Chapter 1: The Arrival
The door wasn’t supposed to be open.
Hikuji paused on the cracked pavement outside her family’s small suburban home. Her hand tightened on her backpack strap as a knot twisted in her stomach. The sun was nearly gone, streaking the sky with smears of blood-orange and dusk purple, but the porch light hadn’t been turned on. That was her dad’s routine — light on at six, every night.
Something was off.
She stepped inside.
“Dad?” she called. Her voice echoed strangely. No TV. No kitchen noise. Just silence.
Then she saw him.
Sitting in her father’s armchair like a king displaced from his throne, was a man she’d never seen before. Dark suit, black shirt, no tie. Everything about him was sharp — his eyes, his jawline, the gun he held with terrifying ease. His legs were crossed, polished shoes tapping against the carpet with deliberate calm.
Her father was on his knees at the man’s side. Pale. Bloody. Breathing shallow.
“Ah,” the man said smoothly, rising from the chair. “The little princess returns.”
Hikuji froze. Her pulse stuttered. Who the hell is this?
“What the hell is going on here?” she demanded.
The man tilted his head, amused. “Language, Hikuji. I expected better manners.”
He moved faster than she anticipated. One second he was speaking — the next, her father was crying out, blood spraying across the living room wall.
“Dad!” Hikuji lurched forward, but the man raised the gun. Not toward her father — toward her mother, who now cowered in the hallway.
“Sit,” he said.
Hikuji didn’t sit.
“You’ve got a choice,” he said, smiling faintly. “Your mother or your father. One dies. You pick.”
Her body trembled, heart hammering so violently it hurt.
“Neither,” she choked out. “How about you?”
His brows raised. He laughed — a slow, unsettling sound.
“You’ve got fire. That’s rare.”
She stood her ground, fists clenched.
Then he made the offer. Calmly. Casually.
“Your father owes me. Money he doesn’t have. Millions. And what does he offer?” He gestured dismissively. “Broken promises. Empty pockets. You.”
“Me?”
“You come with me. You stay. You serve. Or your parents die. Simple choice.”
Silence. The kind that suffocates.
Her father croaked her name. Her mother whispered, “Don’t do it.”
But she knew.
There wasn’t a choice.
