The noise of the Tokyo Dome still shook the glass.
Even this high above the arena floor, inside Haruki Tanaka’s private executive office suite, the building vibrated with the aftershock of the main event. The crowd was no longer simply loud. It was wounded. Furious. Confused. The kind of noise that came after a nation watched one of its gods bleed. Red and gold light from the arena screens flashed faintly through the broad windows overlooking Tokyo, painting the office in colors that now felt mocking rather than grand.
Haruki Tanaka stood behind his desk, but only barely.
His suit jacket was open. His tie hung crooked. One hand clutched the edge of the polished wood so hard his knuckles had gone pale, while the other kept rising toward his chest as if he could physically press his heartbeat back into order. His breathing had lost all rhythm. Too fast. Too shallow. His face had gone ashen beneath the office lights, sweat beading at his temples and running down the sides of his jaw. He looked less like the President and majority owner of All Asia Pro Wrestling and more like a man standing in the ruins of a temple he had spent his whole life building. Haruki had devoted his life to making AAPW the premier wrestling federation in Asia, guarding its legacy against encroachment, and he had always feared Ultimate Wrestling destroying that legacy. Tonight, he was being forced to watch that fear take shape.
A crystal tumbler sat untouched beside a stack of rating sheets and financial packets. A muted television on the wall showed the aftermath in looped fragments: Drake Nygma standing tall, Saikō Sasori broken and unmasked, the crowd in full revolt. Every replay was another knife.
Across from Haruki, Kenzo Takahashi stood near the window with one hand in his trouser pocket and the other resting lightly at his side, so still he almost looked carved out of lacquered wood. His composure was intact, but only just. His jaw had tightened into a hard line. The muscle there jumped every few seconds. His dark suit was immaculate, his hair perfect, his face controlled, but the anger under that control was nuclear. As underboss of the Yamamoto Clan and the public-facing head of AAPW security, Kenzo saw the promotion as far more than sport. It was infrastructure. Optics. Revenue. Laundering. Influence. Tonight had just punched a hole through all of it. Kenzo’s criminal empire depended on AAPW remaining strong, profitable, and respected enough to keep money moving cleanly through the machine. He had built much of that intelligence and financial architecture himself.
Neither man spoke.
Neither needed to.
Then the office door slammed open so hard it bounced off the stopper.
Rupert Mudcock entered like an occupying army.
He did not wait to be announced. He did not knock. He strode into the room with a grin stretched across his face like a wound that had finally learned to laugh. His suit was slightly disheveled, his tie loose, his cheeks flushed with adrenaline and whiskey and triumph. There was nothing accidental in the way he moved. He wanted the intrusion to feel invasive. He wanted the room to understand, instantly, that its privacy was over.
Behind him, two Ultimate Wrestling security men remained in the hall, visible only for a second before Rupert shoved the door half-closed with one thick arm and stepped farther into the office.
He looked at Haruki first.
Then at Kenzo.
Then at the television.
And then he laughed.
Not a polite chuckle. Not a businessman’s cruel little smirk.
A full, ugly, victorious laugh.
Rupert Mudcock: There it is. There it is. God, I wanted to see your faces when it finally happened.
Haruki didn’t answer immediately. He tried to. His mouth opened, but the breath caught halfway out of him and his hand went back to his chest.
Haruki Tanaka: Get... out…
Rupert’s grin widened.
Rupert Mudcock: No. No, I don’t think I will.
He strolled deeper into the office like he was touring conquered land, glancing at the memorabilia on the shelves, the framed posters, the title belts in display cases, the photographs of AAPW legends and sold-out buildings and national triumphs. His gaze lingered on each artifact with the indulgent contempt of a man admiring antiques in a house he planned to repossess.
Rupert Mudcock: You know what I love most about this room, Haruki? It still smells like certainty. Like old money. Like the sort of place built by a man who really believed history couldn’t move without his permission.
Haruki’s breathing got worse. He dragged in one sharp breath, then another, fingertips trembling against the desk.
Haruki Tanaka: You came here to gloat?
Rupert Mudcock: I came here to pay my respects.
Rupert looked back to the television just as the replay showed Sasori falling into the Scorpion Death Lock.
He chuckled again.
Rupert Mudcock: Or maybe congratulations are more appropriate. You finally got your dream, didn’t you? A true war between federations. A genuine global showdown. Asia’s greatest empire against the arrogant western invader.
