The white light grows, making the darkness retreat.
I come into the brightness, and the space widens up to an opulent expanse. My eyes glide up the glittering columns reflecting on the white limestone floor. Traditional grandeur paired with contemporary glamor. The textured black glazed walls stretch to over thirty feet high, its knife-edged planes fitted with glowing LED strips. A dramatic spiral staircase coils around an exclosure at the one end.
"Black rose."
The woman beckons. She sits behind a desk carved from a slab of onyx.
I approach warily.
"Your bag, please."
"Excuse me?"
"Your bag," she repeats without compromise. "You will have it when you leave."
I return my phone and place my clutch bag on the hunk of stone. She takes it and her eyes point to a large Tudor archway to my left. I take her mute instruction and I follow it, not that I need to. An allure of sultry, slow, and reverb music entices me with every thumping beat. I emerge in a high-ceilinged ballroom like some elite, underground restaurant with sets of tables and velvet black chairs arranged on the margins of the room. Completely empty except for the man standing in the center of what seems to be the entertainment area or the dancefloor.
I take another breath and approach him.
"You're a paranoid man," I say to his back.
He turns around with a daunting and devilish smirk. His midnight-black hair is styled slick like it's wet with a middle parting, strands like streaks of ink cascading down his forehead. He pushes his hair back with a comb of his hand. He's dressed in all-black. His black shirt is unbuttoned just enough to see a peek of a silver chain ornamenting his sinewed chest.
"If I'm the black rose… does that make you the wolf?"
He comes closer to me. "There's a saying." He begins to circle me with the slow-mo tread of a black panther. "There is no such thing as a gentleman. Only a patient wolf."
His scent is like a waterfall of fragrances, the spice, the muskiness. Intoxicated by the sheer proximity. The mere air around him radiates peril and intrigue. He stops in front of me and I create more space by easing back carefully.
"I'm only here because I want to know more about your relations with the Yakuza and my father."
"Very bad manners, Bella," he says in a playful reproach. "You should know better, pleasantries before business. But first, I need to search you, and make sure you don't have any listening devices or weapons."
My eyes fill their sockets. "I obviously don't have one. This is a pretty tight dress."
His eyes feast on the of my form, both deviant and desirous. "It certainly is."
"You're not going to dare touch me." I don't know where I got the nerve!
In a flash of movement, he takes my chin roughly, forcing me to look at him. My whole world shrinks, focusing on the glimmering black pupils of his eyes. His hand slips to my chest and his finger traces down, over my breast and when it comes to my stomach, both hands brace my waist, roaming down until my hips, searching thoroughly, his touch sparking a tumult, a flare of heat that spreads where his hand goes, my insides burning like a wildfire. He lowers to his haunches, his hands trail up my leg with excruciating slowness. My mind goes a bit fuzzy. His hand travels too far up my thigh—I gasp, stumbling out of his grasp. Air returns to my lungs.
He rises, full lips ever-engraved in that dangerously bewitching smirk. "I was wondering how long you were going to let me get away with that."
"Is this a game to you?" My face is boiling hot, and the inflection in my voice makes me sound shrill. "What is this?"
His eyes give me another torturously long, once over. This discomfort is new as it is unsettling, nerve wracking. It makes me wonder what he is thinking. What are his thoughts of me? You're insane. I cross my arms, shifting my weight to one side. His eyes flick up and my breath catches in my throat. I evade, looking anywhere else, my mouth becoming arid.
"Enjoying the view?"
He shakes his head dazedly. "No, because now I want a taste."
A hot flush stings my face.
" Forgive me, I forget myself," he says, aware of every scarlet shade of my cheeks. "My name is Botan."
"Botan," I say, my tongue curling around the sound of his name—a nice fit in my mouth. "You claim to have information about my father. I want to know what you know and how?"
"A dance first."
"Excuse me?"
"We both know you heard me clearly." His eyes never leave mine , dark and intense, his gaze his own force of gravity drawing me in with a magnetism that leaves me breathless. "You seek answers, but I crave the intoxication of holding you once more."
He extends his hand to me. I indulge his little ploy, even though every part of me screams not to. I lift a tentative hand before I place it in his, and he yanks me to him, my body flush against him. So close that his breath ghosts over my lips. He takes my wrists and moves them on his shoulders, so my hands dangle behind his neck. His hands graze along my skin, exploding with minuscule goosebumps at the wake of his touch. His hand splays possessively against my back, guiding me into an intimate dance, each step precise, controlled, but laden with something unspoken.
"Firstly, who are you?"
"Deep down, I think you know."
