Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 112056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
I was almost positive an allotment of minutes could change, depending on how enjoyable or unwanted a situation was.
Years as a slave…an eternity.
Months at sea…a single second.
And now, as Elder clutched my hand while we stood on the stoop of a nondescript, cookie-cutter house in Brooklyn, I swore time had systematically sped up to deliver us to this moment, then slowed to decades now we were here.
I didn’t speak—it wasn’t my place.
My place was holding his hand and supporting him.
Selix slouched with his arms crossed behind us, guarding the black car. He’d given me a nod when we’d docked as he returned from my errand.
He’d bought what I’d asked—not that I’d seen them—and, hopefully, Elder would appreciate my gifts rather than hate them.
“Christ, why is this so hard?” Elder muttered under his breath as he reached up and knocked on the black-painted front door.
I squeezed his fingers, staying silent. His question didn’t need an answer.
He knew.
This was hard because his family had shunned him for years, and he was a sucker for punishment. Any other person would’ve walked away by now. Anyone else wouldn’t have put up with the cold shoulder for so long.
But Elder…he never stopped blaming himself and living in their disgust. This was his past, and it had so many unfinished threads.
Footsteps sounded inside the dwelling, responding to his knock.
I froze as Elder’s fingers vised around mine.
The front door swung open.
A man I didn’t recognise blinked, glanced at me and Elder, then scrunched his nose in confusion. “Can I help—” He did a double take, his forehead wrinkling as shock took hold. “Holy hell. Mik? Is that really you?”
Elder swallowed, jutting his hand out to shake. “Hello, Uncle Raymond. Nice to see you again.”
Instead of taking his hand and accepting Elder’s hello, he pushed forward, forcing us back off his stoop and closing the door behind him with a worried glance inside. “What are you doing here? You know she doesn’t want to see you.”
Elder sighed painfully. “I know, but I have news. I need to tell her in person.”
Raymond rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not so sure about—”
The door swung open behind him. “Ray, what the hell are you doing lurking— ”
Elder sucked in a breath, his full attention locked on his mother. “Okaasan.”
“No.” She growled, moving to slam the door. “Go away.”
Unlike before in Monte Carlo when Elder stood by and let his mother dictate his replies and stayed subservient to her pain, he slapped a palm against the door, keeping it open. “They’re dead.”
His eyes blazed, not wasting breath on apologies or requests for her to listen.
His mother turned white, her hand still on the door, flimsy and loose. “What?”
“The Chinmoku who killed Kade and Otōsan. They’re dead. Finally.”
His mother stumbled backward, landing in a cane chair with shoes neatly placed on a rack beside it. “You killed them?” Her tone was accusing and grateful all at the same time.
Elder moved into the foyer and fell to one knee in front of her. He didn’t dare touch her, but he murmured, “I swore to you that I’d avenge them. It took longer than I hoped, but it’s done. You’re safe now, and I’ll respect your decision not to see me again but I had to let you know I kept my promise even if I was the reason they’re dead in the first place.”
His mother stilled, her eyes filling with tears.
Elder shifted closer, bowing his head and whispering things in Japanese.
I wasn’t privy to what he said, but his mother’s face shattered from hatred to sorrow. She bent over, wrapping her arms around her waist as tears fell swift and fat, plopping onto the dark red dress she wore with white cranes on the front panels. Immaculately dressed with greying black hair tied into a bun—a woman coming apart before her son.
Her tears looked healing as well as agonising, but even in the depth of her grief, she didn’t reach for Elder, didn’t embrace him, didn’t apologise in turn for all the harsh cruelty she’d thrown in his face throughout the years.
But Elder didn’t need any of that.
Whispering a little longer in his native tongue, he stood and pressed a kiss against her hair then backed away. Crossing the threshold, he jumped as Raymond, with equally greying hair and smart corduroys, rested his hand on Elder’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Elder gritted his teeth. “I understand she’ll never forgive me, but at least, our family is safe now. I had to tell you in person. I’m sorry for the years of uncertainty and the pain I brought upon us.”
Raymond shook his head. “Time is a healer, Miki-san. You were young. We all make mistakes. It’s not the mistakes that should be held against us or define who we are but how we deal with them.”