Page 10
Then he walks toward me. Fantastic. My least favorite person is approaching, and my heart has apparently mistaken this for exciting news, because why the fuck is it beating so fast?
His dark eyes trace my face, unapologetic and starving. “Hello, my prince.”
I hate that nickname.
I hate it with every bleeding nerve in my chest. He started calling me that not long after we met, and from the second it left his mouth, I knew it was going to be a problem.
Kento Kurosaki.
Brother of Rei Kurosaki, who happens to be Dimitri’s boyfriend and a yakuza heir.
Yeah.
Because, unbeknownst to my best friends, Kento is also the heir to the Kazuma family. The Kazuma family. The most powerful yakuza in New York, maybe in all of America, depending on who you ask and how much they value staying alive. Even the strongest mafia families speak about them carefully.
They have fingers in everything from clubs and gambling to shipping and information. They’ve built enough connections that pissing them off can turn into everyone else’s problem too. They don’t make empty threats, either. If a Kazuma says something will happen, people tend to believe them. Mostly because there are decades of unfortunate examples proving they mean it.
Kento is a perfect example. Most people have never even seen him, but they talk about him like he’s some fucking urban legend. The hidden Kazuma heir. The ghost of the family. The boy people swear can kill a man with his bare hands and walk away without so much as a change in expression.
The confusing part is that Kento isn’t technically blood-related to that family, from what I know.
And yet he is the heir.
My family is the only one that knows. And for reasons I still resent, I’m supposed to keep it secret.
He stops in front of me, close enough to be obnoxious. I cross my arms and look at him. “What are you doing here? Did someone lose their stray?”
He clicks his tongue, faintly amused. “I missed you, so I came to see you.”
There’s a beat of silence in which I seriously debate punching him in the throat. He’s been on a fucking streak lately. Every time he opens his mouth, some ridiculous romantic bullshit comes out. I scoff. “Congratulations. You saw me. Now move.”
I go to step around him, but he shifts just enough to block my path. He tilts his head toward the boxing area behind me.
“Play with me?”
I look past him toward the ring, then back at him, and raise a brow. “You want to be beaten?”
His smile deepens. “You think you can beat me?”
“Oh,” I say softly, “I know I can hurt you.”
“Hurt me, then.”
Fucking hell.
I hate how every interaction with this bastard feels like inching toward the edge of a rooftop, knowing full well I’m going to end up falling and still being stupid enough to stick around to find out whether I jump or he shoves me.
Kento takes another step toward me, and I hold my ground this time.
He looks pleased by that too, which is irritating, because if I breathe wrong, he’ll probably find meaning in it. “Let’s see it, then.”
I look at him. He looks less like a man and more like a warning carved into the shape of one. There’s something deeply wrong with how much I want to wipe that smug expression off his face myself.
Not because I dislike him.
Well. Also because I dislike him.
But not only that.
