Temper: Deference: Book One of the TEMPER Saga

by Lila Mina

  Lila Mina

  TEMPER: DEFERENCE

  Book One of the TEMPER Saga

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  Copyright © 2019 Lila Mina

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design: © 2019 Giulia Natsumi

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  Cover picture: AdobeStock

  Table of Contents

  1 Just Another Manic Tuesday

  2 Tempers Are Running High

  3 Obedience and Respect

  4 Losing Control and Denial

  5 Attempting to Move On

  6 Facing the Truth

  7 A New Player in the Game

  8 Mapping New Territories

  9 Testing Limits and Accepting Them

  10 Inside and Out

  11 Taking out the Trash

  12 Master and Apprentice

  13 Rattling Her Inner Cage

  14 A Lesson in Discipline

  15 On Shaky Legs

  16 Burnt Bridges

  17 Creepy Encounters

  18 Master and Mistress of the House

  19 Memories Buried under Ashes

  20 A Ladies’ Night

  21 Snarls and Teeth

  22 Strange Neighbors

  23 Two Sides of the Same Coin

  24 Fighting Ghosts

  25 An Offering of Blood

  Glossary of Japanese terms

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  The Saga Continues!

  Temper: Dread - Sneak Peek!

  About the Author

  Fall seven times, stand up eight.

  1

  Just Another Manic Tuesday

  “Richard, are you kidding me? No!” Lana slammed her hands on the desk in front of her and leaned over it. Her boss grimaced and raised defensive hands while throwing a worried glance at the open door behind her. She didn’t even bother to check if anyone listened in. The entire floor could hear her for all that it mattered. “There’s no way I’ll waste my time on this again!”

  “Come on, Lana, take it down a notch. We all agree that you’re the best one to handle Michelle and–”

  “We? Who’s we? You, Takemura and Yamamoto? Oh, color me surprised! Michelle’s got all of you by the balls, hasn’t she? She’s on a witch hunt, and now you have no choice but get on your knees and lick her boots.”

  Richard’s wrinkled face flushed red, and he stood up to lean over his desk. They were almost nose to nose now. “Watch it, Martin!” he spat from behind clenched teeth. “I’m fed up with that foul mouth of yours. I’m not asking you a favor, I’m telling you to do it. See the difference?”

  With a snort, Lana crossed her arms over her chest, staring outside the windows behind Matherson. The sun was setting over the Roppongi business district and the Tokyo Tower was lit up.

  Shit! It must be past six already, I’m going to be late at the dojo! Dammit, I’ve got no time for this kind of playground shit.

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not daft. You don’t have to add ‘insubordination’ to ‘hysterical’ in your little book–no, please, spare me the offended looks. I know what you all call me. Just because I like to call a rat a rat and won’t sugarcoat it for you.” She gave the manager of their branch office a disgusted look. “So basically, I have to babysit her and do all the damage control for you. Right when I’ll be wrapping up the executive report for HQ and during the final rounds of the Daihanko-Dos Santos talks. Neat!”

  The middle-aged man moved his arms to mirror her posture before catching himself and placing his hands on his hips. It would have been a good power pose if only she didn’t know he had nothing to back it up. It cast a cruel light on his posh beer belly though.

  “Well, feel free to see it that way. Or you could take it as a good opportunity to gain points with our CFO. Could be useful the day you want to go back to Montreal or ask for a transfer to Rome. When was the last time you went home?”

  Rubbing her temples, Lana took a deep breath. “I’m not leaving anytime soon, certainly not to Italy, and Michelle is the last person on Earth I want to please. Let’s agree she’s a bully, always doing her best to be unhappy with something just for the pleasure of burning down the house.” Matherson grunted his reluctant agreement. “Okay, I’ll be on my way. Any chance you’ll send me something useful in the coming days? Whatever data that riled her up so much? I mean, she won’t be here until the end of April, but I don’t want to wait until the last minute to tackle it.”

  “Sure. Believe me or not, it’s not our goal to let you hang out there to dry.”

  Lana arched a dubitative eyebrow but bit her tongue. Let’s not start again, or I’ll really be late, and sensei will go ballistic on me.

  Basic Japanese etiquette and strict martial arts rules frowned upon being late, but her instructor had zero tolerance for this. No need to start practice with a scolding, she’d endured enough aggravation for one day. After giving Matherson a curt nod, the bare minimum she could muster, she strolled out.

  Back in her own office two floors below, her resentment still pumped adrenaline in her blood. On top of it, her heartburn was flaring again. With a heavy sigh, Lana grabbed a prescription bottle in her desk drawer and gulped down two pills with a grimace. The bottle was almost empty, she’d have to pay Dr. Stein a visit soon.

  Richard Matherson. What a weasel. After all this time, his lack of spine still amazes me. No wonder he got promoted to upper management so fast.

  A glance at her watch made her cringe. Time to get out of here if she wanted to catch the Express train to the Mitaka suburbs where her apartment and dojo were located. After tying up her hair in a strict ponytail, she grabbed her duffle bag packed with her aikido dogi–her white training gear–and slipped her feet into a pair of red sneakers. Her black pumps would stay under her desk. No way she’d ride her bicycle between the station and the dojo wearing those.

