Joining hands with the brother he hated to take out his eldest brother… Now that was something Tsuneo had never envisioned during his time in that household. But wasn’t it the perfect opportunity to take revenge?

  He could kill two birds with one stone, and not even in a figurative sense. Tsuneo was willing to do the dirty work if it meant he could pin everything on Jiro and have him take the fall. Why did he never think of something like that before?

  “I’ll do it.” He fought back against the muscles in his face that were trying to pull his mouth into a smile. I’ll do all of it and more.

  Mikoto smmed her palms on the table, startling the three men.

  “Tsuneo, don’t!” she urged. Mikoto looked at Tsuneo with pleading eyes. “Y-you promised me!”

  “Mikoto, this could solve all of our problems,” he said firmly.

  “But–!”

  “Listen to your man, sis.” His brother rapped his knuckles on the table, making Mikoto flinch. Just another thing to add to the payback owed to him by Tsuneo.

  Jiro stood up from the table and motioned to the sorcerer. “Now that this is settled, let’s get out of this dump. We’ll bring the woman with us.”

  “Hey! Wait!” Tsuneo barked as the sorcerer grabbed Mikoto by the arm and pulled her to her feet. He grabbed his brother by the tie as he tried to walk past. “Leave her out of this!”

  “Nah. If she’s useful, I want her too,” Jiro said, pulling Tsuneo’s hands off and adjusting his tie. “She’ll listen to you, right?”

  Tsuneo looked at Mikoto. Seeing the sorcerer’s grip on her arm, he clenched his fists. “Fine. Just… Don’t touch her. I’ll escort her.”

  The sorcerer let go of her, and she rushed to Tsuneo’s arms. He held her trembling body close.

  “Just go along with it for now,” he whispered. She didn’t nod in agreement or shake her head in defiance, just held him tightly in resignation.

  They were taken back to the Shishiba family compound and given a room in an annex. It was all so familiar, yet so alien to him. The sounds, the smells, the Japanese-style room they were pced in—all of it reminded him of his youth in that pce like an inescapable nightmare.

  Mikoto sat on a futon provided to them, facing away from Tsuneo. Her knees drawn to her chest, her body shuddering slightly from the tears she was holding back.

  “Micchan… Just bear with me while I get this resolved,” he said quietly. He reached out to comfort her only for Mikoto to flinch away from him.

  “...” She hadn’t spoken to him since they were forcibly dragged along by his brother.

  “I have to do this to protect us,” he insisted.

  She turned her head slightly in his direction. If looks could kill, she shot him a gre filled with murderous intent.

  “We can expin to your family that an emergency came up and deyed us. I’ll take care of this quickly so–”

  “Enough,” she cut him off. Mikoto sighed. “I’m tired of hearing this.”

  Tsuneo opened his mouth to say something, but a knock at the door disrupted his train of thought. Thinking it was his brother or the sorcerer that brought them here, he opened it without thinking. Instead, he was met with a different man he recognized.

  “Aha! I thought I saw you come in here,” chided his eldest brother, Ichiro. He looked past Tsuneo, zeroing in on Mikoto. “I guess I know why you disappeared on us without a word now…”

  “Jiro dragged me back here,” Tsuneo said, stepping between his brother and Mikoto.

  “Try not to sound so ungrateful,” Ichiro said coldly. He wouldn’t take his eyes off the woman who was now observing the two brothers intently. “Remember it was my parents, my family, who took you in when you had nowhere else to go,” he added, jabbing his index finger into Tsuneo’s chest. “Now, I’m sure you’re back for a reason. So what is it?”

  Tsuneo swallowed dryly. If he told his brother the truth, he’d surely have Jiro eliminated. But the problem was that Tsuneo had already allied himself with Jiro, so he might be dragged down too, even if he turned on him. It wasn’t punishment for himself he was worried about, it was what Ichiro might do to Mikoto.

  His brothers were both brutal in their own way—they were raised like that in order to take over the organization. However, while Jiro would deal out punishment directly, Ichiro took an indirect approach by hurting those around the recipient. Tsuneo hated Jiro with every fiber of his being, but Ichiro was objectively more dangerous.

  “Jiro dragged me back here,” he repeated, quickly adding, “I don’t know why. So, why don’t you ask him?”

  His brother’s eye twitched, and his jaw clenched as he stared him down. It appeared that he struck a nerve.

  Could it be that he already suspects Jiro is plotting against him? Tsuneo tried his best to fight a smirk at the thought of those two tearing each other apart.

  “Fine. I’ll do that,” said Ichiro curtly, before walking away without another word.

  Tsuneo closed the door and exhaled. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. There was no way she didn’t understand the danger that they were in.

  “Mikoto, just let me protect you and our child. Please.”

  ***

  Tsuneo had grossly underestimated the speed of his brother Jiro’s machinations. A couple of days turned into a couple of weeks.

