Chapter 4

Akio

“Get out, Akio,” Mom growled at me from outside of the car. She stood next to Dad with her arms crossed over her chest and her silky black dress blowing slightly in the fall breeze. “We don’t have all day.”

After grumbling to myself, I stepped out of the backseat and followed them into the restaurant. We were meeting Imani Abara and her family for dinner, because Dad loved to try to set me up with a smart, rich girl.

“Yui,” the hostess said to Mom with a tense smile. “Right this way.”

She led us through the busy, upscale restaurant in the heart of Redwood and gestured to a table large enough to sit six people. Dad peeled off his coat as the hostess leaned into Mom to whisper something.

Instead of sitting down with Dad, Mom snapped her sharp claws around my upper arm and continued to push me toward the back. We stumbled through the kitchen, as the cooks scrambled out of the way to let her through.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’re going to do something for me.”

I dug my heels into the ground. “No.”

She pushed me out the door and shoved me onto the gravel. “You don’t get a choice.”

Before I could land on my hands and knees, I caught myself and took a couple more strides forward to regain my balance. My gaze landed on a man who looked vaguely familiar kneeling on the ground with his hands tied behind his back.

Mom held out a gun for me. “You’re going to kill him.”

“No.”

“Akio.”

“I’m not going to kill anyone,” I said again. “You already know this.”

Eye twitching–which meant that she was pissed the fuck off–Mom cleared her throat and nodded to the guards she used in the Redwood mob. “Release him.”

I didn’t know why the hell she continued to try to make me part of these games that I didn’t want to play. Every time that Dad tried to help, she was way too controlling to let him do anything for her. Or maybe she just wanted to protect him.

This bitch must’ve wanted me to die, didn’t she?

Once the man was untied, he tossed the gun at his feet.

“Kill my son, and I’ll set you free,” Yui said.

What the–

With the gun at his knees, the guy stared between Mom and me for a few moments, as if he didn’t know what kind of game Mom was playing. But I did. She was doing this to get what she wanted from me.

“Kill my son, and I’ll set you–”

Before she could finish the promise, the man picked up the gun. I roundhouse kicked him across the face so hard that one of his teeth flew out of his mouth and underneath the green dumpster. A bullet whizzed through the air, but hit the garbage bin instead of me.

Growling to myself, I kicked him straight on this time, my foot colliding with his chin and sending him flying back. When he hit the ground unconscious, the gun slipped out of his hand. I took it and dropped all of the bullets out of it and onto the ground at Mom’s feet. Then I shoved the gun into her hands.

“You’re not finished.”

“He’s unconscious,” I snarled. “You finish it.”

After storming back into the restaurant, I readjusted my tie and nervously picked at the scab on my finger from when Mom dragged me to the shooting range with her. Because if I was her son, the least that I could do was learn how to shoot a gun.

That’s all she wanted me for, apparently.

Once I slid into my seat, Imani and her parents followed the hostess to our table. After the overzealous greetings, Imani sat across from me and sank into the plush chair. She looked like she hated being here almost as much as I did.

Or maybe she hated how much my dad and her mom tried to pair us together.

I glanced toward the kitchen, waiting for Mom to waltz out and sit with us but she never did. Hell, I wouldn’t have put it past her to put seven bullets straight through that man’s head and throw him into the dumpster to get rid of him.

My hands balled into fists underneath the table. Mom was the reason why–while I loved working with Nicole during class because she was so pretty and smelled so good, and hell, she even knew what anime was–I couldn’t involve myself with her. Mom already wanted information from Nicole about her father, if she found out we were working together on a science project…

Dick twitching in my pants, I pressed my hand against my thigh and wished that it’d disappear. But I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since anatomy class. She had placed her hand on my thigh, and I had gotten so hard almost instantly that she had to have seen it. She even suggested we do our project on the reproductive system.

Had she been flirting with me?

I shook my head and pushed the thought away, because surely Nicole wouldn’t flirt with anyone like me. She didn’t even know my name. Besides, she was tied up with Carter and Jace Harbor drama.

Still, that hadn’t stopped me from jerking off to the thought of in the bathroom after science, and this afternoon… and probably when I finally get out of this stupid dinner too.

Dad laughed obnoxiously beside me, snapping me out of my fantasies. I cleared my throat and glanced up at Imani who stared down at her lap while sipping her water. She glanced up at me through big brown eyes.

“How’d it go with Poison?” I whispered.

She sucked in her cheek and stared through me. Story of my life.

“Uh, Imani…”

She blinked a few times, then shrugged. “Good, I guess. I slapped Landon in the face for you. You’re welcome.” She glanced at Mrs Abara and leaned across the table. “Why are they after you? What did you do?”

I tensed and sat back, then stuck my fork into a piece of bread and plopped the entire thing into my mouth. Dad scowled at me for eating so poorly, then turned back to Imani’s mom. While Imani was a nice girl… I didn’t want to tell her what Poison wanted from me.

Mainly because I didn’t want her to see me like everyone saw Mom.

“Akio has an internship at the pharmacy,” Dad boasted to Mrs Abara, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me close–something he only did when he wanted to brag about me. “I’m so proud of that boy.”

Sure he is… 

Imani arched a brow at me. “The pharmacy? Do they give you access to all the drugs?”

Mrs Abara smacked Imani’s shoulder. “Oh, honey. Stop it. I’m sure he’s working in the front room.”

“Actually, right alongside the pharmacists,” Dad said.

He can’t shut the hell up, can he?

I sank lower in my seat as Imani murmured, “Interesting…”

And while I had wanted to keep it a secret from Redwood, Imani wasn’t stupid. She was one of the brightest people that I knew, and she surely had put it all together now. Over the course of the past few months, I had become the most feared gang in town’s supplier.