voice was filling with tears. "But my name is Yukari now. I… I never thought I'd see you again."
Eisuke stepped over to give her a stiff hug and then looked between Chisato and I. "Who did this?"
"I did," Chisato said.
"I see," he said, not giving anything away. "The two of you have a seat and wait. We're going upstairs."
He began leading Hitomi and Olivia towards the stairs that led to the second floor. He turned around for a moment to shoot me a pointed stare. "Soryu's on his way to get you, Sakiko."
I froze in my tracks as reality crashed down on me. "Fuck!"
******* You can read the short story Kissed by the Baddest Bidder Recreated - Short Story - Olivia and Eisuke - Punishment to see what happens between Olivia and Eisuke.