He turned back toward Haruki and spread his arms.
Rupert Mudcock: And look what happened.
Haruki’s face twitched like he’d been slapped.
Rupert Mudcock: Your king was broken in public. Your belt was thrown down like garbage. Your promotion was humiliated in its own cathedral. In Tokyo. In front of your people. In front of the world.
Kenzo moved one step off the window.
Kenzo Takahashi: Leave.
Rupert looked at him and laughed harder.
Rupert Mudcock: That all you’ve got, Kenzo? “Leave?” I expected more from the brilliant modern gangster. The international strategist. The polished underboss. The elegant parasite with the perfect haircut.
Kenzo’s eyes narrowed.
Kenzo Takahashi: I am trying to save you the mistake of believing this room is safe for you.
Rupert turned his whole body toward Kenzo now, amused rather than alarmed.
Rupert Mudcock: Safe?
He jabbed a thumb back toward the arena.
Rupert Mudcock: Your side just got decapitated in front of twenty thousand witnesses. Your laundering machine just took a sledgehammer to the teeth. Your ratings are about to collapse. Your market confidence is going to bleed out on the floor. And you want to talk to me about safe?
That landed.
It landed because it was true.
Kenzo’s expression didn’t crack, but something colder entered it.
Kenzo Takahashi: AAPW was profitable because it was stable. Dominant. Respected. Tonight damaged more than image.
Rupert Mudcock: Damaged?
Rupert barked a laugh.
Rupert Mudcock: Kenzo, tonight didn’t damage AAPW. Tonight gave it the bullet in the head.
Haruki’s hand slipped on the desk edge. He grabbed the chair behind him to steady himself, but did not sit. The idea of sitting looked too much like surrender.
Haruki Tanaka: No…
Rupert turned sharply toward him.
Rupert Mudcock: Yes.
He stepped closer.
Rupert Mudcock: Yes, Haruki. This is what defeat looks like when it is real. Not a narrow loss. Not a bad quarter. Not some temporary ratings dip you can smooth over with your little press conferences and your polished suits and your martial arts pageantry.
He leaned forward across the desk.
Rupert Mudcock: This was extermination.
Haruki shut his eyes and breathed through his nose, but it only made the tremor in him more obvious. His chest kept hitching. His fingers kept curling and uncurling against the wood.
Rupert Mudcock: You built the greatest Japanese wrestling promotion of all time. I’ll give you that. You did. You took your father’s world and turned it into a kingdom. You made AAPW sacred. You made it untouchable. You made it feel immortal.
Rupert’s smile turned vicious.
Rupert Mudcock: Then I came here and taught it how to die.
Haruki’s eyes opened again, wet now, not with tears exactly, but with the involuntary strain of a man being forced to breathe through panic while someone cut into his life with surgical precision.
Haruki Tanaka: You... arrogant... pig…
Rupert slapped the desk once.
Rupert Mudcock: Arrogant? Of course I’m arrogant. I conquered you.
He jabbed a finger toward the television.
Rupert Mudcock: That ring out there is my battlefield now. That crowd? Mine. Those headlines tomorrow? Mine. That humiliation attached to your name forever? Also mine.
Kenzo finally moved fully away from the window, his posture straightening into open threat.
Kenzo Takahashi: Watch your mouth.
Rupert swung toward him like he’d been waiting for the interruption.
Rupert Mudcock: Or what? You’ll have one of your dead-eyed little clan errand boys stab me in a parking garage? Leak something to the press? Shake down a sponsor? No. No, I know what you are, Kenzo. You’re angry because your boss’s side business just got kneecapped.
That hit much harder than Haruki’s pride.
Rupert pointed around the room.
Rupert Mudcock: All of this pomp. All this national myth-making. All these sacred belts and bowed heads and ceremonial lights. Strip it down and what is it? A machine. A very useful one. A beautiful one, I’ll admit. But still a machine. And machines are only holy until somebody stronger uses them better.
Kenzo’s voice flattened.
Kenzo Takahashi: You have no idea how many people depended on that machine continuing to run.
Rupert Mudcock: I know exactly how many. That’s why this is so satisfying.
Rupert started pacing now, dragging his fingers over the back of one of Haruki’s guest chairs like he was inspecting furniture in a house he’d inherited.
Rupert Mudcock: You know what your problem was, Haruki? You still thought this was about wrestling.
Haruki made a strangled sound halfway between a laugh and a cough.
