Kazoku by Tara A Devlin

Author:Tara A Devlin
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Orochi Press
Published: 2019-10-25T04:00:00+00:00

Shadows. Shadows everywhere. They slunk into corners as I walked down the hall. They slipped behind doors as I passed empty rooms. The air weighed heavy with tension. A new guy jumped as I passed him moping the halls before the meeting room. A junior member nearly wet himself when I said good morning in passing. Something crashed upstairs, followed shortly by a loud, angry voice. No wonder everyone was tense. I made my way upstairs and into Harada’s office.

Toshiki, Kame, Ippei, and two other men stood silent as stone while Harada threw another vase against the wall.

“I want them dead!” he screamed. “They’re making a mockery of me! Of us!” He turned, frothing at the mouth, when he saw me enter.

“Yotchan!” He stormed over and grabbed my arms with a force I didn’t expect from a man his age. “Was it really Ren? Are you sure?”

I nodded. Right down to the scar on his cheek and the blue tattooed waves peeking out from underneath his sleeve.

“Those bastards,” he muttered. “They’ve had it out for me ever since I started purchasing properties in West Rakucho. They’re upset they didn’t think of it first. That I saw the potential and didn’t just sit around talking about it.”

“They?” Ippei asked. Harada turned to him, fire roaring to life in his eyes once more.

“Those Toyotomi bastards! They did this!”

“I-I heard there’s a killer in Rakucho right now.” It was the first time I’d heard Toshiki speak to the boss of his own volition. “T-The Rakucho Nightcrawler, or something like that… They say—”

Harada scoffed. “Believe everything you see on TV, do you boy?”

“Besides, they say the Nightcrawler stabs his victims to death,” Kame interjected. “And he leaves the bodies in Rakucho. Neither Eita nor Ren were inside Rakucho when they were killed, and neither of them were stabbed.” His eyes flickered over to me as he said Ren’s name, a small grin growing on his lips. My blood boiled. He wasn’t even sad that Ren was dead. On the contrary. He was probably hoping that Harada would make him a lieutenant now, and I had no doubt it was him stoking the old flames of Harada’s Toyotomi hatred. Come to think of it, it was Kame who came running into the bar that night to let us know that Toyotomi boys were outside. All this just for a promotion?

A cold breeze blew past me. The hairs on my arm stood on end. I turned around, but nothing was there. The door was closed.

“Yotchan!”

I turned to face Harada again. “Yes, sir?”

“I said, I want you to grab someone for me.”

“…Grab someone?”

Harada sat down at his desk, the vein by his temple throbbing and his face red. He motioned to one of the men before him to clean up the mess and he ran over wordlessly, piling broken pieces of vase by the window.

“One of the Toyotomi boys. I don’t care who, but I want you to bring me one. We need to have a chat.”

“I can—” Kame extended a hand but Harada interrupted him.

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