by Faye, Amy
She took the hallway slow. Toes down, then heel. Very slow. Even still, she heard every little sound, the noise of her toes lightly touching the bare wooden floor. She could almost hear the sound of her body's weight shifting from one leg to the other as she stepped, a psychosomatic noise that she couldn't justify beyond the terror.
Minami let out a breath and pushed her door open just enough to go through, closed the door behind herself, flipped on the light, and screamed.
"Welcome home," her father said in Japanese.
She responded in kind. "Father. I didn't see you there. You scared me."
"Where have you been?"
"What do you mean?"
"You don't come home with Majima, so what were we supposed to think? You're lost?"
"I'm sorry, father. Higa, he—"
"I understand if you don't approve of Higa, but do not imagine you can embarrass me like this, by leaving him behind. What sort of image do you think that puts on me? That my own daughter, my only child, can't even wait through a single evening?"
"I'm sorry."
"You should be," he growled. "I can't imagine what the word will be tomorrow. What rumors will start."
Minami wanted her mother to come, to calm him down, but she knew that the time for that was passed. She had already tried to calm him down. She always did. This was after she'd tried, and that didn't bode well for whoever had been in the room when he'd become this upset.
"Father, I'm—"
"Enough."
The coldness in his voice was enough to raise a fire inside Minami's chest. She wasn't going to be spoken to, not that way. Not after everything she'd put up with for her father. Not after everything that he'd put her through, her entire life. Not after he'd followed her halfway across the world when all she wanted was to get the hell away from him and his life, his people, and his work.
"No." She pursed her lips. "It's not enough, but it never will be."
The elder Shimizu stood and slapped her with a single swift and smooth motion. She bit back the desire to get her revenge, even ignored the surprise and upset. That was the last straw, the one thing that she wasn't going to sit around and wait to discuss with him. There was no room in her heart or time in her day for waiting for him to change.
There was a long history in his business, and he knew all of it. That history had led them to this moment, to needing to marry his only daughter to keep the family going in some respect. That wasn't enough. That wasn't what she wanted, and it wasn't what she was going to have, and if that meant having to walk away then she would walk away.
Minami grabbed the door and pulled it open, and used the long legs she'd gotten from her American mother to take the hallway at a run, going down the steps two-at-a-time. She was on the street before Father could rouse the whole household to go look for her, and she'd be in a cab before Majima could get the car ready to go look for her.
Six
Wes
Wes knocked on the door and let out a loud breath when it didn't open right away.
"I know you're in there," he said, loud enough that anyone who wanted to could have heard. Bradley wasn't at his apartment. The car wasn't there. He didn't sleep around, not like he had before. Not in years. Which meant he was at the office, even though it was hours late.
Well, that's not totally accurate, because it wasn't strictly speaking an office. Not what most people would call an office, anyways. It was another apartment, on the other side of town, the kind of place where people didn't ask too many questions.
Todd Wesley wanted himself to be bigger than he was, so he called it an office, because it was where he did his business. But in the end, he was a guy who bought his suits off the rack like everyone else.
There was the risk that if Bradley took too long getting back to Wes, that it could be unpleasant, but it wasn't one that he was worried about. After all, any of the sorts of problems that these assholes could cause, he was prepared to deal with. Most of them already knew that, and they'd leave him alone. The ones who didn't would get a short, swift education.
He knocked again and waited a minute. He'd already raised his hand to knock a third time when the door opened. Bradley looked tired, but he didn't look like he'd slept more than an instant.
"Where's the girl?"
"What?"
"Where's the girl?"
Wes shrugged and gave a disinterested look. "She's wherever. I gave her money for cab fare, and she went home."
"So she's home? You're sure?"
"What's the big goddamn deal?"
"You don't even know what the fuck you're doing, do you?"
Wes shrugged. "I know you owe me a thousand bucks for that fight."
"Do I?"
"Technically fifteen, since I know you were betting on that fight, and I know that you promised me a fifty-percent cut of anything you won on me. You remember that, right?"
"Sure, baby. I remember that."
"But I'm feeling generous, so just give me the money you owe me."
Todd Bradley's face twisted up in a way that let Wes know before he had a chance to hear it out of the man's mouth, that whatever he said next was going to be something Wesley didn't like. If it was someone else, he'd have popped the guy before hearing it, but Todd was an old friend, so he got a pass.
"You took the girl, that's going a little far, man."
"What, your Jap friend didn't like that I took his woman?"
"I wish that was it, man. You fucked up."
Wes shrugged and looked at him with the same dead eyes as before he'd said it. "What else is new?"
"That girl's the daughter of some big shot back in Japan. The kind of guy who has little shits like you killed for looking at his daughter funny."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, that's what they tell me."
"I didn't know you were so hip on the Japanese crime world."
"I'm not. But Higa, he fuckin' flipped after you booked it. Started telling me all kinds of shit. I've been making calls almost nonstop for the past four hours, man. Higa's full of shit, but he wasn't kidding about these guys. They're fuckin' hard guys."
