UNLAWFUL ORDERS, TOKYO DETAIL
Chapter One
Going Home
Haruto put the last of his clothes neatly in his suitcase. He understood why she did it, but that didn’t mean he was going to like it. She had explained it to him briefly, too briefly. Like it as no big deal at all. Like she was telling him what she was going to have for lunch that day. Yet, she wouldn’t look him in the eye when she told him about the offer she was going to make Ryan. Haruto had grown to like Ryan’s company. The American was a good bodyguard, and Haruto had no reason to hate him except that he seemed to be getting just a little too close to Mysuki.
At least he was going to go back to Japan now. He missed it there. He missed the food and the people and the culture that he so easily melded into, effortlessly and seamlessly. He felt marginalized in America. Sometimes he felt like Mysuki was protecting him instead of the other way around. Outside the hotel, he was always wondering what people were talking about and why they drew attention. Mysuki had to quietly explain to him that everything was okay and that there wasn’t any threat.
Ryan might have been one of those loud Americans, and he clearly had a wild side. There was just something about him so loose and free, unpredictable, and almost animal. Haruto also knew that he didn’t have an ounce of true meanness in him. Ryan looked at Mysuki, not with lust or apathy, but with the eyes of someone caring and compassionate and protective. He deescalated a tense situation instead of standing back in the shadows. He did more than just his job. He took care of her wherever she needed it most.
There was still a ping of jealousy when he saw those two smiles at each other and try to hide it, as though there wasn’t some spark of attraction between them. Anyone with sight could detect it. Anyone with a heart could feel it.
When they first got to America, Haruto was horribly worried about Mysuki. She had just attended her father’s funeral and hadn’t had a chance to mourn. She’d packed in haste because they needed to get to America, which he knew that she hated.
When she took off that first night and went out street racing with her friends, he was so furious. He was ready to run through the streets, screaming for her and searching for her and even harming anyone who got in his way. It was Ryan who saved her that night. He was wearing a shirt with the name of the club on it, and he was just trying to take care of someone who needed his help. When he was hired as a bodyguard, Haruto felt a little more secure in being able to protect Mysuki, his long-time friend and successor of the Yakuza boss, Itsuki Katami. Ryan had the body and mind of a warrior, and Mysuki had twice the protection.
Haruto was anxious. They would leave in the morning, but he wanted to go sooner. He was ready to get on the plane and leave the continent behind. Mysuki was talking to Ryan at that moment to see if he was going to come along, and Haruto suspected that it could go either way.
She needed Ryan to be her husband. It was a complicated situation. The American businessmen were difficult to work with, not wanting to listen to a young, single woman. Daniel Forester was the key to renewing all of Mysuki’s father’s contracts in the States, and he wouldn’t listen to anyone. Until Ryan stepped in. But it wasn’t just America that wouldn’t listen to a woman like Mysuki taking command. She’d just received word that another Yakuza clan was trying to take over and overthrow her reign. It would undermine her power and authority. It would do a disservice to her father, who had wanted her to become the next powerful Yakuza boss.
They might listen if she had a husband. A husband they believed was a wealthy American businessman. Ryan had a way with people. All people. There was something likable and approachable about him despite his frequent bad attitude and hot temper. He was the only American Haruto had met who knew how to smile with his eyes.
Haruto wished he knew how the conversation was going. Mysuki was tense, and she wanted to get out quickly. Their time in America was over, their mission now complete. The deal had been secured, the contracts signed, and now Japan called for their attention. That didn’t mean the homefront was going to be safer than America for them. Haruto knew what had gone down the other night when Mysuki and Ryan took off in the Bugatti together. There had been an assassination attempt that Ryan was still healing from physically and Mysuki was still healing from emotionally. They survived thanks to an officer who knew Ryan and didn’t ask any questions.
Now she was scared. More scared than she was when she knew that her father was murdered. Now they were coming after her, and she knew that at any moment they could appear. Things would be tense for a long time to come. Haruto didn’t know if or when things could ever be calm for them. They would be much calmer if Ryan came with them.