Chapter 12

• Alessio
• Her reaction to my words was as if she had been stabbed.
• "Doesn't your daughter have any idea how the Yakuza operates?" I asked Hiroshi incredulously.
• "Don't get involved in this..." the man retorted defiantly.
• I shook my head, crossed my arms, and cut him off with an icy stare.
• "She agreed to be my wife, my woman, interamente mia, so I have every right in the world to ask, to know how ignorant she is of her origins," I replied sternly.
• I wasn't sure if it was the tone, I used that frightened her or the realization that things went much further than what had been told to her. I just saw Amaya become dizzy from the impact of it all, so I quickly held her and helped her sit down.
• She was trembling, her hands cold and sweaty.
• "Are you okay? Do you need anything?" I asked immediately.
• "I..."
• She looked conflicted, and then her father approached, which made her react.
• "Suki..."
• "I want you to answer him. Come on, tell him what you don't have the courage to tell me, tell him what you've refused to tell me..." she asked with resentment.
• The curious thing about the whole situation was that she didn't let go of my hand; she clung to it as if it were a lifesaver, an important float for her. A gesture I had the sense to register immediately.
• I would make use of this in my upcoming moves.
• I had never been called stupid.
• "Suki, I... There are things I've wanted to keep you protected from," the man admitted with pain, with shame because he had to open up to me, as if that display of weakness were unforgivable. "You're not made for this world."
• "So why subject me to all of this?"
• That was the best question of all, but it had many modifications to it: why keep her in this country when he didn't want to expose her? I had suspicions, many, but the main one was that she turned out to be his true weakness, she and the woman he truly loved. Being a selfish bastard, he most likely had to keep them close.
• He was an idiot for it.
• "Because I have enemies who are pulling the strings, and I don't want to put you in danger," he replied seriously.
• He was direct, honest, brutal, and restrained to avoid revealing anything, so I refrained from furrowing my brow, from showing some of my thoughts so he wouldn't see them. Somehow, the man believed I was a fool, so I had a lot to find out, to investigate about who represented a problem for him.
• "Who wants to harm you?"
• I liked how she thought that the answer to that question could give her some clarity, but it would be impossible, not to mention improbable, that she could do anything about it on her own.
• "Suki..."
• The man before her was weak, one who allowed himself to be easily manipulated, and that gave me ideas about how I could use my future wife to my advantage. However, I had to make her fall into the depths of my charms, and I didn't know if my scars would have the usual effect at the end of the day.
• I hoped that she wasn't an empty-headed as her sister.
• "Say it, Dad, just say it..."
• "The Russians," he informed, and I raised my eyebrows high.
• I might have looked quite comical as if I raised them to the sky, but it would be a blatant lie to deny that my gesture caught Hiroshi's attention. Those damned Russians were not only the ones supporting the clan that had betrayed us but also indirectly had something to do with the disappearance of Gemma, my sister, and her suffering.
• They were part of my plans, the ones I would seek to end as soon as possible.
• "You should have told me, Hiroshi," I said, and Amaya frowned.
• "Is it very bad?" she asked me, completely ignoring her father, so I was as honest as I could be.
• "Very bad... Bad enough to say that you need backup... They..."
• I didn't even know how to tell her what had happened to my sister, not in front of Hiroshi, who looked at me shrewdly.
• "They what?"
• The question hung in the air, and I looked at my future father-in-law with annoyance.
• "Let's just say they do very bad things to the women they abduct."
• I simplified, which made Amaya furrow her brow even more.
• "What do you mean by that?"
• So many things passed through the man's face that cursing him for his daughter's naïve reality was an understatement. Then, to complete the situation, he went to pour himself another drink before being as honest as he could.
• "Human trafficking, suki... It's not true that they do it, but it was something they used to do a lot. That's why I brought you here to take care of you, just like my older daughters, because I don't want to put you at any kind of risk that involves them doing that to you."
• If she had become dizzy before, things got worse at that moment, to the point where she fainted, which made me pick her up in my arms. Hiroshi came straight to me with all the concern in the world to handle it himself, and I held her in a defensive position that screamed that it would be impossible for him to take her from my hands.
• "Tell me where I can lay her down to rest..."
• He shook his head, but then his son, Hiro, his magnanimous heir, entered, saw the scene with some consternation before being polite.
• "Come, let's take my sister to one of the guest rooms," he instructed.
• I registered the information in my mind with seriousness; I wanted to say that the man hadn't hosted her in the main house, which made everything much worse than it already was. Unlike us, the Japanese were much stricter about certain matters, making everything more difficult regarding them. They also had superstitions about many things.
• I didn't know them well, but I did know that if a father hid a child, society could brand him a social pariah, which was not only bad but could relegate Amaya to ostracism. That, in a woman like her, might have no effect if she were in her common life, but since it wasn't a common life, things would be tough.
• I had to get her out of there as soon as possible.
• Italian phrases and/or words:
• Entirely mine.