"Well…" Wesley shrugged. That news wasn't going to change anything, and he'd been in scrapes before. This wasn't going to be that much worse than anything else he'd ever been in, not when it was all said and done. It never was, not really.
"I don't think you're really taking this seriously."
"Let me take care of that for you, Todd. I'm not."
"Look. I'm not going to stop you fighting, but you need to learn your God damn lesson, you get me?"
"Whatever you say, Bradley. I need the money, and you're my promoter. You owe me."
"Look. I can't. Not right now."
"Then put me in another fight, and make some fucking money this time."
"It's not about that. I can't let them think I'm just going easy on you, man. You are in a colossal world of shit here, and I can't have my goddamn fingerprints on it, is that clear enough for you?"
"Whatever. So you're not going to pay me?"
Bradley let out a long breath. "I would, man. I know you need the money. I know. But I can't, not with you being this goddamn hot."
Wes nodded and sucked on his gums while he thought about what to do next. The punch came out of nowhere, and surprising Wesley. He was the one who threw it. He could feel Bradley's soft face crunch under his already-bruised knuckles.
Brad took the hit hard and stumbled back into the desk he'd set up in the center of the room. For an instant he looked angry, and then the anger was replaced with pee-your-pants fear in a flash.
"I'm sorry, man, I can't do anything about it. I don't want to have some crazy fucker with a sword comin' by my apartment, fuckin' up Sheryl's face."
"I understand, Todd, but I ain't going to let you off easy, either."
"Just get it over with, then."
Wes sucked in a breath. He didn't like hitting his friends. He sure as hell didn't like getting into fist fights when
it wasn't for work. And he didn't like acting like some kind of mob enforcer. He could have done that work if he wanted it. He was fighting for scraps because he didn't.
"Get me another fight, and this time don't bring some snot-nosed little fuck to the fight with you. You want to tell your Jappo friends you stood up to me? Fine. You called me a very naughty boy, and I won't do it again. Whatever you say."
Todd let out an unsteady breath and rubbed his jaw where Wes had hit him.
"I'm sorry, man. I know, and I'll have you a fight in a day or two. I'll give you a call as soon as shit cools off, okay?"
"You had better."
He took in a deep breath and started heading for the door. There was no reason to wait around, not when he'd already sent the message. Todd wasn't going to pay him, and he couldn't. Wes got it, even if he didn't like it. Sometimes you have to play patty-cake with the devil. Wasn't that exactly what the fuck he was doing here in the first place?
He slid into the piece-of-shit Fiero that technically still spun the wheels when he pushed the gas, which meant it was good enough. A day or two. That wasn't fast enough. Not near fast enough. Bradley was a fuckin' stick in the mud. If he could have fought every night, then that would have been better.
It would never be enough, of course. There wasn't going to be some kind of mystical 'enough' that made all the problems go away. But three-hundred-sixty-five-thousand a year would have gone a hell of a long way in getting him closer.
He twisted the key and the car lit up, roared to life. He pulled out and got moving.
He'd guessed that the guy beside Bradley at that fight was Yakuza, and he'd guessed that the girl was his girl. The only daughter of some big, kick-your-shit-in family, he hadn't guessed. But it wasn't going to be that much worse than any of the other mistakes he'd made yet.
Seven
Minami
Minami was sitting on the floor outside his apartment when she finally saw Wes get back.
"Twice in one night?" His words might have sounded annoyed if not for the joking in his tone. "My, you are busy."
He already had the keys in his hand, and pushed them into the lock, then pushed open the door. She got up and headed inside, not waiting for permission. He wasn't the kind of person who was going to give it to her, anyways. She had seen a few of his type before, and she knew without needing to be told that if she was waiting for his permission then she was going to be sleeping in the hall.
She slumped onto the couch and he sat down beside her, their bodies already molding together like they had before. She wanted to sleep, but her body was already reacting to his, already asking her to get into bed with him like a little girl asking her mom to let her go pet the goats at a petting zoo.
Minami's head rolled back to allow Wesley's lips to explore her neck once more, the feeling of his mouth on her sensitive skin sending ripples of pleasure through her that she didn't want to fight against. Some part of her, part of the Japanese culture, told her that she shouldn't like it, but she wasn't only Japanese. She was an American just as much as she was any part Japanese, and the American part wanted him to keep going.
It was the American part that leaned into him, that enjoyed the thought of him bruising her, of his lips leaving little marks that would infuriate her father if he saw them, and she knew he would. Maybe it would infuriate him enough to finally leave her the fuck alone.
Minami's hand moved between between his legs, where his cock was already stirring to hardness after only a few moments of kissing. She traced the thick lines of his shaft through his jeans, pressed her palm against the head and then rubbing up and down the shaft.
The feeling of his hips moving against her hand told her all she needed to know about how well she was doing, begged her to continue. She obliged, her other hand reaching down to work in tandem and the pair of them undoing the buckle of his belt, unbuttoning the fly on his jeans and undoing the zip to free him. Her hands wrapped around his hard flesh, the skin and flesh around the shaft soft wrapped around his hardness.
