DEBT RECKONING

The convoy cut through Yokohama’s industrial sprawl like a blade through fog. Three blacked-out vans, engines low and growling, headlights off to avoid drawing eyes. Aiden sat in the lead vehicle beside Silas, the bound Victor Kane slumped in the back seat between two of Silas’s men—Reyes on one side, a silent giant named Marco on the other. Kane’s bald head gleamed under the dashboard glow, his predatory grin replaced by a swollen lip and a glare that promised murder if he ever got free.

Silas’s phone vibrated again. He glanced at the screen, jaw tightening. No sender name, just the message: The debt isn’t paid. Kurogane was a pawn. Meet at the old cannery pier. Bring Kane. Come heavy or don’t come at all.

“Another player,” Silas muttered, voice gravel-rough. “Someone using Kurogane as muscle. Someone who knows too much.”

Aiden’s fingers brushed the hidden collar under his collar. The leather felt warmer now, almost alive against his skin. “You think it’s internal? One of your own crew?”

Silas’s stormy eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, scanning the men behind them. “Possible. Or Kane’s deeper connections. Either way, we end it tonight.”

The cannery pier loomed ahead a rotting skeleton of steel and concrete jutting into Tokyo Bay. Floodlights from distant cranes cast long, skeletal shadows across the water. Silas’s crew disembarked first: eight men total now, armed with suppressed pistols, compact SMGs, and tactical vests under dark jackets. They moved like predators silent, coordinated, spreading into defensive positions along the pier’s edge and the warehouse ruins.

Silas pulled Aiden aside before they advanced. His hand cupped the back of Aiden’s neck, thumb pressing the collar’s tag. “Last chance to stay in the van.”

Aiden shook his head. “I’m not hiding anymore.”

Silas searched his face pride, fear, raw hunger warring in those blue eyes. Then he kissed him hard, possessive, tasting of blood and whiskey from the earlier fight. Tongues clashed briefly, a promise deferred. “Stay close. And if it goes south… run.”

They moved forward together.

Inside the cannery, the air stank of rust, salt, and old fish. Dim emergency lights buzzed overhead. Waiting in the center of the vast, empty space stood a single figure tall, lean, silver-haired, dressed in a charcoal suit that screamed old money and older violence. Beside him, four Kurogane survivors, katanas sheathed but hands on hilts. No Kane allies. Just this man and his personal guard.

Silas recognized him instantly. “Kazuo Mori.”

Mori inclined his head. “Vane. You’ve been busy dismantling my investments.”

Aiden tensed. Mori wasn’t Yakuza street muscle—he was one of the invisible architects, a shadow broker who financed half the tech smuggling between Asia and the West. Silas had crossed him years ago when he refused to launder funds through Vane Industries’ early shell companies. Mori never forgave.

“You funded Tanaka’s play,” Silas said flatly. “Used Kane as a front. Why?”

Mori’s smile was thin. “Because you’ve grown arrogant. You think you can run a mafia empire and a public tech conglomerate without consequences? You owe me territory, money, and respect. Tonight, I collect.”

Silas gestured. Reyes shoved Kane forward, forcing him to his knees. “Here’s your partner. Take him. Walk away.”

Mori laughed softly. “I don’t want Kane. I want you broken. And I want the boy.” His eyes slid to Aiden. “Blackwood’s little fallen prince. He’s the leverage you actually care about.”

Aiden felt Silas’s body coil beside him pure, protective fury.

Mori snapped his fingers. From the catwalks above, more men rappelled down silent, black-clad, automatic weapons trained. At least twelve. Outnumbered two-to-one.

Silas’s crew raised weapons in response. The pier became a frozen tableau of barrels and blades.

“Last offer,” Mori said. “Hand over the boy and the drives. I let you live. Refuse, and we paint the water red.”

Silas’s answer was a single word: “Fire.”

The cannery exploded into violence.

Gunfire rattled like hail on steel. Silas’s men dropped low, using crates and machinery for cover. Aiden dove behind a rusted conveyor belt, heart slamming. Silas was already moving fluid, lethal taking out two rappellers with precise headshots before they hit the ground.

Aiden fired back, clipping a Kurogane guard’s leg. The man screamed, tumbling from the catwalk into the bay. Another charged Aiden; he sidestepped, drove an elbow into the man’s throat, then finished with a knee to the face. The guard dropped, unconscious.