Haruki Tanaka: It is.
Rupert Mudcock: Not anymore.
He stopped pacing and turned back to him.
Rupert Mudcock: It’s about who gets to define reality after tonight. Who owns the narrative. Who owns the market. Who owns the bodies, the cameras, the money, the symbols, the fear.
He tapped his own chest.
Rupert Mudcock: Me.
Haruki’s breathing had gone bad enough now that even Rupert seemed to notice. Tanaka took a shaky breath, then another, then pressed the heel of one hand against his sternum as if his heart had become a locked door he could no longer open from the inside.
Kenzo stepped toward him immediately.
Kenzo Takahashi: Haruki.
Haruki Tanaka: I’m fine.
He was not fine.
He was a man watching generations collapse in real time.
Rupert Mudcock: Look at him.
Rupert smiled with hideous delight.
Rupert Mudcock: Look at the great Haruki Tanaka. The visionary. The innovator. The guardian of puroresu. All that genius, all that theater, all that discipline... and here you are hyperventilating in your own office because the barbarian crossed the sea and burned your city anyway.
Kenzo took another step.
Kenzo Takahashi: I said enough.
Rupert stepped toward him too, closing the distance until the two men stood only a few feet apart.
Rupert Mudcock: No. Not enough. I’m just starting to enjoy myself.
The room got very still.
Haruki grabbed the edge of the desk harder and forced air into his lungs in staccato bursts.
Haruki Tanaka: Kenzo…
He didn’t say it loudly. He didn’t need to.
Kenzo kept his eyes on Rupert, but he obeyed the meaning of it. He did not strike. He did not lunge. His discipline held.
Rupert saw that too.
He looked back at Haruki and his grin turned into something even uglier, because now there was pity in it.
Rupert Mudcock: You know what the real death blow was?
No one answered.
Rupert Mudcock: It wasn’t Sasori losing.
He pointed to the television.
Rupert Mudcock: Legends lose. Kings bleed. Promotions survive that.
Then he pointed at Haruki’s chest.
Rupert Mudcock: The death blow was this.
Haruki stared back, breathing raggedly.
Rupert Mudcock: This moment. Right now. You’ve already accepted it. I can see it. Somewhere inside that brilliant little promoter brain of yours, you know the truth. The myth is broken. The aura is gone. The illusion of invincibility is dead.
He leaned in close enough that Haruki could smell the whiskey and smoke on him.
Rupert Mudcock: And once a crowd sees god bleed, they never worship the same way again.
That was the cruelest line yet.
Because Haruki knew he was right.
Not fully. Not forever maybe. But enough.
Enough to hurt.
Enough to matter.
Kenzo’s hand moved inside his jacket just slightly, not drawing anything, just reminding Rupert that the edge of violence was right there, waiting.
Rupert noticed.
And smiled.
Rupert Mudcock: There he is. There’s the real security plan.
Kenzo’s voice went colder than the windows.
Kenzo Takahashi: You should leave while you still have the option of calling this a visit.
Rupert took one last slow look around the office. At the shelves. At the photos. At the belts. At Haruki trying and failing to stand like a king in a room that now felt too small for him.
Then Rupert adjusted his loosened tie and gave the room a tiny nod of satisfaction.
Rupert Mudcock: I just wanted to see it with my own eyes.
He turned toward the door.
Rupert Mudcock: Empire’s End, gentlemen.
Haruki Tanaka: This isn’t over you fat fucking American bastard! I’ll rebuild and will come hunting you in America! Mark my words!
At the door he stopped and looked back over his shoulder one final time.
Rupert Mudcock: I’m afraid… my dear friend Tanaka, that won’t be possible from prison. Wantanabee they’re all yours!
For half a second, the room did not understand what it had just heard.
Then the hallway behind Rupert erupted with motion.
Bootsteps struck the polished floor in disciplined bursts. Shadows crossed the frosted glass. Red and blue emergency lights, probably from vehicles now crowding the service entrance below, flickered faintly down the corridor and bled into the office in pulses. The door opened wider, and Akane Watanabe stepped into the room wearing a dark Tokyo Metropolitan Police uniform beneath a fitted ballistic vest marked with Special Crimes insignia, her badge clipped at her chest, her hair pulled back tightly, her face stripped of every trace of in-ring showmanship. Behind her came six armed officers in tactical jackets and body armor, pistols drawn at low-ready before rising in unison when they saw Kenzo’s hand near his coat.