She let her hands slowly rub up, and then slowly back down, just enough to give him pleasure without giving away too much. She enjoyed the way that his hips shifted in little micro-movements to reach out for pleasure.
"Suck it."
She smiled, not needing the instruction. She already knew what was happening, already knew where this was going to go. She slid to her knees on the floor, taking the head in her mouth and using her tongue as she went deeper, taking as much as she could into her small mouth. His hands moved to the back of her head, guiding her movements.
It wasn't rough like the first time. He let her take her time, and she rewarded him by taking him deeper with each attempt until her nose was nestled in his pelvis, her throat pressed open for his cock. Each further inch brought with it soft groans and curses that sent shivers of pleasure down her spine.
She pulled herself back off his cock, pushing her panties down her hips and standing to step out of them. She climbed up into his lap and lined herself up with his cock, settling down until she was pressed down all the way to the hilt, his hardness hitting a spot deep inside her that she hadn't even known existed before tonight.
"Fuck, you're tight."
She ground her hips into his, enjoying the delicious feeling of rubbing inside her, the way he scraped out her insides and kept pushing her closer and closer to the edge of orgasm. She moved faster, unable to refuse her desire any longer, not wanting to deny it. Her hips moved on their own, trying to plunge his cock deeper inside with every movement.
Wes groaned underneath her, pulling a swollen nipple between his teeth and pinching the other between two calloused fingers. Minami cried out her pleasure in the haze of being fucked, as the last thrusts sent her spiraling into overdrive, driving her further and further into the pleasure that she couldn't deny or control.
Her hips were moving entirely on their own, now, ratcheting the pleasure up a thousand miles beyond where she could cope with it or control it until it was too much for her to do anything but hold on tight and try not to fall off the surface of the earth.
She could feel him under her, starting to lose control, could feel his hips moving up under her to meet when she ground forward again, pressed him deeper into her. A low, guttural groan tore from his throat, and then she could feel the warmth of his seed spreading inside her belly again, a feeling that she knew she was going to get addicted to before long. She rode out the new waves of pleasure that crashed over her, drawing a string of curses out of Wesley's lips as she ripped the cum out of him.
Finally she collapsed on top of him, gasping for even a shred of breath, trapped between wanting more and needing to sleep. Wes wrapped his arms around her, the two of them still interlocked, and stood up, carried her over to the bed again.
Minami braced for him to drop her again, prepared to drop, but he slid easily to his knees and laid her down gently on the bed.
"Go to sleep, babe."
His softening cock withdrew from her, leaving what she could only describe as a cock-shaped hole in her life, but he was right. She was exhausted, and it was several hours past her bed time. She curled up in the hollow he made in his chest, enjoying the feeling of his hot skin pressed against her, closed her eyes, and started to relax.
She needed to figure out what she was going to do next. She had to deal with Father at some point, and that was going to be a hundred times less pleasant than anything she could possibly imagine, but that wasn't important right now. Right now, she only had to worry about what she was going to do in this man's arms, and what sort of trouble they could get up to in the morning.
The world slowly faded away around her as sleep started to take her over, until the only thing that was left was the feeling of the two of them lying there on that mattress, his even, shallow breaths matching her own, and then even that wasn't there any more as the sleep finally overtook her.
Whatever happened in the morning would happen. After the sex, of course. The sex
first, and then whatever happened in the morning, she'd deal with it as it happened.
Eight
Wes
Wes didn't hear them coming until it was already too late to stop anything. The sound of someone in the hall. Not just one someone. Several someones.
He pushed himself up from the bed and turned to check on the girl beside him. She was still asleep, or she was trying to be. She rolled over, pulled what remained of his control of the blanket and wrapped it around herself. It was amazing how such a small woman apparently needed so much of a blanket.
If he could avoid getting her mixed up in anything, that would be better. He grabbed a roll of quarters he kept by the door. He might have been able to protect the place better with a gun, but he didn't like them. Having them around just reminded him too much of parts of his old life that he didn't want to think about ever again, not if he didn't have to remember.
He could hear their voices outside the door. They were arguing about who was going first. Go in hot or cold? They must have decided hot, because after one of them got the others to shut the hell up, it wasn't long before they busted through the door. It was inconsiderate, considering that they could have just as easily picked the lock, but now that they were in, there wasn't much room to argue.
There were six of them, and they appeared to have been picked hastily, because these six were the ones who had been too smart or too new to have run afoul of him before. But if they were smart, then they wouldn't have been there right then, and they would've gone in quiet, because Wesley was completely prepared for them.
He could feel the bones in his fingers protesting and threatening to break as he hit the first one straight in the nose. It exploded in a hot geyser of blood and he fell down on his hands and knees. From what Wes could see, they hadn't brought any weapons, which was good for everyone. If he had to deal with weapons, things would get ugly, and when they got ugly with Wes, people regretted it.