"You work for the Yakuza?"
He rumbles a chuckle, a tantalizing tremor that reverberates through me as if he's amused.
"Your father is indebted to Haru Black—an Oyabun who is the head of the most powerful Yakuza clans. And I'm his right-hand man."
"Your father?" I insinuate.
"Might as well be."
"So you chose this kind of life?"
My breath hitches as I dare to glance up at him, only to find his gaze fixed on me—the fierce intensity, as if he is eroding away the layers of my resolve with each passing second. He moves with a predator's grace, his touch a whisper of temptation, his presence overwhelming. The heat between us is palpable, a fire igniting with every twist and turn, my pulse quickening with every brush of our bodies.
His hands cement themselves to my hips, guiding the sensuous movements of my body.
"I don't—I don't think my boyfriend would approve of you touching me like this."
He peels me away from him just to spin me around. And my back hits his chest, and he tangles his arms around my waist.
He brushes a kiss on the shell of my ear, whispering huskily, "Then tell me to stop."
"I–I–"
"I can't hear you."
He plants a trail of kisses down, then sucks at the juncture of neck and shoulder, luring out a series of breathless moans from me, nipping at my skin. A glimmer of sense finds me in the fog of insatiable lust.
"Botan—no."
He pulls back abruptly as if yanked back by a chain.
I reverse, my chest rising and falling erratically.
"Bella."
Tears burn behind my eyes, and I whirl around, running out. And he lets me.
***
Kelsey opens her front door, bleary-eyed.
"There must be an extinction-level crisis for a visit at this ungodly hour."
I slip past her, and she closes the door behind me. I come into her cozy living room, switching on the light, then I collapse on the world's most comfortable bean bag. I nestle myself on it, kicking off my heels to tuck my knees to my chest and going into a semi fetus position.
"Oh dear," she says with worn worry. "You're in your baby ball. Something bad happened to you," she states as a fact.
I mumble my confession.
"What?"
"I kinda cheated on my fake boyfriend with the lieutenant of the Yakuza—the right-hand man to the crime boss who threatened my family!"
Kelsey's eyes snap open, shock shaking her vigorously. "I'm going to make some tea… then you're going to spill it."
She leaves the living room to go to the kitchen. After a short while, she returns with two steaming cups of chamomile tea. She hands me one before she settles on the couch adjacent to me. My hand cups around the warm porcelain. And I tell her everything, even though I don't know if she should know. I don't know if this would put her in danger or not, but I've tried keeping secrets before and failed. Kelsey knows me as well as my brothers. She would pick up that something was wrong, and it is.
She lifts a baffled hand. "You're telling me. You. You. The girl who has only had her first kiss after highschool, has never gone to second base with a guy, and runs from every relationship that comes her way. That same girl, Saint Avara, did the devil's tango—no pun intended, with a dangerous thug. Who also works for the same man that threatened you and your family?"
The recap sends me into a spiral, dread and guilt twisting my insides. "I know, Kel. I know."
"This is the most rebellious, exciting thing you've ever done," she says with a cheer in her voice. And it dies instantly. "And the most reckless and stupidly dangerous! What the hell were you thinking?"
"I wasn't thinking!"
"So you stopped it before it went too far?"
I nod quickly, taking an unsteady sip of my tea. Still alight, the heat is like ice to my bones.
"And he let you? He didn't try to stop you or—"
"Gosh no," I shriek.
Her brows clench cynically. "Don't look so appalled. You don't know him, he could have."
"But he didn't," I say reflexively. "So that says something. We were completely alone. He could've done anything to me, but he didn't. I don't think he intends on hurting me."
"Because you're the golden ticket," she says with a spiteful laugh. "This alliance doesn't work without you. No one gets what they want without you. He probably just wants you under his control to make sure you do what they need you to do, then he'll wash his hands of you."
Something in me sinks, pinching a tender spot in me I wasn't even aware existed. I nod, forcing myself to resign my mind to this line of thinking. That's the only reason he's toying with me. He's monitoring me. Everyone is monitoring me.
"Where's your bodyguard, anyway? Why's the mayor's daughter traveling alone?"
"Colton told my dad to fire him, and that he was going to handle security."
She scoffs and leans back, scratching her head through the bonnet. "Well, he's doing a crap job."
I shake my head, taking a longer sip of tea. "No, Botan mentioned I was being watched by many guards. Unseen, because I haven't spotted any since he told me. Maybe Colton gave them an order to stay out of sight? Which is weird. I know they're following me. They might as well be allowed to show themselves."
Kelsey straightens. "If you are being watched. Why didn't they stop you?"