  “Oh, you’re still here? Usually on Tuesday, you’re out before six,” a melodious voice called in Italian from her doorway. Lana glanced up and smiled at the beautiful brunette with startling green eyes who stood there. Her best friend Gabriella was a sight for sore eyes.

  “Cara mia, consider me gone. I’m so late it’s not even funny.”

  “I didn’t see you.” Gabriella chuckled and stepped out of her way. They walked in silence to the elevator. “What’s going on?” she said under her breath after pressing the down button.

  “Richard dropped Cruella on my lap. Third year in a row now. Noice!” she parroted Jake Peralta before clenching her jaw. Bursting another artery wouldn’t help.

  “That little shit!” Gabriella spat. Like Lana, she had a personality that often clashed with the more reserved attitude of their colleagues.

  “This is getting old,” Lana groaned. “Anyway, we’re still on for many well-deserved drinks on Friday?”

  “You bet we are! I can’t get through this darn thirty-seventh birthday without plenty of liquid comfort.”

  “Hey, you’ll see it’s not that bad, it took me only two months to recover,” Lana chuckled.

  Gabriella turned serious again. “Lana, call me later if you want to talk about this, okay? You more or less lock it up, and then it’s a nuclear apocalypse. Management sucks, but you need to let it go now and then.”

  Lana sighed and shook her head. Gabriella knew her so well. More than a friend, a sister. Their bo
nd ran deep; they had gone through devastating pain and tears together. To have Gabriella by her side was a constant source of comfort even after all these years. Being dispatched together to Japan had been a blessing.

  “I guess you’re right. But don’t worry, a solid hour of rolling on the mats and getting my joints twisted are just what I need to vent. That is, if I don’t get burned at the stake because I missed the train.”

  “Girl, I don’t know why you keep doing this. It doesn’t even sound like fun! That overbearing sensei of yours—”

  “Is a stickler for discipline but one of the best around, and you have no idea how good it feels to throw dozens of guys around after a day like this. See ya!” The doors opened, and Lana jumped inside the elevator with a happy wave of her hand.

  The subway ride between Roppongi and Shinjuku was manageable, but the second stretch to Mitaka was a nightmare. Today, Shinjuku was obviously intent on earning its label of the world’s busiest station. For sure, the average 3.5 million passing its gates had decided to gather at the same time, just to make Lana’s day more difficult.

  Without hesitating, she pushed through the throngs of commuters to the front of the line where she’d have at least a chance at boarding her train on the Chuo line. Acutely aware of the condemning stares drilling holes in her neck, a wave of embarrassment made her cheeks burn. She didn’t have much choice. The train arrived, already full, and she squeezed herself inside, helped by dozens of people behind her trying to do the same.

  The evening rush hour was the worst time of the day to board an Express train. On normal days, Lana used the Local one that stopped at every station. It would take some additional fifteen minutes to reach her destination, but at least she avoided being crushed against the door with the combined weight of a hundred commuters pressing on her back. Like right now.

  Her hands against the glass, her bag digging into her stomach and hips, it was impossible to grab her smartphone to go online. But tonight, the majestic view of the Tokyo cityscape at dusk held no appeal. Instead, Lana closed her eyes to block out her surroundings. Thank goodness she wasn’t claustrophobic and that her ride would last only sixteen minutes. It helped that the car was eerily silent, except for the recorded voice announcing the stations. Everyone attempted to do the same: retreat inward to forget how hellish going home at the same time as ten million other people could be.

  Taking deep, relaxing breaths, Lana did her best to set aside her confrontation with Richard and what it would mean for her in the coming months. Instead, she thought about what awaited her in Mitaka.

  Aikido.

  From a passing hobby at first, this martial art form had become a real fixture in her life. The mental and physical discipline helped her manage the stress of her high-demanding job. It was the perfect outlet for the building pressure that filled her on a daily basis. Not to mention her exasperation on days like this.

  “Next stop, Mitaka. Mitaka.”

  Lana’s eyes shot open, and she readied herself. Getting out the train was as much a challenge as stepping inside. Thankfully, her bag was in front of her, not on her shoulder. She had almost lost it once, swallowed by the human wall closing on it behind her.

  Outside the station, she ran to the bicycle parking, putting on her gloves to protect her fingers from the biting February cold. Ten more minutes spent slaloming in the back streets and she’d be there.

  The best part of her day could finally begin.

  2

  Tempers Are Running High

  Sweat running down her back despite the cold, Lana took off her shoes in the dojo’s entrance. She dropped her bag on the floor and hurried to kneel and bow at the portrait of O’Sensei, the Founder of aikido, and the small Shinto altar affixed on the opposite wall. “Good evening,” she told the group of aikidoka who were cleaning up the mats.

  To her acute relief, their chief instructor wasn’t on the tatami yet. She darted to a narrow and smelly locker room to put on her dogi. More a broom locker than anything else, it was the only place with a closing door, and so the women used it to change. The men were doing it in the open next to the tatami area.

