AUTHOR
The room they'd given her was quiet. Too quiet. After the constant, grim noises of the warehouse—the cries, the scuffles, the low hum of fear—this silence felt heavy and unnatural.
It was a luxurious silence, padded by thick, plush carpets and swallowed by walls covered in a subtle, silk-like paper. A single, modern lamp on a low table cast a warm, golden glow across the room, illuminating the deep reds and dark woods of the furnishings.
It was beautiful, like a picture from a magazine, but to Nicole, it felt like another kind of cage. A gilded one, but a cage nonetheless.
She sat on the edge of the futon, her hands clenched in her lap. The fabric of the clean yukata they'd given her was soft against her skin, a foreign feeling after the rough, dirty clothes she'd worn for so long.
"What kind of people are they?," The question circled in her mind like a trapped fly.
They had guns. They killed men without blinking. And yet, they had this… this palace.
And they'd just brought her here, a stranger. Stupid, she thought, a harsh, internal criticism. Stupid to even wonder. They're not nice. No one is nice. There's always a price.
She tried to lie down, to force her body to relax into the incredible softness of the mattress. But the moment she closed her eyes, she saw it all again—the flash of Kenji's knife, the blank look in his blue eyes as he pulled her from the car.
Her body stayed rigid, a tightly coiled spring. She tossed onto her side, pulling the blanket up to her chin. Then she turned onto her other side, staring at the delicate pattern of cherry blossoms on the sliding door.
Every tiny sound—the creak of the house, the distant hum of a generator—made her flinch.
"Why was he so quiet?," Her mind kept returning to Kenji.
The other one, Tokito, talked. He smiled. He was easier to understand, even if that understanding was wrapped in fear. But Kenji… he was a statue. A beautiful, dangerous statue.
His silence was a void that her fear rushed to fill with terrible possibilities. "What does he want from me? Why did he really take me?," The question was a drumbeat of dread in her chest.
He hadn't looked at her with the same crude hunger as the other men, but the way his eyes had lingered on her felt… worse. It was a calculated look, like he was assessing a piece of art, deciding where to make the first cut.
A soft knock at the door made her jolt upright, her heart hammering. The door slid open before she could answer, revealing Nemu. The girl offered a small, tentative smile, her arms stacked high with fluffy white towels. "I thought you might like these for a bath later," she said, her voice gentle as she placed them on a low shelf.
She moved quietly, trying not to intrude, but her presence was a disruption to the heavy silence. Nicole just watched her, unsure of what to say or do.
The moment was broken by a familiar, easy-going voice. "Making yourself useful, Nemu? Careful, people will start to expect it."
Tokito leaned against the doorframe, a smirk playing on his lips. He'd changed his clothes, now wearing a simple black t-shirt and jeans. He looked more like a college student than a killer. Nemu rolled her eyes, but a faint blush touched her cheeks. "Someone has to be," she retorted, though there was no real heat in it.
Tokito's gaze then shifted to Nicole, his brown eyes taking her in. The smirk softened into something that almost looked like sympathy. "How are you holding up in here? It's a lot to take in, I know."
Nicole remained silent, pulling the yukata tighter around herself. "Don't trust the smile," she warned herself. Don't trust any of it.
He seemed to understand her silence. He nodded slowly, his eyes scanning the room before landing back on her. "Look," he began, his tone dropping its playful edge. "This place… it's complicated. But you're safe here. Safer than you were, anyway."
He took a step into the room, and Nicole instinctively shrank back. He stopped immediately, holding up his hands in a peaceful gesture. "Kenji… he's not much of a talker. But his actions mean something. He doesn't bring just anyone here."
"What does that mean?," Nicole's mind screamed. "What am I, then?"
Nemu, sensing the tension, interjected. "I can show you where the bath is whenever you're ready. It might help you relax."
Tokito nodded in agreement. "Good idea. A hot bath fixes most things." He gave Nicole another long look, his expression unreadable for a moment. "Get some rest. No one will bother you tonight."
With that, he turned and disappeared down the hall. Nemu gave her one last encouraging smile before softly closing the door, leaving Nicole alone once more. The room was just as quiet, just as luxurious.
But now it felt different.
Their words hung in the air—safer, he doesn't bring just anyone here. They were meant to comfort, but to Nicole, they felt like threads of a web, gently being woven around her. She was safe from the monsters outside, but what about the monster who owned this gilded cage? The silence no longer felt empty; it felt like it was waiting. And she was trapped in the middle of it, tossing and turning, with no idea what would happen when the waiting was over.
– – –
KENJI
The papers—Nicole's medical file—felt heavy in my hand for a moment before I slid them into the top drawer of my desk. The soft click of the lock engaging was a satisfying sound. Her secrets were mine now, cataloged and stored.
I turned, leaning back in my chair, and tapped a key on the console beside me. A large screen mounted on the wall flickered to life, split into four quadrants showing different areas of the estate. With another tap, one feed expanded to fill the screen: Nicole's room.
She was pacing. A small, restless animal in a gilded cage. The luxurious room I'd given her seemed to press in on her, its comfort a form of torture. She'd stop, run a hand over the silk duvet as if testing its reality, then resume her frantic movement.