Across the floor, Silas fought like a storm hand-to-hand now, disarming one man with a wrist break, snapping another’s neck with brutal efficiency. Blood sprayed. He caught Aiden’s eye mid-fight, a flash of something fierce and tender beneath the violence. Stay alive.

Mori retreated toward a side exit, flanked by his remaining guards. Silas signaled Reyes two men peeled off to cut him off.

Aiden sprinted after Silas, covering his flank as they pushed forward. A bullet grazed Aiden’s shoulder hot pain, but shallow. Silas spun, saw the blood, and roared. He charged the shooter, tackling him to the ground, pummeling until the man went limp.

They reached the exit just as Mori slipped through. Outside, rain had started cold, driving sheets that turned the pier slick. Mori’s car waited, engine running. Silas fired, shattering the windshield. The driver slumped.

Mori spun, pistol raised. “Enough!”

Silas stepped in front of Aiden, shielding him. “It’s over, Mori. Your men are down. Kane’s in cuffs. Walk away.”

Mori’s eyes burned. “You think this ends with me? There are others. Always others.”

Silas’s voice dropped. “Then send them. But you won’t see tomorrow.”

He fired once clean through Mori’s shoulder. The man staggered, dropping his weapon. Reyes appeared from the shadows, zip-tying Mori’s wrists.

The fight ended as abruptly as it began. Bodies littered the cannery floor some dead, some groaning. Silas’s crew moved efficiently: securing prisoners, collecting weapons, torching anything that could link back to them. No traces. No survivors to talk.

Silas turned to Aiden, hands shaking not from fear, but from the aftershock of nearly losing him again. He pulled Aiden behind a stack of rusted barrels, out of sight. Rain drummed on the metal roof above.

“You’re bleeding,” Silas rasped, fingers tearing Aiden’s shirt open to check the graze.

“It’s nothing.” Aiden caught Silas’s wrist. “Look at me.”

Stormy blue eyes met green. Silas’s breath hitched. He shoved Aiden against the barrel wall gentle but urgent—mouth crashing down. The kiss was desperate, all teeth and tongue and shared adrenaline. Silas’s hands roamed, possessive, tracing bruises, finding the collar and tugging until Aiden gasped into his mouth.

“I can’t lose you,” Silas growled against his lips. “Not to Mori. Not to anyone.”

Aiden’s hands slid under Silas’s vest, feeling the hard planes of muscle slick with rain and sweat. “Then don’t let go.”

Silas spun him, pressing Aiden’s chest to cold metal. Rain dripped through gaps in the roof, mixing with their heat. Silas yanked Aiden’s pants down just enough, spit-slick fingers probing roughly stretching, preparing. Aiden moaned, pushing back.

Silas entered him in one deep thrust raw, claiming. Aiden bit his forearm to muffle the cry. Silas set a brutal rhythm each snap of hips driving Aiden onto his toes, hand wrapping around to stroke him in time. The other hand gripped the collar like a leash, pulling Aiden’s head back for a messy, rain-soaked kiss.

“You’re mine,” Silas snarled, angling to hit prostate repeatedly. “Say it.”

“Yours,” Aiden gasped, pleasure coiling tight. “Always.”

They came together Silas flooding deep with a choked groan, Aiden spilling hot over Silas’s fist. They stayed locked, panting, rain washing blood and sweat away.

Silas pulled out slowly, turned Aiden, kissed him softer forehead to forehead. “We’re done running. No more shadows.”

Aiden nodded, throat tight. “Together.”

Back at the vans, Mori and Kane were loaded bound, gagged, headed for a black-site interrogation Silas’s network maintained offshore. Elena waited in the second vehicle, still restrained, watching everything with cold calculation. She hadn’t spoken since her capture, but her eyes said she knew more than she’d let on.

As the convoy pulled away, Aiden leaned against Silas in the back seat. “What now?”

Silas’s arm tightened around him. “We rebuild. Merge empires clean and dirty. And we disappear the loose ends.”

Aiden glanced at Elena. “Starting with her?”

Silas nodded. “She sold us out. She pays.”

The vans vanished into the rain-slick night.

But Aiden’s phone buzzed one last time same blocked number:

You killed the wrong man. The real debt collector is already in New York. And he wants everything.

Silas read it over Aiden’s shoulder. His face darkened.

“Home,” he said quietly. “We finish this where it began.”

Aiden squeezed his hand. The leash felt different now not a chain, but a tether. Binding them through blood, fire, and whatever came next.