Queen of Hearts Read online

  But now I had no choice.

  Yu had dangled my sister in front of me and I’d taken the bait. Things didn’t turn out as he’d planned, but now that I knew my mom needed help, I wasn’t going to stay away.

  We entered the customer receiving area and walked to the door at the end. It was open a bit, and I peeked through the crack to see one of the airline clerks speaking to a customer about a lost package. I nodded to Sivaha, and we opened the door and walked into the lobby behind the worker’s desk.

  “Hey, you aren’t supposed to be back there,” she barked as she turned to us. The woman looked like the kind of angry bulldog that megacorps put in charge of customer service, but I just shrugged at her.

  “We got lost, sorry,” I said and then we walked out the other door in the office. Then we were in the main terminal of the spaceport, and the exit doors were on our left. I could see a flow of cars out past the glass door, and a bit of relief flowed into my stomach

  “Almost there,” I said as I offered my arm to Sivaha. She took it with a surprised smile, and then we stepped out of the spaceport.

  Then I saw the eight expensive business suit wearing yakuza thugs turn to us, and my mind spun as I tried to figure out how we’d been set up.

  Chapter 7

  “What is--” Sivaha started to say, but I pushed my arm over the front of the silver-haired woman’s waist and stepped in front of her.

  “Konnichiwa, Bakeneko-san,” the man to my left said as he stepped toward us. I recognized him, and I felt anger throb through my chest.

  “Hey, Yuri,” I said as I forced my voice to be calm. “How did you know I was going to be here?”

  “My father wishes to speak with you,” Yuri spoke Japanese and finished his sentence with a low bow. He was a lanky man with a sharp but handsome face. I tried to stay away from him when I was in the yakuza since he was the boss’s son and had a habit of getting himself into the kind of trouble that his bodyguards ended up dealing with.

  He was also the man I ended up taking the heat for. This fucker had messed up a bank robbery, shot four guards and an innocent woman because he’d gotten overexcited. I didn’t want to take the assignment, but Yuri had already made plenty of mistakes, and his dad made it clear that I didn’t have much of a choice.

  “That wasn’t an answer, Yuri,” I replied, also in Japanese.

  “Who is your woman?” he asked as he gestured to Sivaha. He still spoke in Japanese, and the Nordar queen gave no indication that she understood him.

  “None of your business,” I replied in our shared language. “I’m just here to grab my mom and then get back to my ship.”

  “After you speak with my father,” Yuri said with a large smile on his face. “He’s been so sad these last few years. You were his favorite, Bakeneko.”

  “I’m guessing I don’t have much of a choice,” I said as I tried to relax my shoulders. Fuck, I knew this was a bad idea coming back. I should have let Zea, Madalena, Eve, Paula, and Kasta handle all of this.

  “You seem tense. This is a friendly visit!” Yuri opened his arms wide and then stepped toward me as if to embrace me. “My long lost brother has returned to us, don’t be so shy.” He threw his arms around my armored shoulders and I thought about shifting into my tiger-man form so I could chew his face off.

  “Alright,” I said as I nodded back to Sivaha. “Let my friend go back to my ship. She isn’t part of this.”

  “She is here with you, though,” Yuri said as he gestured to the men surrounding us. They all stepped closer, and then a black limousine slowly came to a halt in front of us. “My father will want to meet her. She has a wedding ring on. Is she your wife?”

  Before I could answer, Yuri turned to Sivaha and bowed low. “I am Yuri, a dear friend of your husband. Will you join us for dinner? My father wishes to see Bakeneko again, and he will most definitely wish to meet you.” Yuri’s English wasn’t quite as polished as his Japanese, but it was easy enough to understand.

  “Of course I will come,” Sivaha said as she returned the man’s bow. “My husband was just about to tell me all about you, but you seem like a man who has wonderful storytelling abilities. Will you educate me?”

  “I would be happy to…” The man paused and turned to me.

  “Sivaha,” I said.

  “Sivaha-san,” he said as he bowed low to her again.

  “And you are Yuri?” she asked, and my “brother” nodded as he gestured to the long car.

