Chapter 113 - 115
Botan POV
I look up at the set of posts and lintels that support the main building, boosting the large curved roof, double-tiered with coloured tiles. Memories of the sun sting my mind, recollections of my training in the sun-blasted front courtyard for hours. Haru, who watched under the slightly curved eaves that extend far beyond the walls, covering the expansive verandas.
"What do you hope to accomplish here?" Akio asks, eyeing the contingent of armed guards in a show of force to emulate the entrance of an embassy. "Slaughter your way to a confession you won’t get?"
"If I have to."
Akio pivots to look back at me fully. "These are your men as much as they are Haru’s—more so, they know you more than they know him."
Security has doubled. Preparation, I suppose. We all expect retaliation from Yad Zmei, but it had to be done. But now I’m not so sure. I sought to punish my enemies when the true preparator stood behind them all along. The lofty door is pulled open for us, and no one questions my untimed visit. Akio is my shadow, thus remains equally as untouchable.
After entering a network of hallways, we reach the place with multiple rooms that have moveable screens as interior sliding doors, consisting of wooden frames with translucent paper. Akio nods the guard out of the room. He complies and slinks out to join the others in the corridor as he slides the screen shut behind him. Haru is seated behind his ornamental writing desk, apathetic until his eyes finally flick up. Placing me as his prime priority as he sets everything aside to regard me with his solemn stare. So all-knowing. So omniscient.
"Tell me again about the truce." My tone is neutral, never betraying the thoughts bludgeoning my mind. "Tell me how you and Alden came to an accord. Over Avara, because somehow that sick fuck still cares about his daughter enough to protect her. And end the alliance."
Comprehension grips him as he straightens from unease. "He didn’t end the alliance. He just made a new one by cutting out Colton Vacheron. Sound familiar? The same thing he did to us—to me. And I did nothing, and still I do nothing because I can’t help but look at the man and only see the boy I grew up with. Blood brothers don’t choose each other. But I chose mine."
I conclude the story with a cutting laugh. "You could never be so sentimental. Not when you are so ruthless—willing to expose your operations by supplying an intimate dossier to Gianni. Knowing full well he wouldn’t have the resources to strike. But his Russian connections do. You were willing to hurt me all so you could kill her."
He doesn’t even offer me the illusion or pretense of remorse. It’s like he was already aware that I discovered his treachery against me by going after her. "Colton never broke the alliance and made a new deal with me. So that he could protect Avara, but instead what she carries," Haru reveals. "I’m calculating, not cruel—never to you. But I did what I did just like you did when you put a kill order on Alden all those years ago. Because you had the strength to do what I could not."
The reminder jerks my face to the side, but his sudden movement yanks my attention back.