Everything changed in an instant.
The office no longer felt like Haruki Tanaka’s sanctuary. It felt like a sealed room in the final minute before decompression.
Haruki’s eyes widened in disbelief first, then horror. His already ragged breathing faltered again. The blood drained out of his face so fast it made him look sickly under the cold office lights. Kenzo’s reaction was smaller and far more dangerous. His expression barely shifted at all, but his shoulders tightened, and the hand near his jacket froze in place as his mind started measuring distances, angles, barrels, bodies, exits, timing.
Rupert stepped neatly aside and out of the line of fire, one hand lazily in his trouser pocket, as if this had all become better theater than even he had hoped for.
The television on the wall kept silently replaying Saikō Sasori’s fall behind them, the crowd in the Dome still boiling in mute flashes. The office windows vibrated faintly from the distant roar below.
Akane stopped just inside the threshold and took in the room with one steady sweep of her eyes. Haruki behind the desk. Kenzo near the window. Rupert off to the side, grinning like a fat grave robber. The officers spread the way trained people did when they expected resistance, two covering Haruki, two locking onto Kenzo, one taking the room’s blind corner, one watching Rupert because nobody smart fully trusted a man like Rupert Mudcock just because he was useful tonight.
Then Akane spoke.
Akane Watanabe: Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Special Crimes Unit. Nobody move. Hands where I can see them.
Kenzo’s head turned slowly toward her, recognition settling into place with visible reluctance.
Kenzo Takahashi: You!
There was no shock in the word now. Only hatred for having been made a fool of.
Akane’s expression did not change.
Akane Watanabe: Yes. Me.
Haruki looked from her to the officers, then to Rupert, then back to her, as if sheer repetition might force the world back into a shape he recognized.
Haruki Tanaka: What is this?
Akane took one step farther into the office, voice even, formal, controlled.
Akane Watanabe: Haruki Tanaka. Kenzo Takahashi. You are both under arrest.
The air seemed to thin.
Haruki blinked hard.
Haruki Tanaka: No.
Akane continued as if he had not spoken.
Akane Watanabe: You are under arrest on suspicion of organized criminal conspiracy, money laundering, racketeering, extortion, witness intimidation, conspiracy to commit arson, obstruction of justice, wire fraud, tax fraud, and the use of corporate entities connected to All Asia Pro Wrestling to conceal, move, and legitimize criminal proceeds tied to the Yamamoto organization.
Haruki let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh that had no joy in it.
Haruki Tanaka: No. No, this is absurd. This is theater. This is exactly what this is. Theater. You think because you walk in here with a badge and a tactical team that you can make fantasy into evidence?
He jabbed a trembling finger at her, anger beginning to overpower panic.
Haruki Tanaka: I’m innocent. You understand me? Innocent. AAPW is a business. A wrestling promotion. I employ people. I produce events. I sell tickets. I do not run a criminal enterprise.
Akane held his gaze without blinking.
Akane Watanabe: Save it for counsel.
Haruki Tanaka: Counsel? Counsel? You think you have a case? On me?
His hand slapped down on the desk hard enough to rattle the crystal tumbler and a stack of ratings reports.
Haruki Tanaka: You’re wasting your time. You will never prove I ordered anything. You will never prove I signed off on anything. You won’t prove a damn thing except that I run the biggest wrestling company in Asia and made enemies stupid enough to confuse business with crime.
Kenzo finally removed his hand from inside his jacket, slowly, carefully, and let it hang open at his side.
Kenzo Takahashi: Special Crimes doesn’t come this high without a warrant package and months of paper behind it.
He looked at Akane more carefully now, the calculation fully visible in his eyes.
Kenzo Takahashi: You’ve been building this for a long time.
Akane Watanabe: Long enough.
Rupert made a low appreciative sound in the back of his throat.
Rupert Mudcock: Christ, this is beautiful.
One of the officers shot him a warning look. Rupert lifted both hands half an inch in mock surrender and smiled.
Akane moved toward the desk, the officers shifting with her. Haruki instinctively stepped backward and hit the edge of his chair with the back of his knees. He did not sit. Pride was still keeping him vertical, barely.
Haruki Tanaka: You used my ring. My roster. My company. You lied to everyone.
Akane Watanabe: Yes.
Haruki Tanaka: You deceitful bitch.
One of the officers covering Haruki stiffened. Akane didn’t react.
