Chương 8 - THE NIGHT MY FATHER REALLY DIED
For a moment, nobody else existed.
Not Daichi.
Not Keiko.
Not Aiko.
Not the coming banquet.
Only Kazuki.
And the sentence that had just split fourteen years of my life open again.
“He died in your arms.”
Kazuki nodded.
“You told me your father made him disappear.”
“He did.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It will.”
“Then make it.”
His voice stayed low.
“Masato survived the warehouse. My father moved him to a private clinic.”
“For three days?”
“Six.”
My throat tightened.
“The photograph was day two.”
“Yes.”
“And the handwriting after his supposed death?”
“His.”
“Then what happened on day six?”
Kazuki looked toward the floor.
“He found out Reiji Mori was searching for you.”
My skin went cold.
“Me?”
“Masato had hidden copies of the shipping records. Reiji believed he would use his family as insurance.”
“He threatened me.”
“Yes.”
“Did your father?”
“No.”
Kazuki looked at Daichi.
“My father proposed erasing Masato publicly and relocating Naomi and Yumi.”
Daichi nodded.
“But Masato refused.”
“Why?”
“Because moving you would confirm you mattered.”
Kazuki looked at me.
“He believed the safest thing was for you to remain exactly where you were.”
Ordinary.
Unimportant.
The daughter of a dead wine merchant.
“And my mother?”
“She agreed.”
Pain moved through me.
“She let me think he was dead.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?”
Kazuki’s eyes darkened.
“Masato left the clinic.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to move the original evidence himself.”
“Where?”
“Lot 47.”
The auction bottle.
“He hid the photograph and records, then came back.”
“Why?”
Kazuki’s voice broke slightly.
“Because he knew Reiji’s men were waiting for me.”
I closed my eyes.
Again.
My father had gone back for Kazuki again.
“He was shot.”
The words were simple.
Cruel.
“By Reiji?”
“By one of his men.”
“Where?”
“Near the old fish market.”
“And you were there.”
“Yes.”
“I held pressure on the wound.”
Kazuki stared at his hands.
“I was sixteen years old and kept telling him the ambulance was coming.”
My eyes burned.
“What did he say?”
Kazuki reached inside his jacket.
He removed my father’s silver lighter.
“He gave me this.”
I stared at it.
“He told me Naomi liked the sound it made when it opened.”
I remembered.
Click.
Snap.
Click.
I used to beg Dad to do it at the dinner table until Mom complained.
A sob escaped me before I could stop it.
Kazuki continued.
“He told me not to find you until I could do it without bringing Reiji to your door.”
“And you waited fourteen years.”
“Yes.”
“Why now?”
“Because Reiji asked Daichi about you.”
There it was.
The final reason.
Not coincidence.
Not romance.
A warning.
“I believed he had found the trail Masato left.”
“And the fake relationship?”
“A shield.”
I laughed through tears.
“And a trap.”
“Yes.”
“You used me.”
“Yes.”
No excuse.
That hurt less than another beautiful lie would have.
“I also wanted you.”
I looked at him sharply.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not asking that to excuse anything.”
“Good.”
“I should have told you before you signed.”
“Yes.”
“I should have given you the choice.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
Not enough.
But real.
The banquet went ahead the next evening.
Two hundred guests.
Political donors.
Business leaders.
Mori executives.
Takahashi relatives.
Ken and Keiko arrived separately.
Whatever their relationship had been, it was fractured.
But both came.
Aiko entered on her father’s arm.
Reiji Mori looked exactly like a man who had spent thirty years ensuring other people underestimated how dangerous he was.
Silver hair.
Gentle smile.
Perfect manners.
He kissed his daughter’s cheek.
Then bowed to me.
“Ms. Suzuki.”
“You knew my father.”
His smile did not move.
“Many years ago.”
“How unfortunate for you.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
Good.
Dinner began.
The compromised Burgundy appeared on schedule.
Except the bottle now contained ordinary wine.
The original drugged contents had been preserved for independent testing.
Reiji watched Kazuki’s glass.
Then Aiko’s father’s own glass.
Confusion appeared.
He expected someone to collapse.
Nobody did.
Aiko rose.
“My father has always said family alliances depend on trust.”
Reiji looked at her.
“Aiko.”
She continued.
“So tonight we should begin with honesty.”
Kazuki’s security closed the doors.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
Reiji’s smile disappeared.
Shigeru stood.
“I have provided investigators with shipping records going back twenty years.”
Murmurs moved through the room.
Daichi stood next.
“I have provided the authorization for the warehouse fire.”
More murmurs.
Reiji remained seated.
“You’re all very theatrical.”
I approached with the authentic Renaud bottle.
“You taught them to communicate through wine.”
His gaze sharpened.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.”
I turned the bottle.
“The label error.”
His eyes flicked to it.
Tiny.
Automatic.
Enough.
“You noticed.”
He realized the mistake immediately.
For the first time, his mask slipped.
I smiled faintly.
“So did my father.”
Aiko looked at him.
“Dad.”
Reiji’s expression hardened.
“You don’t understand what these families were then.”
“No,” she said.
“I understand what you made them.”
That hit him.
His motive came out slowly.
Akihiro wanted to reduce criminal operations.
Daichi wanted controlled consolidation.
Shigeru wanted profitable independence.
Reiji believed all of them were destroying the structure that protected their families from stronger organizations.
He arranged the warehouse operation to scare Akihiro into reversing course.
Kazuki was never supposed to be inside.
Masato was never supposed to discover the hidden shipments.
Every choice after that had been damage control.
Until damage control became murder.
“You killed my father.”
“No.”
Reiji looked at me.
“I ordered him stopped.”
I felt cold.
“Men love that sentence.”
His face tightened.
“He had evidence that would have started a war.”
“So you chose him.”
“I chose hundreds over one.”
Aiko went pale.
“That’s how you justified it?”
“I kept you alive.”
She shook her head.
“You kept yourself powerful.”
Reiji stood.
Security moved.
He did not resist.
Then he looked at Kazuki.
“You think she will forgive you when she knows the rest?”
My stomach turned.
Kazuki went still.
Reiji smiled without warmth.
“Masato made the boy promise something before he died.”
I looked at Kazuki.
“What promise?”
Kazuki’s face drained.
Reiji answered for him.
“Not merely to protect you.”
He glanced at me.
“To never tell you how Masato really earned the evidence.”
I stared.
“Kazuki?”
He closed his eyes.
Reiji’s final words landed across the silent banquet hall.
“Your father wasn’t investigating our criminal network, Naomi.”
May you like
A pause.
“He helped build it.”
