76 – Alex
“Mom, I am not playing fucking games anymore. Tell me where Jake is. Now.”
I was pacing the room of the motel Sota had managed to find us. Yasu was conscious, treating Aoto’s bullet wound and Sota was on the phone to Oliver, while the other security sat out the front, keeping an eye on things.
“Don’t you speak to me like that, Alexander Kazumi.” My mom’s voice was strained, and I sighed, pushing my hand through my hair. “I am your mother.”
Toning it down a little, I tried a different approach. I tried to appeal to the woman who was worried about her child. “Mom. Please. You have no idea what he’s done.”
There were sniffles on the other end of the line.
“He’s a broken boy.”
I rolled my eyes. Always defending her baby. What about me? Did she give a fuck about me? What I had been through? Or
life no longer important? “Mom. He’s twenty–three years old, he isn’t a little boy anymore. He’s done something very bad, and I need to know where he is, so I can fix it.”
Was my
There was a pause, and I knew if I didn’t tell her, she’d never help.
“Mom, Joey’s been kidnapped. Same with my boss, and Jake is behind it.”
I had told myself I couldn’t give in to my y emotions until Joey and Yuka were safe. But the more I started to lose my grip on what was happening, the more my emotions came into play.
Honestly, I could deal with Yuka being killed. He was the boss of a Yakuza clan.
It was a hazard for the job, and he’d even told me before he was surprised, he was still alive at sixty–eight. But if something happened to Joey there would not be a hole in hell where anyone could hide, and I wouldn’t find them and make them
pay.
Even if that someone was my own kid brother.
“Mom. Please. I’ve never asked you for anything. I left when you told me to. I let pa’s mother treat me like shit and didn’t speak up against her, or your inability to protect me. I have sent you money to make sure you don’t lose the store.” Tears were starting to flow down my cheeks, and I sank to the bed, putting my head in my hands. “Ma. Please. I love Joey. She’s my world and if I lose her, I won’t be able to live with myself. I need to save Joey.”
I could hear more of my mother’s sniffles on the other end of the line, and I knew I had hit a nerve. I wish I hadn’t had to speak to her like I did, but I needed the information.
She’d once told me she wished she’d never agreed to allow my father’s parents to move in with them, because once they had, pa’s mother had taken over; I’d even seen her strike my mother before and when I had stood up to protect her, I had. been struck too. But she had done what any other dutiful wife of a Japanese man had done, even if she was white; she didn’t say a word and let the tyrant of a woman control everything-
“You know he’s gotten into the gangs here?”
There it was. Confirmation of what I had feared, the moment I had seen the text
I TOLD YOU YOU’D REGRET COMING BACK TO MIAMI
I had called Oliver to tell him what had happened.
He’d gone into caretaker mode.
message.
Akito had been informed of his brother’s kidnapping, and he had confirmed that if needed, the Takada soldiers in Japan would be on the first plane to New York to protect Jade, Hiro and Pearl.
Then I told Oliver of my suspicions about Jake.
That had gone down like a sack of shit.
“When?”
“About a year ago. He lost a lot of money in a business deal gone wrong. He sought out a loan shark, who would be discrete, and stay within the Japanese ways.. And well, it didn’t go well, because he couldn’t pay back the money.”
To Alex
My eyes closed and I shook my head. There was only one person in Miami who loaned out money
to the Japanese.
Sana Yomota.
“Fuck.” I looked up as a
as a shadow came over me.
Sota had his phone
out and had the screen pointed at me. There was a note
GET HIS NUMBER.
OLIVER CAN TRACK IT.
Fuck, I forgot that even though he’d taken a few knocks to the head as a teen, Oliver was incredibly savvy with tech
“Ma, just give me Jake’s number. I know he’d be calling you still.”
There was a pause. “As long as you promise me, you won’t hurt him “
Fuck. I didn’t want to promise that. Because right now, I wanted nothing more than to hurt my little brother. But I sighed. “Okay. I won’t hurt him.”
Another pause and then through sobs, my mom rattled off Jake’s number and I relayed it to Sota. “Thank you, ma. I promise I will get him help. I love you.”
“I love you too, Alex. Please be gentle with him.”
I hung up the phone and looked at Sota, who handed me his phone. I held it to my ear. “Did you get that, Ollie?”
“Yeah, I did. I’m just running his number through the system now. It’ll take a little bit.”
I knew how long it’d take and knew every second it did take, was another second they were in danger. “Have you secured Jade and Hiro?”
“Yes, and Mama Takada. They’re at Mama Mori’s house, under guard.” I could hear the tension in Oliver’s voice. There was something he wasn’t telling me.
“Oliver, what else is going on?”
“We did a check–in of everyone who is in the territory at the moment. There’s one missing.”
I could tell who it was before he’d even said the name. “Reiji.”
“Bingo. So, I called one of my contacts in the clans‘ meeting committee, he put out feelers and someone said they had spotted him in Vegas, about six hours ago.”
“Fuck” Could this day get any worse?
“Well, the program has just cleared.” Oliver said. “I’m sorry, Alex. He’s there, in Nevada.”
My stomach dropped. I had wanted it not to be true, that Jake had just lost his way and had disappeared, but no, he was here. In Nevada “Where?”
“About 14 km northeast of you. Lake Las Vegas.”
“You have to be kidding.”
Our old stomping ground. Where we would go, to fight. Because behind all those pretty mansions and idyllic lifestyles.. there was a seediness to Lake Las Vegas, which fed into the underground fighting rings and back into the Yakuza.
“Can you pinpoint him?”
“No, just a general vicinity. But he’s there. Same with Reiji. They’re literally on top of each other.” I could hear in Oliver’s voice that he was just as pissed as I was, if not more. He cared for Joey, yes. But they had also taken his father–in–law. Hiro’s grandfather. I could only imagine what Jade was going through, and how Peral would be having to hold her back from flying our here. “Do you want me to come-
“No. You stay there and keep everyone safe. Right now, you are the head of the Takada clan. You and Jade. You stay, keep her safe. I will call some of the other clans here and try to get some reinforcements.”
“Fuck, this is shit, Alex.”
“Yeah, I know.” I replied, hanging my head, looking at the ground. “Let’s just hope that Joey still has a rapport with Jake, because if she doesn’t, by the time I get here; if Jake has gone off the deep end; they’ll be dead.”