Akane Watanabe: You can add insult to a very bad night. It won’t improve the morning.
Haruki’s chest was rising too fast now. Sweat had gathered visibly at his temples and under his eyes. He looked like a man trying to hold together three separate collapses inside the same body.
Kenzo’s voice came quieter, colder.
Kenzo Takahashi: You had help.
Akane reached for the handcuffs at her belt.
Akane Watanabe: I had evidence.
Kenzo Takahashi: That’s not what I said.
Akane paused just long enough to make sure he understood that she had heard him and had chosen not to answer directly.
Akane Watanabe: The Yamamoto clan had a leak.
That landed like a blade between the ribs.
Haruki’s face went slack with shock. Kenzo did not move, but something behind his eyes hardened into a new, darker shape.
Haruki Tanaka: Who?
Akane stepped behind Haruki before he could pull away.
Akane Watanabe: You’re not getting a name from me.
She took his wrist cleanly, turned it behind his back, and pushed him down just enough over the desk to take his balance. Haruki barked out in surprise and outrage more than pain.
Haruki Tanaka: Get your hands off me!
The first cuff snapped shut around his wrist with a dry metallic click that seemed louder than it should have been.
Rupert smiled wider.
Haruki twisted, tried to wrench free, but panic and exhaustion had made him clumsy.
Haruki Tanaka: I said get your hands off me! Do you know who I am?
Akane Watanabe: Yes.
She seized his other arm, pulled it back, and secured the second cuff.
Akane Watanabe: That’s one of the reasons I’m here.
Haruki thrashed once, then twice, but the officer to Akane’s right stepped in, pinning him just enough to stop the movement without turning the arrest into a brawl. Haruki’s cheek almost hit the desk. He caught himself an inch above it and glared sideways with wet, furious eyes.
Haruki Tanaka: You won’t hold this. You won’t hold any of it. I built that company. I saved that company. Every document you think you have is going to turn into smoke the second real lawyers touch it.
Akane’s tone stayed maddeningly calm.
Akane Watanabe: We’ve got shell vendors, inflated security contracts, false invoicing, communications routed through burner accounts, coordinated payments through event subsidiaries, and enough internal accounting irregularities to keep forensic analysts busy until your hair finishes turning white.
Haruki swallowed once, hard.
Akane leaned slightly closer, not intimate, not theatrical, just direct.
Akane Watanabe: I don’t need you to confess tonight. I already have enough to bury you under your own paperwork.
Kenzo’s gaze sharpened.
Kenzo Takahashi: Paperwork doesn’t get you this confident.
Akane Watanabe: No. The homicide-adjacent charges do.
That was the first time the room seemed to fully reorient around Kenzo.
He straightened a fraction. Not in fear. In readiness.
The two officers nearest him raised their weapons just slightly.
Akane Watanabe: Kenzo Takahashi, you are additionally under arrest in connection with the fire at LuLu Biggs’s nightclub.
For the first time all night, Kenzo’s face genuinely changed.
Just a hairline fracture.
But it was there.
Kenzo Takahashi: No.
Akane’s eyes stayed on him.
Akane Watanabe: We have CCTV showing you and multiple Yamamoto men on site before ignition. We have vehicle logs. We have burner phone triangulation. We have entry and exit timestamps. We have witness support. Two women died in that fire.
The silence after that felt heavy enough to bend the room.
Haruki stopped fighting the cuffs and turned his head toward Kenzo in raw disbelief.
Haruki Tanaka: What?
Kenzo did not answer him. His eyes were fixed on Akane now.
Kenzo Takahashi: That footage doesn’t exist.
Akane Watanabe: It does now.
Kenzo Takahashi: Then somebody wanted us exposed.
Akane said nothing.
That silence told him more than words would have.
Kenzo Takahashi: Who talked?
Akane Watanabe: Turn around.
Kenzo Takahashi: Who?
Akane Watanabe: The person who helps convict you. That’s all you need to know.
He gave a short, humorless breath through his nose. Not quite a laugh. Not quite surrender.
Kenzo Takahashi: That won’t keep them alive.
Akane’s eyes cooled another degree.
Akane Watanabe: It will if you spend the rest of your life wondering instead of finding out.
That line hit him.
You could see it land.
He did not turn around.
So the officers moved in.