  Mikoto grew more resentful with each passing day she was treated like a hostage. Her warmth toward him had dwindled. She no longer spoke to him unless spoken to—her responses direct and curt.

  “I have a doctor's appointment coming up soon,” she said unprompted for the first time in a week. “I’m not even going to bother asking if I can go to my job because they’ve probably already fired me for job abandonment.”

  “My parents are probably worried sick, but I can beg for their forgiveness ter,” she continued. Mikoto rubbed her stomach. She was just barely starting to show, so his brothers remained unaware of the pregnancy for now. “But I absolutely cannot miss these doctors' appointments.”

  “I’ll ask if someone can escort you,” he said, loosening his tie. He was stuck running errands and meeting with people on behalf of Jiro as an attempt to drum up support within the organization for an inevitable takeover.

  “Why can’t you take me?” she asked with the contempt of a woman who’d started to lose all faith in her partner. “Why can’t you just do one thing for me?”

  Something snapped within Tsuneo. He ripped off the tie and threw it to the floor.

  “I am doing one thing for you! I’m doing everything for you! All of this is for you!” he shouted.

  “But it’s not!” she retorted, rising to her feet. Mikoto brought her trembling hand to his face, gently caressing a bruise on his cheek. “I only ever asked you to live a peaceful life with me!”

  Tsuneo ripped her hand away. He was so sick of her pity. So sick of the way she looked down on the way he had to live in order to survive.

  “It’s impossible for me to be the person you want me to be,” he mumbled, looking away from her.

  “Tsu–” She was cut off by a knock at the door.

  “Who is it?” Tsuneo barked.

  “It’s me.” Jiro.

  Tsuneo slid the door open to find his brother standing in the hallway by himself. He wanted to turn him away, but it was rare for his brother to seek him out like this, so maybe it was important.

  “What do you want now?” he asked, trying to swallow back his annoyance.

  “I just wanted to check in on things,” replied Jiro, leaning in the doorway as he peered into the room.

  “Well, I have nothing to report since we st spoke, Jiro.” Tsuneo sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

  “Remind me again what you told me?” pressed his brother.

  Tsuneo raised an eyebrow and clicked his tongue. Hadn’t they just met earlier for a debriefing? His brother could be an idiot, but there had to be limits to it…

  “Look, if you don’t remember what we talked about, then that’s on you,” he scoffed. Tsuneo opened his mouth to continue, but felt a tug at his shirt sleeve.

  He looked over to see Mikoto cowering behind him, staring fixedly at his brother. With her brows knitted together in concern, she bit her lip. Oh, right. The appointment.

  “Hey, I have a favor I need to ask you,” Tsuneo said, rubbing the back of his neck. “She has a doctor’s appointment so–”

  Jiro held up a hand to cut him off. “Ask me ter. Is that all you have to say to me?”

  “Tch… Seriously? You know you really piss me off…” grumbled Tsuneo. He noticed his brother was really eyeing Mikoto now.

  Something about the way he was looking at her raised his hackles. Tsuneo pushed his brother into the hallway and smmed the door on him.

  “If that’s it, then go away!” he said through the door, raising his voice.

  “Fine. Goodnight,” said his brother, footsteps retreating away from the room.

  Tsuneo rubbed his face with his hands. All he wanted to do was just get some rest, but it seemed like everyone was picking fights with him that night.

  Mikoto slid the door open a crack and peered outside for a moment before gently closing it again. Turning to face Tsuneo, she announced in a whisper, “That wasn’t your brother, Tsukkun.”

  “W-what?” His stomach dropped. His emotions had been running so high that he hadn’t even questioned why his brother, who never went anywhere without his sorcerer bodyguard, came to their room by himself. “Who was it then?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen that man before…” she said quietly, hanging her head. She held up her hand and bent down a pinky. “He was missing part of a finger.”

  A grin slowly stretched its way across Tsuneo’s face, and he found himself ughing involuntarily. So it wasn’t even the sorcerer Jiro kept around?

  There was only one person who would send a sorcerer disguised as Jiro to him to dig up information on their conspiracy. The man who had others do his dirty work for him and didn’t care who he used as long as they got it done.

  So you are aware of what’s happening, Ichiro? But shouldn’t you pick better people for your side?

  A sorcerer who’s missing a pinky meant a man with loose loyalty in their world. For the right price, Tsuneo could bring that man over to them. It could only boost their cause.

  He tugged Mikoto into his arms and kissed her. It was all thanks to her and her incredible ability as a neutralizer. A thought crept into his mind: would their child be a neutralizer too? With them by his side, he could do anything.

  “I’ll make sure you’re taken care of here, Micchan.”

  “Th-then make sure I make it to my doctor’s appointment,” she murmured, returning his embrace.

  However, when Mikoto went to the gynecologist for her routine prenatal exam, she used the opportunity to run away.

  While Jiro id into him for letting her escape, Tsuneo knew it was for the better. She and their baby would be safer far away from the imminent coup within the Shishiba-gumi. After the dust settled, he would bring them back.