Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 101427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
“I think winning this war is the only way to keep her alive, and if we want to beat the Fox we must use every advantage. One spy could ruin everything.”
“My Tiger is not an advantage, she’s one of the reasons why I’m fighting this war in the first place.”
“And she’s the reason you could lose it, because you’re playing defense when you should be striking.”
I could feel the muscle ticking in my jaw. I was halfway ready to fucking fight him, but at this point my lungs felt like barbed wire was wrapping around them. I struggled to breathe through it.
Reo watched me. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “You want me to dangle her like bait?”
“I want you to stop acting like she’s already dead the moment she leaves your sight. She’s smart. She sees things you and I don’t. You know it.” Reo placed his hands into his pockets. “Once again, let me remind you. She found Watari. She found Oguri. If you or I had ignored her instincts either time, we would still have two snakes in the grass.”
My fingers tightened around the banister. “And if I keep letting her play at this, it’s only a matter of time before she steps on the wrong snake.”
“Or she helps us find the spy, who can possibly help us find the Fox. Then you don’t need to send half your men to die. Can you see it? Victory.”
The image hit me hard—my father’s sliced-up body, my brother’s bloodied head bowed, the war over before it began. No mass graves on our side. No widows. No brothers’ blood on the sand.
But then another image followed.
Nyomi’s body. Her blood all over my hands. Her eyes closing while I was too far to reach her.
Reo sighed. “Fear makes you cage what you love. Respect sets it free to fight beside you.”
I looked away, jaw tight, because I knew he wasn’t entirely wrong. But fear wasn’t just fear—it was the knowledge of what the Fox would do to her if he ever got close enough.
I trusted Nyomi. I trusted the way her eyes caught what others were trying to hide. If she went out to that part of the island with the Claws, she would notice the wrong blink, the fake ease in a shoulder, the way guilt sat crooked on a man’s face.
I trusted that.
But trust didn’t change what the Fox would do to a woman like her if he ever got a clean angle.
Fast, Nura smiling at Hiro hit my mind and then my father’s bullet slamming into her head a second later.
I can’t let that happen to my Tiger.
I swallowed.
But. . .Hiro wouldn’t be tied up like with Nura. The Claws and him would be free to protect her. . .
I trusted Hiro with damn near everything. My brother came wrapped in jokes and sugar, but he was nothing sweet when the knife came out. I trusted the way he read a space—pulse by pulse, lie by lie—how he could peel a man to the truth with a glance and a hum.
I trusted him to stand between Nyomi and anything stupid enough to reach for her.
I trusted him to come back bloody and grinning, to make death look boring.
But my fear didn’t care who Hiro was. Fear knew that even gods tripped on wet stone. It knew bullets didn’t read names.
Fuck. What should I do?
Reo spoke, “You can ask her if she wants to do it.”
“Fuck you. We both know she will say yes. She loves danger and she’s too goddamn curious.”
Reo smirked. “That’s one of my favorite parts about her.”
I took in my Roar.
I trusted Reo too. I trusted his math—the way he lined a map with invisible thread and tugged until enemies fell into predictable ruin.
This conversation was unlike most we had ever had. He was never so blatantly determined to win.
Typically, if I said go, he went.
If I said stop, he held the line until his bones shook.
I trusted him with my corners, with my blind spots, with the orders I didn’t want anyone else hearing.
But fear was bigger than Reo’s perfect lines. Fear remembered the day the Fox snapped a plan in half with one ugly surprise and smiled while the table bled.
“I don’t know. My father is a monster. You can’t out-calculate a monster who enjoys the cost.”
“But you’re a monster too, Kenji.”
I swallowed.
I trusted myself. I trusted the Dragon I had built out of rage and oath, the man who could pull a city into focus like a rifle sight.
I trusted my hands to do what needed doing and my name to carry the weight.
But, then I met my Tiger and learned that there was a world worth living in after the war.
That was the problem.
Love handed me a future and fear took it hostage.