Page 179 of The Silent Note

A painful, shuddering silence descends on us. It presses its claws into my shoulders and digs in deep. It tells me things will never be the same when I leave this room.

“You know who’s behind The Grateful Project, don’t you,” I whisper. “You know who dad’s afraid of.”

Dutch gives our brother a dark look. “Who is he?”

Finn speaks with an unreadable expression, but there’s a wet sheen in his eyes. Not from sorrow, but from anger.

“Who is he, Finn!” Dutch roars. “Say it.”

“My father!”

GREY

Cadence picks up my notepad and skims it. Her eyes trail to the empty wine bottle and the crushed coffee cans.

“You’ve been working hard,” she says with a hint of concern.

“I did a deep-dive on the tattoo I spotted in the video, and I think I’m on to something.” I’m well aware that the sugar rush is kicking in and I’m unnaturally hyper, but I can’t stop it. “Check this out.” I roll my office chair slightly to the side so Cadence can stand in front of the computer.

She peers at the screen. “The yakuza? As in… the Japanese mafia?”

“The yakuza is one of the largest criminal organizations in the world. They’ve got power, connections, influence—not to mention billions of dollars from drugs, gambling, human trafficking. Basically anything a criminal can profit from.”

“That sounds awful.”

“Oh, it is.” I realize I’m smiling and wipe the expression from my face. “It is.”

“You think Sloane’s real killer was from the yakuza?”

I nod.

“But… this isn’t Japan.”

“No.” I stick up a finger, pointing. “But the yakuza started expanding their operations about four decades ago.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why not stick to Japan?”

“I’m not the yakuza, obviously. But I can take a guess.”

She gestures for me to go ahead.

“From history, you’ll learn that every king wants to dominate. That’s why France, Spain, and Britain did all those awful things like slavery and genocide. They already ruled their own territories, but they wanted more. It’s what men with power do. They take. They’re insatiable.”

Cadence mumbles thoughtfully, “Sounds like someone I know.”

I’m sure she’s thinking about Jarod Cross, but the waters we’re swimming in arewaydeeper than that.

“The yakuza were unstoppable in Japan, but things changed. According to the Japanese police, there was a big split in factions. What was once the biggest criminal organization shattered into tiny fragments. The factions started warring with each other, trying to take as much territory as possible. After the bloodshed, they made agreements, divided territories and branched out, but the war wasn’t really over. It just moved to the ‘colonies’’’.” I make bunny ears. “It turned into a competition for who could take over the yakuza bases in the overseas territories.”

“So, who won the war forthisterritory?”

“From what I can gather thanks to this online translator,” I point to the app that I’ve been using all night, “ten years ago, the police arrested this guy, Tsaka Nagasaki, for illegal gun possession, but he was released after only a few months in prison. Online speculation was that he belonged to the yakuza.”

“So this guy, this Tus-Tus…”

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