Kia Ora...

It can be surprising what you find when you rifle through a pile of notebooks that haven't been disturbed for awhile...

When I first embarked on this journey as an author, I wrote every single draft, jotted down bits of scenes, and story ideas by hand. Filled a lot of notebooks, big and small, with stories some of which were eventually published and others that have never quite made it that far. And there are lots of reasons why a story might not get completed... the idea wasn't fully formed, the characters stop talking, or maybe it wasn't quite the right time for the story to exist. Sometimes the ideas that get jotted down are fleeting thoughts that are too good to let pass you by... if only there were more hours in the day, more days in the month, and more months in the year to get them all written to completion.

But you never know... one of those stories might just make it out that pile of notebooks one day.

Updates

• Deviation (Nagoya Crimes Two) has passed the 40k mark, and I think there is about 15k left to write before this part of Ieyasu, Morita, and Suyama's story is finished. All going well it should be released this month!
• Knight (Crime Lords 4) is currently sitting at the 6k mark. I've managed to wrangle the start of the story into a shape I like, and once Deviation is finished I will focus on it more with a planned release date for June and an expected word count of between 45-50k.
• Super Secret Short Story.... this has been shoved to the back burner for the moment, but I will start working on it again soon. It has a due date of September. More information on this will come closer to the time.

Plans Beyond Current WIPs

• I've been slowly digitising one of my notebook stories, a baseball romance featuring second chances, recovering from injury, best friend's little brother. So far I've decided the story will form the start of a new series called Switch Hitters, and will be set in Greertown City like the Crime Lords and Golden Decks series are.
• After I finish Knight (Crime Lords 4), I will return to the House of Bolton Series. Runway Riot will be the fourth book in this series and will be my first FF story. It will feature a kick ass mafia bodyguard whose been tasked with keeping a model safe from a dangerous stalker.
• All going well... I will also try to get two more books in the House of Bolton Series out, and start work on book four of The Moutrams Series (Medieval Mpreg), and book two of the Golden Decks Series. Release dates are not set for these yet.

Sneak Peek - Deviation (Nagoya Crimes Two)

DECEPTION (NAGOYA CRIMES 1)

MMF Yakuza Romance

Yakuza Boss x Detectives

Enemies to Lovers

Violence, Drama, Death

Angst, Betrayal, Obsession

Grab Book One Here

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Caught - Chapter Thirty-Three

Takeshi’s words had the desired effect, chaos erupting the moment his accusation of betrayal slipped from his lips. Men falling over themselves to try and prove their loyalty to him with a cacophony of voices that made the dangerous men gathered look more like a room of schoolboys all trying to garner the popular kids attention. Panic slithered through the voices of those whose positions within the organisation were new, not yet solidified in the eyes of everyone surrounding them. Anger forced other men’s voices louder, refusing to believe that such an accusation could be flung at them.

Those men all amused Yoshitake, but it was the men at the rear of the room who garnered his attention. Silent voices, dismissive smirks, and pursed lips that hid their scowls of disgust. Men who’d positioned themselves in close proximity to the one man in the Shirokawa-gumi that he and Takeshi knew for a doubt had turned against Takeshi—Shimadaira. Arrogance and contempt blanketed the older man who’d been a contemporary of Takeshi’s grandfather, coupled with a strong belief that he’d be walking out of this meeting alive and intact. He was one of the last remaining members of the old guard who still clung to the ways of the past and reluctant to change.

But change came whether you’re ready for it or not.

There’d been other ways to deal with this. Diplomatic, conciliatory methods that would have avoided the messy scene playing out in front of him. Ended with a handshake, a pleasant parting of ways, and sake shared with those who stayed… and a lot less blood. Days of negotiations, of delivering promises that didn’t work in Takeshi’s favour, and a splintering of the power Takeshi held within the organisation. Time, however, wasn’t on Takeshi’s side and the longer it took for his lover to re-enforce his position as the head of the Shirokawa-gumi, the risks of him losing it altogether increased. Yoshitake had no intention of letting anyone take the leadership of the organisation away from Takeshi… they’d worked to damn hard to grab it in the first place.

And he wasn’t opposed to spilling a little more blood to ensure it.

“Enough,” Takeshi roared, slamming the shinai that was never far from his side at meetings, hard against the floor and the chaotic voices fell silent abruptly. “Those who betrayed me… betrayed the oaths sworn… betrayed all of us-” pausing to take a deep breath before releasing it slowly while sweeping his gaze over the men present “-those men know who they are. While you were all fighting amongst yourselves, desperate to find someone to blame… they remained quiet.”