  The building itself was old, built just after the war, and was completely made of wood. With no form of insulation and no actual windows, only mosquito nets, it was freezing cold inside during winter and felt like an oven during summer. They were next to the huge park of the Jindai-ji Shinto shrine, and with the wildlife that came to life at night on the other side of the walls, it felt more like being in the middle of the jungle, not in one of the largest cities in the world.

  Lana loved the place’s timeless feel; the atmosphere was a big part of the pleasure she found in training. It couldn’t get much more Japanese than this. It was a good dojo, with good people training hard to improve themselves at all levels, led by an outstanding instructor. It’d take an earthquake or a near-death experience to make her miss a class.

  Not a weak man like Richard nor despicable office politics.

  “Ahhh, samui,” Naomi complained about the cold while dressing up as quickly as possible.

  One of Lana’s kohai, a fellow aikidoka with a lower grade, they had started together. Naomi had gone through two tests over the previous two years, making her a fourth kyu. “I heard it will snow tonight, I’m sure inside here as well!”

  Shrieking ‘samui’ all day long was the Japanese national anthem every year whenever temperatures dropped below 15°C. With its high humidity levels, February in Tokyo was brutal.

  With a chuckle, Lana tied her white belt, the sign she was still a mudansha–a ‘no-rank’ practitioner. No colored belts for adults here; you were white until you turned black. “Yep, it must be what, 8 to 10°C in here, tops? I can’t wait for spring!”

  After a double-check of her belt knot, Lana nodded in satisfaction and relief; the flatter, the better… and the safer. Let’s not do a repeat of last week. What an embarrassment!

  A pair of large pants, a white jacket and a belt – that was all the gear they needed. A martial art based on redirecting an attacker’s kinetic energy to throw or immobilize them, aikido didn’t require special equipment. It also meant no head, chin or chest protection. Getting thrown face-down on the ground could turn extra painful if a hard and unforgiving ball of cotton tried to drill through your navel. Something Lana had found out the previous week.

  The two women jogged back into the main room. The next exam session was coming up, so the mats were crowded despite the numbing cold. She sat next to her friend Tim, and they exchanged a nod and a warm smile.

  Spending time with her fellow aikidoka was a great source of motivation and pleasure. Like Tim, most of them had become friends over the two previous years. Ten years her junior, the American was nevertheless her sempai–upperclassman–because he was already shodan, a first-rank black belt. Lana was two tests away from that level.

  This wasn’t the time for chit-chat but rather for light meditation to clear their minds and center themselves, something she desperately needed. Silence settled down on their group.

  At 7:30 sharp, Honda sensei stepped upon the tatami. Lana threw him a discreet glance. Broad-shouldered, tall and fit, he looked younger than his fifty-odd years. The traditional aikido uniform worn by practitioners holding a dan rank–flowing black hakama trousers tied at the waist–suited him particularly well. Not that Lana would ever confess it aloud.

  She looked down before he caught her frowning at him. If possible, his mood seemed more somber than usual. While he always favored a scowl, there was no sign of a smile tonight. Fists clenched and unclenched on his lap while he sat in front for his usual greeting before class commenced. Something was up.

  Her ability to pick up on those subtle clues wasn't a surprise: they weren't total strangers. Two years of aikido practice together and her excellent ability to read body-language, helped. On top of it, being a foreign made her extra sensitivity to the non-verbal clues of people around her vital. Especially in a country like Japan where corp
oral self-control was so highly valued.

  She snapped back to attention when Honda signaled the start of the warming-up. After fifteen minutes, they began a special pre-exam session, focusing on free sparring to give everyone taking their test the chance to review their waza–their techniques.

  Lana partnered up with Tim; after the ritual salutations, they got to their feet. Lana attacked him right away by grabbing his jacket at shoulder level. In a blink, he defended himself with the proper technique, but his pivot to her side wasn’t perfectly timed and he couldn’t unbalance her.

  “Argh, katadori menuchi is my bane!” Tim muttered when his hand landed on Lana’s shoulder and he pulled her down, putting too much strength into the move to compensate for his lack of technical precision. She grinned and jumped on her feet, eager to roll again as quickly as possible to get her blood pumping, build heat, work on that shape of hers, and above all get rid of her work-related tension.

  “I hear you, it's one of the worst, but lucky me, I'm not the one going for second dan four weeks from now!”

  Lana grabbed his left shoulder; right away, she blocked his strike to her head with her free forearm. For a couple of seconds, they remained face-to-face, each of them trying to unbalance the other, using their arms like swords. Nasty bruises, here we come!

  This time, Tim’s timing and movements were better. Pivoting on his side to make her stumble forward thanks to her own momentum, he ended up behind her, one wrist pushing down her attacking hand. He moved his arm in an upward spiral until his hand was right in her face while the other grabbed her collar. Unable to keep her balance, Lana stopped resisting when he flung her on the ground. She broke her fall with a backward roll.

  “Johnson san! Your hip move! Wider now! Martin san, such a weak attack, push him back as if you mean it! Volleyball is on Saturday afternoon!” Honda’s booming voice startled them and wiped their smiles off their faces.