Kia Ora....

Can you believe it's been a year since I started publishing chapters of Caught via my newsletter!! It's currently sitting at 43452k words with about 20k left to write. To everyone who signed up and stayed after last years Winter Wonderland Promotion... THANK YOU!

Okay, there's a lot to jam into this newsletter, so I'm going to jump straight into it.

Updates

• Ryland's book - Rough Sketches (House of Bolton 3) - is sitting at just over 42k and has at least 20k left to write. This is the first MM book in the House of Bolton series. While reading the books in order is best - timeline wise - they can be read as standalones if there are certain pairings you're not keen on reading. You can read the first chapter here.
• I have started working on/playing around with the opening chapters of Deviation (Nagoya Crimes Two) - MMF. It will pick up a day or two after the events at the end of the first book, Deception.

New Release

Hiroshi (Tokyo Nights Novellas 3)

This is the final book in the Tokyo Nights spin off series that follows Jun Sagaki, the Shinjuku Ward Boss for the Imaida Organisation who first appears in Deadly Game (Tokyo Nights 1).

Blurb:

Taking over the Imaida Organsation? Easy.

Discussing their feelings? Not so easy.

Hiroshi was falling for hard for the two men who’d walked into his life. One his boss and the object of his unrequited desire. The other a man who’d entered their lives through deception before exposing the secrets Hiroshi kept close to his heart. Two men in love with each other, who’d then welcomed Hiroshi into their bed and given him a glimpse of a life he’d never thought possible.

And yet as the assassins’ bullets fly and their enemies gather, Hiroshi struggles to figure out where he fits into this new reality…into Sagaki and Kirushima’s relationship. He no longer wants to be a convenient third, a toy to be passed between Sagaki and Kirushima until they grow bored with him.

How long until they discard him?

Does he wait, or leave first?

Or can Sagaki and Kirushima convince Hiroshi that they want more… that they want forever.

The novellas are not standalone and must be read in order.

Book One: Sagaki

Book Two : Kirushima

Book Three: Hiroshi

Promotions

Find Your Favorite Valentine

Meant To Be

Upcoming Sales

Running from the 14th - 21st February

Make sure to follow the Naomi, Mandy, and MJ's facebook pages for links when the sale goes live!

Caught - Chapter Twenty-Seven

Takeshi swept his gaze over the still silent men while topping up their empty cups with sake—turned out requesting a meeting didn’t absolve you of the sake pouring duty that came with being the youngest in the group. Blank faces, those marred with confusion, or blatant disgust greeted him, and Takeshi wasn’t entirely surprised. He’d walked into the meeting and opened with an admittance of patricide, one that the men here would struggle to understand the reasons for. His father wasn’t his grandfather, no views on homosexuality that were still stuck in the puritanical past and one that hadn’t always reflected the beliefs of their ancestors.

He placed the empty sake bottle on the floor, picked up his own cup and leant back against the seat. The silence engulfing the room couldn’t last forever, not when alliances that had been destroyed under his grandfather’s rein needed to be reforged while those that hadn’t suffered such a fate, needed to be renegotiated. Takeshi had no intention of leaving this room without knowing he had the support of the other yakuza organisations in the area. He had enough dissent within his own ranks still to worry about, wondering when any of these men might make a play for Shirokawa-gumi territory was a stress Takeshi didn’t need.

“So, if I’m understanding this right,” Gou Kitayama said, brows furrowed in confusion. “You are the one gave the order for your father to be killed?”

“That is correct.”

“Okay, but why? Your grandfather… ordering his death, that I could understand. But your father didn’t share his views and did his damnedest to protect you from Koijiro’s hatred.”

“I will forever owe your husband, Kitayama, a debt of gratitude for killing the old bastard,” he said nodding at the foreigner sitting next to the head of the Araki-gumi. “But to put it simply… I had no choice. It was either kill my father or be forced apart from my lover.” He shrugged his shoulders as though that answer should have been obvious. “We all do strange things for love… some of us are just more violent about it than others.”

“Then that just leaves me confused,” Sako said with a heavy sigh. “What is your purpose in gathering us here? If you’re seeking alliances, then you will find yourself bitterly disappointed. You aren’t the head of the Shirokawa-gumi-” raising his hand to stop Takeshi snarled interjection “-you might have a claim on the position, but so long as there is conflict within your organisation, your position at its head isn’t guaranteed. It’d be different if you were already established as the head of the Shirokawa before the organisation descended into chaos… but that was never going to be the case.”