  I recognized two of the other men here, but I’d never had much dealing with them in the organization. They were the ones who opened the door of the limo, and I made sure to pull Sivaha close to me when we sat down between them.

  The interior of the car was surprisingly big, and all ten of us were able to sit inside without feeling claustrophobic. They hadn’t bothered to disarm me, but there was still a lot of tension in the air, and the business-suited gorillas each watched my hands carefully.

  When they weren’t trying hard not to gawk at Sivaha.

  “Tell me more about my husband, please,” she asked as she leaned forward in the chair and set her hand on my stomach. As her fingers touched me, her wrist made a quick movement, and I felt the pistol on my right side closest to her unbuckle.

  “Ahh, Bakeneko-san was one of my father’s favorites. Maybe his favorite.” Yuri leaned forward and smiled wide enough for his eyes to disappear into his teeth.

  “I met your father three times,” I said. “I didn’t think he cared much for me.”

  “Not true, Bakeneko!” Yuri exclaimed as he put his hand on his chest in mock injury. “He was so sad when you went to prison. We all were.”

  “I don’t think you were,” I said with a sigh. “I took the fall for you, remember?”

  “I do,” he said with a solemn nod. “It was a dark day, and I haven’t forgotten your sacrifice.”

  “Why do you call my husband Bakeneko?” Sivaha asked.

  “Ahh!” Yuri laughed. “My father gave that name to him. My father had this cat that liked no one. He was a real tom-cat. A terror. He would leave the estate to hunt, fight, or fuck females. My father called him Bakeneko. It is like the changed cat or the demon cat.” Yuri laughed during his explanation, and I felt my face heat a bit.

  “This cat used to fuck with everyone. He’d hiss and snarl whenever they got close to him, but not your husband.” Yuri pointed at me and smiled. “First day on the job, and Bakeneko is rubbing against his leg like he’s covered in catnip. The men thought it was funny, so father gave him the nickname Bakeneko, after that cat.”

  “I like that story,” Sivaha said as she smiled at me. “Is the cat still around?”

  “No,” Yuri sighed. “It went a bit crazy and had to be put down.” The man put his finger up to his head and made a bullet sound with his mouth.

  “Happens,” Sivaha said with a shrug, and I felt the pistol on my left hip unbuckle when she leaned over me.

  “It just goes to show how much my father loved your husband,” Yuri said as he pointed at me. “He didn’t give nicknames often.”

  “He gave everyone a nickname, Yuri,” I clarified.

  “Yes, but you are special, Bakeneko.”

  “How did you know I was coming?” I asked.

  “A little birdie told us you would come in a ship named Persephone,” he answered.

  “Who is this little birdie?” I asked.

  “Can’t you guess?” He smirked at me.

  “I can guess that it’s a Calvin Yu,” I said.

  “Hmmm,” Yuri’s face twisted, and I realized I was wrong before he shook his head.

  “Never heard of him. No, it was your sister.”

  “What?” I gasped as my heart skipped a beat, or two, or three. The view out the window seemed to twist, and it suddenly looked like Jupiter was floating on the ground and I could open the door and fall into it.

  “Or, not really your sister.” He shrugged. “We tapped your mother’s house. When you were sent to prison,
father worried that your mother might have learned information from you. We wanted to make sure she didn’t tell the triads or mafia. When we found out you were sold from the prisons, we gave up on the matter, but then your sister called your mother three-ish months ago, and the keywords she said triggered our automated alarm. We figured you might come back here, so we had our eyes in the traffic control towers let us know if any ship with your name ever docked here.”

  “Ahh,” I said, and I felt some of the tension in my shoulders relax. This was the obvious answer to how they could have known that I was here, but there were still other questions that I needed to have answered.

  “Why does your father wish to talk to me?” I asked.

  “I will let him tell you,” Yuri said with a shrug. I knew what the movement meant, and I knew not to press it. Yuri didn’t actually know what his father wanted with me, and the younger man was probably a bit annoyed by that fact.