Yoshitake swallowed back a smirk as the furious faces staring at Takeshi shifted to see who their leader’s accusing gaze had landed on. Disbelief spread through the room, names whispered with shock, anger, and a good dose of confusion. Yet the accusations Takeshi’s gaze made couldn’t be disputed. Shimadaira did nothing to argue otherwise, simply sat there at the rear of the room and glared at Takeshi with narrowed eyes that delivered a threat Yoshitake would never allow the man follow through on. He’d taken great delight in making an example of Fujiata and nothing would please Yoshitake more than tearing this man apart slowly until his pitiful words of regret tumbled from his lips soaked in pain. The fact that Shimadaira was an old man didn’t have any bearing on the dark fantasies currently playing out in his head. If anything, it only made the task more challenging… needing to keep the man alive long enough to suffer before his heart took its final beat.

“Care to dispute my assessment, Shimadaira?” Takeshi asked and Yoshitake wasn’t surprised when one of the blades laid out on the desk appeared in his lover’s hand.

He shifted his attention away from his lover and back to the man whose grip on life was weakening with each passing second. A fact that appeared to have slipped the older man’s notice, too caught up in his own self-importance to realise the danger pointed at his head. Pride, ego… call it what you will, Shimadaira had it in spades and his continuing silence did little to aid his cause. He might have thought ignoring Takeshi’s demands to explain himself might have conveyed a disdain for the young leader of their organisation that others would’ve quickly latched onto. But much to Yoshitake’s surprise and amusement the numbers who might have once chosen to side with Shimadaira now lay firmly on Takeshi’s side. Respect wasn’t what keep them there, but fear… and fear was something they could work with.

Except this time, it wasn’t Takeshi who needed to prove himself.

Yoshitake strode forward, snatched up one of Takeshi’s knives and flung it across the room.

“You should leave the knife throwing to your child of a partner, Yoshitake,” Shimadaira said with a sneer. “Because for all his faults… he doesn’t miss his target.”

“Who said I was aiming for you?” He gestured at the now empty space behind Shimadaira where the older man’s bodyguard usually stood. But he was no longer standing. Instead, the man had fallen to his knees, hands clutching at his throat while blood seeped through his fingers, and every breath he took was a ragged squelching rasp. “And who do you think taught Takeshi how to wield a blade with such deadly accuracy?”

Shimadaira’s calm confidence dissolved at the sight of the bloodied man next to him, replaced not with horror but a fury that swept through the room like typhoon. Yoshitake watched as the older man rose from his seat, brows narrowed while a murderous anger blazed in his eyes. Determined steps drove him forward, and a weapon the man shouldn’t have been able to bring into the meeting appeared in his right hand.

Takeshi groaned in frustration beside and muttered, “You do realise the man you just killed was Shimadaira’s grandson?”

“And does it really matter?” he replied with a half-hearted shrug. “It wasn’t like you weren’t going to have kill all of his supporters anyway?”

“Well, I hope you’ve got a plan to deal with him, Take?”

Yoshitake threw his lover a sly grin. “That won’t be an issue… but how bloody can I get.”

“You’ve already ruined the tatami… so, I don’t think it matters anymore.” Takeshi sighed.

Grinning he turned away from Takeshi just as Shimadaira reached him. He didn’t flinch as the furious man pressed a knife to his throat, the blood welling on the edge of the blade where it dug into Yoshitake’s flesh. Shimadaira vibrated with rage, but killing Yoshitake outright wasn’t an option, not when Takeshi would just as quickly bring the older man to his knees in retaliation. No, Shimadaira needed to get Takeshi’s support or at least that of the entire room behind him before striking Yoshitake down in revenge.

“This man attacked a member of my group… my family,” the older man hissed. “Without any provocation… I demand the right to seek retribution.”

“No.”

“No?” Shimadaira flicked his gaze in Takeshi’s direction. “On what grounds are you refusing my request, Matsumoto? This isn’t how we run the Shirokawa-gumi… there are rules that need to be followed, punishments dealt out to those who break them.”

Takeshi picked up a knife and proceeded to use it to clean his fingernails. “Rules? Punishments? How strange that you suddenly remember their existence now, Shimadaira. Do you care to tell me what the punishment is for a member of the Shirokawa-gumi who swears an oath with sake to the head of organisation only to turn around and plot their demise?”

“Death, isn’t it Keshi?”

“What about you, then?” Shimadaira snarled. “You’ve openly admitted to killing the last Shirokawa-gumi Boss… your own damned father!”

“Hmm… true, I did. However, I never made oaths… and I succeeded in killing him whereas you… you’ve not managed to achieve anything but sign your own death warrant.”

Yoshitake chuckled and grabbed Shimadaira’s hand, pushing the man away from him before palming another of Takeshi’s knives and stabbing it into the older man’s torso, thrusting it upward from beneath the sternum. Shock flashed in Shimadiara’s eyes before flickering out.

“Anyone else want to suffer the same fate?” he asked, yanking the blade free of Shimadaira’s body as it crumpled to the floor.

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

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