Page 85 of The Dragon 2
Jean-Pierre turned his head just slightly. “A friend told me that the Lion came to visit you recently.”
He said it too casually. The kind of statement a man threw like a coin into a river, pretending he didn't care how deep it sank.
But he damn sure did.
I nodded. “The Lion recently came to Tokyo.”
“And did he roar?”
“Not this time but his purr was no better.”
Jean-Pierre’s lips parted in a dry laugh—quiet, elegant, without teeth. “I assume he did not like our secret deal.”
“He did not but I’m not here about that. I know better than anyone that in our world, drug shipments don’t come with return policies or refunds.”
“They do not.” He lifted his glass in a silent cue, and within seconds, another nude woman approached—this one with obsidian-painted lips and long white gloves that reached her shoulders. She took his glass with a bow so slight it looked like a breath.
I passed her mine as well.
She vanished without a sound.
Jean-Pierre laced his fingers together in front of him, elbows resting lightly on the rail. “Still, I hate that we cannot continue our business due to. . .the Lion.”
“We will one day.”
Jean-Pierre’s voice dropped lower. “Once the Lion is gone.”
That was a statement, not a question.
I didn’t react.
Not outwardly.
Inside, I calculated. This was no longer just conversation—it was an invitation to a conspiracy. And yet, it was too early for honesty. Jean-Pierre and I had not earned each other’s trust.
We were circling, speaking in the dialects of empires.
Metaphors.
Careful omissions.
Perfectly chosen compliments.
I knew who and what I was talking to. The Corsicans modeled themselves after their Napoleonic ancestors—men who conquered not with speed, but with orchestration.
But I had been raised by a different empire.
The Yakuza were not born from opium dens and champagne. We came from salt and sword. Feudal oaths and blood-marked loyalty. From black-market rice rations and blades sheathed in silence. Fromninkyo dantai—chivalrous men who stood for the weak, even if they bled for it. We came even from gamblers and gravediggers with tattooed obedience and razor-edged shame.
Our codes were older than Versailles.
Plus, history has taught my people to be wary of every handshake offered across continents and even the oceans.
After the war, they’d bombed our cities and called it peace. Filled our ports with soldiers, our markets with Western suits, and our streets withforeign dope.
The syndicates—my ancestors—that rose from Japan’s ashes had done so with calloused fists, not handouts. And even now, decades later, their children still bore the quiet shame of having to ask outsiders for favors.
Alliances with western gangsters were as fickle as greedy mistresses.
