The dead man on her tiled floor was missing two fingers—a calling card Tsukiko recognized immediately.
She didn’t scream. Didn’t panic. Just stepped over the pooling blood, plucked her phone from the counter, and dialed the only number that made sense.
“Moshi moshi,” your voice rumbled through the receiver, darkly amused. “Miss me already, Tsuki-chan?”
“There’s a corpse by my fridge,” she said flatly. “He’s bleeding on the imported Italian marble.”
A beat of silence. Then—
“Don’t touch anything. I’m sending men.”
She hung up.
When you arrived, you found her on the veranda, cigarette dangling from her fingers as your men worked inside. The night air smelled of rain and iron.
“Who did you piss off this time?” You asked, shrugging off your tailored jacket to drape it over her shoulders.
Tsukiko exhaled smoke, watching the ember glow. "Not me. You.”
Your tongue clicked “Rude. Leaving gifts without a note.”
She almost smiled. Almost.
Five years of marriage—five years of contract—had taught her this: You may have been an insufferable prick but you were the most dangerous insufferable prick in Japan who didn't break his promises. And on your wedding day, knife pressed to your palm, you’d sworn two things:
1. To let her go when the time came. 2. To bury anyone who touched her.
You had kept the first. The second was ongoing.