Kenzo resisted, but realistically, not theatrically. One arm jerked loose. One shoulder snapped forward. He tried to create a lane, maybe to reach the window, maybe to force a shield, maybe just to prove he still had agency. An officer drove him hard into the wall beside the window, glass shuddering under the impact, another officer trapping his arm high while a third pressed a pistol close enough to remind him what the next mistake would cost.
Kenzo stopped.
Not because he wanted to.
Because he knew exactly when odds became math.
They wrenched his arms behind him. The cuffs clicked shut. He went still again, breathing through his nose, staring at his reflection in the window, red and blue light washing over his face from the corridor behind him.
Kenzo Takahashi: If you really have that footage, then someone close wanted us finished.
Akane didn’t take the bait.
Akane Watanabe: You can think about it during processing.
Haruki, cuffed and shaking with rage and residual panic, rounded on Kenzo as much as the officers holding him allowed.
Haruki Tanaka: You told me everything was controlled.
Kenzo turned his head just enough to look at him.
Kenzo Takahashi: It was.
Haruki Tanaka: Then how the hell did this happen?
Kenzo’s expression sharpened into contempt.
Kenzo Takahashi: Because somewhere along the way, your holy little promotion became too useful to too many criminals and too dirty to stay sealed.
That hurt Haruki almost as much as the cuffs.
Because it was true in precisely the way he had spent years trying not to say out loud.
Akane stepped between them.
Akane Watanabe: Here’s what happens next. Your offices are being searched. Your devices are being seized. Your financial records are already being mirrored. Your event operations staff are being separated and interviewed. Your security teams are being detained where necessary. Any assets directly tied to active criminal exposure will be frozen pending judicial review.
Haruki stared at her with open hatred.
Haruki Tanaka: You sanctimonious traitor. I gave you a stage. I gave you a company. I made people care who you were.
Akane’s expression tightened, but not emotionally. Ethically.
Akane Watanabe: No. You gave organized crime a stage and wrapped it in tradition.
Haruki flinched as though she’d struck him.
Haruki Tanaka: AAPW is bigger than you. Bigger than any of this.
Akane Watanabe: It could have been. That’s what makes this so ugly.
Rupert, still hovering near the door like a carrion bird too well-dressed to admit it, slowly started clapping.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The sound was soft and disgusting.
Rupert Mudcock: Detective, that was exquisite.
Akane turned toward him at last.
Her face did not soften.
Akane Watanabe: Don’t confuse tonight with immunity, Mr. Mudcock.
That shaved some warmth off Rupert’s grin.
Not much.
But enough.
Rupert Mudcock: Fair.
Haruki was the first they moved. He resisted the first step out of reflex, then more seriously when he understood he was about to be walked out of his own office in handcuffs, on the same night his company had been symbolically beheaded in the ring below.
Haruki Tanaka: I am not finished! Do you hear me? I’m not finished!
Akane Watanabe: Tonight says otherwise.
Haruki Tanaka: This isn’t over!
Rupert Mudcock: I’m afraid this is the final nail in the coffin.
That almost made Haruki lunge despite the cuffs.
The officers tightened on him and pulled him toward the hall.
Kenzo came next, controlled now, but with the kind of silence that felt more ominous than shouting.
At the doorway he looked once at Akane.
Kenzo Takahashi: If you think prison ends this, detective, then you still don’t understand the world you stepped into.
Akane Watanabe: Maybe. But life gives me time to study.
That was the last word she gave him.
Then he was marched out too.
The office emptied in fragments after that. Boots in the hall. Radio chatter. The murmur of procedural language. The elevator being locked down. Somewhere below, the Tokyo Dome still roared, ignorant of the exact shape of the collapse happening upstairs. The television on the wall continued replaying the main event in silent loops: Sasori falling, Nygma standing, the crowd boiling, history cracking in real time.
Akane stayed in the office for one beat longer, scanning the room to make sure nothing had been missed. Her gaze passed over the desk, the ledgers, the photos, the belts, the windows, Rupert, the half-empty glass of water Haruki never touched.
Rupert slipped both hands into his pockets and looked around the office like he had just inherited old empire dust.
Rupert Mudcock: Hell of a night.
Akane looked at him with the exhausted clarity of someone who had spent too long undercover to be charmed by victory speeches.
Akane Watanabe: For some people.
Then she turned and followed her prisoners out into the corridor, leaving Rupert alone inside Haruki Tanaka’s office with the glow of a dying promotion on the walls and the faint, nagging sense that even after all this ruin, the night still had one more secret left in it.