“The leadership of the Shirokawa-gumi is my birth right,” Takeshi snarled.

Kenshin snorted. “Birth right? That means nothing. Means even less when you’ve admitted to killing your own father to get there.”

He breathed deep and narrowed his eyes at Kenshin while trying to recall the succession history of the organisations these men led. Information Yoshitake had drilled into him in the months before Takeshi had found himself shipped off to Tokyo. Gaining the leadership of a yakuza organisation wasn’t reliant on familial ties to the previous head as was often seen other similar crime groups, but it helped. Hell, during his time in Tokyo he’d seen the bloody conflicts that arose when the desire for power, to change the direction of an organisation pitted the younger members against the older generations who remained stuck in the past, desperate to relive the glory days of the yakuza that no longer existed.

But Osaka wasn’t Tokyo, and the Kansai organisations preferred to honour familial links to leadership instead of allowing others from outside the prefecture to decide who should head the yakuza groups based here. It helped that they were all connected; descendants of the first major yakuza group that formed in Kobe, even if those ties were conveniently forgotten in their desire to gain more territory.

“Didn’t you kill your father, Kenshin, to gain control of the Kurogawa-gumi?”

Kenshin shrugged, a sinister smile spreading across his face. “I did. But my father was a bastard, unhinged, and no longer able to keep the organisation’s secrets hidden. It might have been a different time, but even there were cops circling, eager for the accolades that are handed out for bringing the yakuza to their knees.”

“But you still killed him and took his place.”

The head of the Kurogawa-gumi chuckled and shook his head. “Yes, but I did it with the backing of the high-ranked members within the organisation… secured their support and destroyed those who might challenge me all before I put a bullet in father’s brain. You on the other hand, had none of that… your actions Matsumoto—especially now that you’ve enlightened us to your involvement in the matter—come off as being those of a sulky teen pissed off at not being able to date who he wants.”

“So, what you’re saying is… I don’t have your support for my bid to be the next head of the Shirokawa-gumi if the matter were forced to a vote.”

“I’m not saying that you won’t have the Kurogawa-gumi’s support, but you shouldn’t count on it.”

Takeshi sucked in a slow breath and flicked his attention to the other two men present. “And is that also true too for the Seikawa-gumi, and the Araki-gumi?”

“You’re young, Matsumoto… so, long as you can survive the next few months, you can always challenge for the leadership again. But right now, I can’t see how throwing the Seikawa-gumi’s support behind you will benefit the stability of the region.”

Clenching his fists, Takeshi both rued his decision not to arrive at the meeting armed, and relieved by it. His anger at the men’s ready dismissal of him because of age, and motivation, irked him. Slitting each of their throats appealed on one level, while on another Takeshi knew that starting a war with either of these organisations—or worse, them all—could spell the end of the Shirokawa. Instead, he bit back the angry retorts rising in his throat and turned his attention to Kitayama who’d not yet spoken.

“This game you’ve been playing… pretending your bodyguard is an enemy in order to weed out those who oppose you and strengthen your support amongst the rest…” Kitayama snarled. “Is not one I cared to play… and yet, you leaned on your past friendship with my nephew and endangered his husband… involved us in matters that weren’t what they seemed… so, no, the Araki-gumi will not be throwing their support behind you. We won’t resume hostilities… not yet at least.”

Takeshi bristled at the threat levelled at him by Kitayama. It had never been his intention for Kennosuke’s husband to get injured in anyway, but Takeshi had no control over the men Yoshitake had employed on his side of the faux conflict, nor over his lover’s misplaced jealousy.

“Not what you were wanting to hear, was it, Matsumoto?” Kenshin sneered. “But you forget that while we might have despised your grandfather, we were all friends—in a way—with your father… our support was never going to be guaranteed. To walk in here and expect it even after you admit to arranging the man’s death… just proves how unsuitable you are for the job. Cocky inexperience only gets you one thing, Matsumoto, and that’s death.”

“So, unless you can give us a reason why you instead of the other far more experienced members of the Shirokawa-gumi are the best candidate for the job, our positions on the matter will not change,” Sako chimed in.

Snarling, Takeshi stood up and stormed out of the meeting, the jeering laughter of the three men chasing him down the hall.

************************

Family and Reflection (Sleepless City Book Three) by Anne Barwell