Read Story: SEASON 2 EPISODE 93

That was all my bodyguard needed to hear. She took a step forward and ripped the rag from Tanaka’s face. Ice chips flew in every direction, skittering across the floor. No one seemed to notice.

“Noooo!” Ryo screeched, swinging his fists above him in vain as he leaned forward in an attempt to stand up.

Chloe batted his hands out of the way and clamped her hand under his lower jaw, yanking him back into his seat violently enough that its back creaked and the two front legs left the ground.

Tanaka flailed and cried out through a jaw he couldn’t move. “No! Don’t! I’m telling…”

“Hit him in the face again!” I called out over his screeching. “I want to see his fucking teeth on the floor!”

“If you want him to talk,” Chloe said, her voice cold as ice, “I should probably work up to that.” She tucked her middle finger behind her thumb and flicked him on the nose hard enough that it sounded like she’d rapped her knuckles against a pumpkin.

The softer part of me winced at that… it had to hurt.

A wordless wail came from Ryo, and he bucked off his chair.

“I’m telling truth!” he said through clenched teeth, unable to move with Chloe’s hand holding his jaw shut. Evidence of English as a second language bled through thanks to his fear. “I’m telling truth! I’m telling truth! I’m telling truth!”

“I know he’s pissed at you, Ryo! I know you couldn’t call for backup before you killed me!”

“I’m telling—AUCHHH!” He made a wretching sound as Chloe thumped him on the nose again. Harder.

My chair scraped across the floor as I stood up. “He doesn’t seem to have a lot of fatherly sentiment, and he still has a daughter. Why does he need a fucking loser like you?”

Tanaka made a sound that made my blood curdle—he chortled. At least, that’s what it sounded like. It was hard to tell with his jaw clenched shut, laughter bubbling through teeth coated in blood from his nose.

I looked up at Chloe, surprised. “Is he laughing?”

Apparently, Chloe was equally disturbed by the sudden change in behavior. She let go of his jaw, and Tanaka sagged in his chair, his hands shooting to his nose.

“What the fuck is so funny?” I asked.

Ryo chortled. “My sister…”

Chloe and I exchanged glances again.

“You think he’s going to let her take over for him? Have you met my father?”

“Regretfully.”

“He’s the biggest misogynist I know. He’s not going to let a woman anywhere near his business!”

I glanced at Henry. His head was bowed as if he was in deep thought, but when I didn’t respond to Ryo, he cut his eyes up and met my gaze. He sighed and gave a non-committal nod, as if admitting that Ryo was probably right.

So… he is worth something.

“Okay,” I said, dropping into my seat as I thought over his words. “You don’t have any other brothers?”

“No,” Ryo spat. Literally. Congealed blood sputtered down his mouth, and he wiped it away with his sleeve.

Gross.

“So… I need to keep you alive. Easy enough. Can you give me some incentive to make sure I’m doing more than the bare minimum?”

Ryo looked a little desperate around the eyes. Maybe it was just the pain. “What do you want to know?”

“Do you know if your dad had anything to do with my kidnapping?”

“Kidnapping?” Ryo asked.

“Hit him again!”

“No! He didn’t do it!” he said, cringing as Chloe stepped in with her hand raised. She kept her eyes on me, and I gave her a subtle shake of the head.

“How do I know for sure?” I asked.

Roger had been one of the guys responsible for my kidnapping, but he’d been working with Amber, who had been working for someone else. I didn’t think Tanaka actually had a hand in it—we hadn’t been quarreling at the time. Still, he or his son might know who was responsible. I was starting to understand that all these people were more entwined on a level that was borderline incestuous.

“I would have known about it,” Ryo said, eyeing Chloe as he kept his hands raised. “I handle a lot of that kind of shit for him.

“And you don’t know who else might have kidnapped me?”

Ryo peered through his upraised arms at me, sniffled, whimpered in pain, and shook his head. “I swear I don’t.”

Another dead end.

I sighed. “Okay. Fine. Do you know what Brantwood Holdings is?”

“Brantwood Holdings?” Ryo asked, sounding confused.

It was a name that had only come up once in reference to Amber Bell—the only other person I was sure had been at my kidnapping. She struck me as more of an enforcer than a mastermind, so I was hoping that whoever hired her was the one pulling the strings… because that certainly hadn’t been Roger.

It made sense that the kidnapping was tied to my grandfather because the flash drive they’d been asking me about had turned up in his home office in the Catskills. The only connection Amber had to all this was her client, Brantwood Holdings, who owned a large portion of VistaVision.

It was the only lead I had to find out who else wanted me dead.

Roger had it out for me because I had essentially cuckolded him, and he was losing control over his wife. Tyler, my brother, was a suspect, but I couldn’t draw a connection between him and Amber. He’d had his own representation that day in the board meeting.

I had a lot of time in the woods by myself, trying to piece things together. My conclusions weren’t rock solid, but they were the only thing I had.

And now I was frustrated beyond all belief.

I’d focused on recovering from my time in the woods the entire flight back, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d anticipated getting some answers from a captured Ryo Tanaka.

Instead, all I got was blood all over my floor.

My head dropped back, and I glared at the ceiling as I groaned. “Jesus Christ, Ryo! You’re fucking useless, here!”

“I’m not useless!” Ryo insisted.

“Well, you certainly seem useless,” I retorted. “I’m not feeling particularly generous if you can’t offer me any information. It seems like all I have to do is hand you over to your dad. It doesn’t matter what kind of shape you’re in.”

“I can tell you things about my dad,” Ryo said.

“Like what?” I asked, feeling skeptical.

“I can tell you… if you did something drastic, he might be willing to forget his vendetta.”

“Something drastic?” I studied him for a second. “Like what?”

Ryo looked around the room like he was grasping for straws. “Disappear, maybe. Leave New York. Start a new life.”

“You’re telling me,” I said, making sure I understood properly, “that if I, for all intents and purposes, die, your dad will simply forget about me?”

Ryo shrugged again. “Maybe. This is about his reputation. If everyone sees that you’re afraid of him—and that you gave everything up and left—then Father might feel like his honor has been restored.”

“So I just need to leave everybody… and what? Sell my company?”

“Probably need to leave the country too,” Ryo said.

“Wow. Your dad’s not asking for much, is he?” I said. “Hard pass. Is there anything else?”

Ryo shrugged. “That’s the only thing I can think of.”

I stood up and ran my fingers through my hair, thinking about what to do next.

His claim that his father would want him back seemed legit. It sounded like there wasn’t a whole lot of love lost between Tanaka and his son, but I wouldn’t put it past Tanaka to value him more than his daughter. I didn’t get the impression that he thought much about women. He certainly didn’t sound like much of a husband, according to Carla.

Then again, Carla wasn’t exactly the easiest person to love. None of them were. The daughter was probably some kind of hellspawn with a second set of teeth between her legs.

“Fuck,” I spat, glaring at Ryo.

I leaned against the table, suddenly feeling extremely tired. The entire trip in Norway hadn’t exactly been restful. Erin had put me through my paces over the last couple of hours, and I was still suffering from jet lag.

I needed sleep before I could consider my next move.

I glanced up at Chloe, then Psalter—neither gave me much to work with.

“Fuck!” I repeated and punched the table.

Ryo flinched. I think he was afraid I was about to hit him.

I didn’t have the stomach for it, though. Part of me liked watching Chloe pummel the shit out of him, but I just didn’t have it in me. I’d never felt like much of a fighter. I didn’t like seeing people get hurt. This was probably the closest I’d ever come to enjoying the infliction of pain on someone. Bobbi didn’t count—not really. She got off on it.