A smirk played on my lips. Her unease was a palpable thing, even through the cold, digital remove. This was better than I'd anticipated. The fear, the confusion… it was the perfect primer. She was stripping away the old layers of numbness, leaving raw, exposed nerve endings. Perfect for what I had planned.
The door to my study opened without a sound. My eyes didn't leave the screen as I hit a button, plunging the monitor to black a half-second before her arms wrapped around my neck from behind.
"Kenji, baby," Akane's voice was a purr against my ear. The scent of her expensive perfume, something floral and cloying, filled the space around me. Her lips brushed my skin.
My expression didn't change. I remained perfectly still in my chair, my hands resting on the armrests. "Why didn't you knock, Akane?"
She loosened her grip, moving around to the side of my chair. She was dressed to kill, in a tight, black dress that left little to the imagination. A pout formed on her perfectly painted lips. "Since when do I need to knock? I thought you'd be happy to see me. You've been so… distant lately."
She leaned forward, placing a hand on my chest, her fingers tracing a slow, deliberate path downward. "I can fix that. I know what you like."
I captured her wrist, not roughly, but with a firmness that stopped her progress. My touch was cool, impersonal. "I'm not in the mood."
She tried to twist her wrist free, a flash of irritation in her eyes. "Don't be like that. Let me help you relax." She attempted to lower herself onto my lap, a practiced, seductive move.
I didn't yield an inch. My other hand came up, a single finger under her chin, tilting her face up to mine. My gaze was flat, bored. "I said no."
"Kenji, please—" she insisted, her voice taking on a wheedling tone.
I raised a brow, a silent, cold challenge. My voice dropped, losing any semblance of patience. "If you're so determined for something to happen, Akane, then you'll have to do all the work."
The implication hung in the air—cold, degrading. Her face flushed, a mix of anger and humiliation. For a moment, she looked like she might argue, but she saw the finality in my eyes. She snatched her wrist back, straightening up.
"Fine," she spat, the word sharp with wounded pride. She turned on her heel and strode out, slamming the door behind her.
The silence she left behind was a relief. I turned back to my desk, my hand hovering over the key to restore the screen. The brief interruption was a nuisance.
My thoughts were already back in that room, watching the ghost of a girl pace, waiting for the moment her spirit would break just enough for me to truly begin.
– – –
AUTHOR
As the door clicked shut behind a furious Akane, Kenji's finger hovered over the key that would bring Nicole's image back to the screen. His cold dismissal of a beautiful, willing woman seemed irrational to an outsider.
But for Kenji, it was a fundamental law of nature, carved into his psyche not by his father, Renji, but by the two people who truly raised him: his mother, Akira, and his uncle, Hiroto.
Renji Soma was a strategist, a man who believed power was a tool for maintaining order and, when possible, peace. He was often absent, building his legitimate empire, leaving his son in the care of a woman whose love was a conditional transaction and a man who believed cruelty was the purest form of strength.
From his mother, Kenji learned that affection was a weapon. Akira Soma was a masterpiece of cold beauty and calculated manipulation. She never hugged her son; she assessed him.
Her praise was never freely given; it was a reward for demonstrating the right kind of ruthlessness. "Softness is a stain, Kenji," she would tell him, her voice like chilled silk. "It attracts the weak and emboldens your enemies. Your father's compassion is a flaw he can afford only because I am here to balance it."
She taught him that to want something was to reveal a vulnerability, and that the ultimate power lay in making others want you, in making them desperate for a crumb of your attention that you may or may not grant.
From his uncle Hiroto, the Mazoku clan's chief enforcer, Kenji learned the physical language of dominance. Hiroto didn't believe in lessons; he believed in tests.
He didn't take Kenji to playgrounds; he took him to interrogation rooms. He didn't give him toys; he gave him knives. "Power isn't about having the biggest gun, boy," Uncle Hiroto would grunt, his breath smelling of whiskey and violence. "It's about proving you have the will to use it. Everyone bleeds. Everyone breaks. The question is, can you watch them break without flinching?"
He taught Kenji to dissect fear in others, to enjoy the subtle shift in a person's eyes when they realized they were utterly, completely at his mercy.
This was the crucible that forged him. While his father preached legacy, his mother and uncle preached possession. They taught him that love and power were incompatible, and that to truly own something—or someone—you had to be the source of both their fear and their perverse sense of safety.
This brings us back to the scene in his study.
Akane's approach was a transaction he had no interest in. She offered pleasure, but she wanted validation. She sought to give in order to get.
In Kenji's world, that was a sign of weakness. The true power, as his mother taught, was in being the object of desire, not the participant. And as his uncle taught, the ultimate control was in the breaking.
That is why his gaze was already returning to the blank screen. Nicole represented a purer challenge. She wasn't seeking anything from him yet. She was just afraid, trapped, and utterly dependent.
He hadn't asked for her desire; he had taken her freedom. He would be the architect of her reality, the source of her terror, and eventually, if he calculated correctly, the sole focus of her warped devotion.
Her unease wasn't a problem to be solved; it was the fertile ground where his obsession would take root.
Watching her pace was the beginning of the long, meticulous process of breaking and remaking her—a process he would enjoy far more than any fleeting physical pleasure. It was the ultimate application of his mother's cold lessons and his uncle's brutal training. He wasn't just a man; he was a god sculpting his most perfect subject.