  “I didn’t come here to pick a fight with you all. I just wanted to get my mother and then be on my way.” I knew the words were a bit of a lie, but I doubted that Yuri would guess. I had contemplated killing all these stupid fucks for cutting her payments, but I had to talk with her first and determine what was really going on.

  “Ahhh,” Yuri sighed. “That will hurt Father’s feelings. You should tell him that you intended to visit first thing when you landed. Otherwise, he might be sad. You wouldn’t want him to be sad, would you?”

  “You’ve got my mother, don’t you?”

  “We may have sent some men to pick her up,” Yuri said, “but it was only so that you both could meet each other at our mansion. Father just loves happy reunions.” He turned to Sivaha and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you?”

  “Of course,” she said with a charming smile, and then she rested her elbow on my thigh and began to fiddle with the ring on her finger with her thumb. It was a clear signal to me that she was ready to turn on her aegis and kill everyone inside of the limo.

  “You are such a beautiful woman,” Yuri whispered as he leaned toward us. “How long have you been married to Bakeneko?”

  “A few weeks,” Sivaha said as she fluttered her eyelids.

  “A few weeks!” he gasped, and his heavy eyelids opened fully. “Newlyweds. It is so romantic. I could never really find a woman to marry.”

  “Why not?” Sivaha asked.

  “I kept breaking them,” Yuri sighed. “So many broken women. It is quite sad.”

  I expected Sivaha to tense at his words, but she didn’t miss a beat.

  “Maybe you should play gentler with them.” The silver-haired woman shrugged.

  “Father often says that to me, but I like to play rough.” Yuri stared at Sivaha for a bit too long and then he looked at me. “Very beautiful; you are a lucky man, Bakeneko. How long did you two date before you were married?”

  “We didn’t date,” Sivaha answered for me. “He decided he wanted me, so he claimed me. Have any of you ever wanted a woman so bad that you just wanted to take her?”

  “Yes,” Yuri whispered, and the other men in the car leaned toward Sivaha with their mouths opened.

  “When Bakeneko claimed me, I didn’t like it at first,” Sivaha said in a husky voice. “But then I grew to like it, and then I grew to love it. He just had to keep bending me to him. He kept having to force me to love him. Have you ever wanted to just force a woman to love you?”

  “Sivaha,” I started to whisper, but then I noticed that the men in the car looked to be in some sort of daze. Even Yuri’s mouth hung open, and small dots of drool fell down each of their chins.

  “Easy,” she whispered to me as she let her left-hand drift to touch the nape of my neck. Then she gestured to the men, and they followed her fingers like they were puppies.

  “Are they--” I started to ask.

  “Enchanted by my beauty? I did have to use my ability though. They might snap out of it if we speak too loudly or make sudden movements.” Her voice was soft, and she leaned into the side of my neck so that I could feel her warm breath against my cheek. “I’ll just whisper in your ear and you can whisper in mine.”

  “How long will they stay like that?” I said after I turned to speak into her ear.

  “I’ll need to keep them going every few minutes, but I can keep it up for a while. How long can you keep it up, Adam?” Her words caused a shiver of pleasure down my spine, but then I realized where we were, and I snorted.

  “Are you trying that shit on me?” I hissed.

  “No, I said I wouldn’t anymore.” She shook her head and sighed. “I was just flirting. I can’t help myself. I desire you so--”

  “You are flirting in your apology to me for flirting,” I whispered as I raised an eyebrow.

  “Of course,” she said with her Cheshire cat smile. “So what do you want to do with them? I believe we should kill them and then kill the man that sent them.”

  “Will they do whatever you ask?” I whispered.

  “Maybe,” she said. “It is better with just one subject. I probably could make them take off their clothes if I take mine off first, but it will be hard to convince them to hand me their guns or jump out of the car. I say we just shoot them all, kill the driver, and then do the same when we reach this mansion.” Her voice was the softest whisper in my ear, and I guessed that she didn’t want her words to reach the men she had charmed.

  “You sound like Madalena,” I said.

  “We are Nordar,” Sivaha replied. “I prefer to use instead of kill, but these men are worthless to you.”

  “They could have attacked if they wanted to kill me,” I said.

  “I agree,” she replied. “They want you for something else.”

  “And they probably have my mother either in a car somewhere, or in their mansion. I think we should play it safe, see what the boss wants, and then deal with getting my mother depending on the lay of the land.

  “Then kill them?” she whispered as her fingers traced lines across my neck. “They have betrayed your trust, abducted us, and then kidnapped your mother.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered as I tried not to enjoy her touch. “They are all going to die for fucking with my family and me.”

  “Yesss,” she purred in my ear. “You are King of the Vaish, and soon all of the Nordar. This moon should tremble with fear when you take a step upon its surface.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I replied. “As soon as I get what I came here for, we’ll return to Nordar 13.”

  “Then you will claim the other clans just as you claimed me?” Her lips brushed my earlobe when she whispered, and I felt my body feel as if it was sliding into a warm bath.

  “Stop,” I said as I jerked my head away from her. “Not now. We have work to do.”

  The other men in the car started to blink when I jerked my head away, and Sivaha sighed a bit.

  “I’ll bring them out of it,” she said, and then she looked to Yuri, “How much longer until we reach your father’s mansion?”

  “Uhhh. Ten more minutes.” Yuri blinked a few times, but he still looked as if he’d taken a mouthful of relaxation drugs.

  “Good,” Sivaha said as she leaned back into my armor. “I hate waiting for something I really want.”

  “Do you really want to see my father?” Yuri asked, and the confusion was plain on his sleepy looking face.

  “Not, especially,” she answered. “I wish for my husband to be reunited with his mother. Then I wish to leave this moon and return to my home system.”

  “Where are you from?” he asked.

  “My home is now Nordar - 13,” Sivaha said. “You haven’t heard of it I suspect.”

  “No,” he replied with a quick shake of his head. Then he looked at me, and I saw a mountain of respect in his dark eyes. “Bakeneko, your wife is amazing. I am proud that my brother has married someone so beautiful and intelligent.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I tried to keep my emotion out of my voice. Sivaha might have been riding it too clo
se to the edge. Yuri was all sorts of sociopathic, and I had little doubt he’d try to kill me so that he could rape her.

  Then again, if the silver-haired queen had told him to bark like a dog and beg for her to pet him, he would probably comply.

  The limo turned off the main highway and headed into the richer area of City Four. I’d only been to the yakuza’s head mansion five or so times, and it looked much the same as I recalled it. The building was made to look like an old Japanese castle, with sloped roofs, well-manicured gardens, and a three-meter tall limestone wall circling the entirety of the ten-acre property. Each block had been hauled here from Earth, and I couldn’t even imagine the cost.

  Vermillion painted wood gates met us at the driveway, and a pair of business suit clad guards glanced inside the window when we stopped. Yuri gave them a friendly wave, and the men nodded to an unseen camera. The gates then opened, and we drove up toward the small castle.

  “Let Father know that Bakeneko and his wife are here,” Yuri said to one of the men in the car once we had all gotten out, then he gestured for us to follow him to the front door.

  “Sorry, Bakeneko, we’ll need to take your weapons right here. I think we can trust you, but you have been away from the family for a long time.”

  “That’s fine,” I said as a pair of men at the front door stepped forward to search me. I handed one of them my shrapnel gun, and then the other took the pistols from my belt. They didn’t really spend a lot of time searching me, but I imagined that was because they kept stealing glances at Sivaha.

  “I’m afraid I am unarmed,” she said with a shrug that caused her breasts to push against the neckline of her low cut dress.

  “That’s fine,” Yuri said as he placed a hand on her shoulder and waved to the guards. “Bakeneko’s woman isn’t armed.”

  The other guards glanced down at the garter belt around her right leg, it poked through the slit of her dress and obviously looked like it could be a gun holster, but Yuri just smacked his lips together and then escorted us into the mansion.

  It felt like we were walking into the maw of a monster, and my emotions were mixed with anger, fear, and a desire to fight. I reminded myself that they probably could have killed us if they had wanted to. Then I reminded myself that I could have easily killed them in the limo. In a few minutes I was going to find out what all the fuss was about, and then I’d get my mom and get the fuck out of here.