Page 106 of Dragon 7

We all felt it. I knew it as we danced together at the end of the night. The smiles on my Claws’ faces.

Our laughter rising in the air.

Had the twins ever laughed like that before in their life? I doubted it. I’d bet all my money that they hadn’t. In fact, I would bet my soul. The twins laughed so intensely that it made me laugh, and that sound had been one that had lived somewhere deep in my chest under all the ghosts, grief, and lollipops.

How had our Tiger found those laughs in us?

She had built an entire evening for the broken men of her new family.

And we had felt it.

Wouldn’t that make us strong for tonight?

Wouldn’t that keep every one of us alive?

Because. . .to think that we experienced all of that love. . .finally. . .after never knowing it. . .and then dying. . .just like that. . .

No.

My chest closed around itself.

We will laugh again. . .together. . .

I bit back my anxiety and continued to look for them. The whole field had become a complexity of death moving in a hundred directions at once.

At least the baby girl is gone.

I scanned the grass where she had been sitting, and some tension left me.

Ghost or not, please stay gone, baby girl, until this is over. I cannot fight and watch you bleed at the same time.

Reo pointed. “Akiro is right where we want him.”

I put my gaze there.

Akiro stood at the bottom of the stairs with his mouth parted in shock. The kusarigama hung loose in his hand. The chain pooled at his feet.

His men had their guns out and surrounding him.

He pulled out a phone from his jacket as he took in the dead men who had been holding the rocket launchers and the currently dying assassins.

Kenji chuckled. “Now you understand who we are, brother.”

As if he could hear Kenji, Akiro's face went pale as he quickly made a call. But who could he be calling? The Butcher? Other reinforcements that were near?

“Now’s the time.” Kenji headed out.

The twins got to his side.

Reo flanked them on the left, I got on their right.

More of Kenji’s guards followed and a few jumped ahead.

The whole walk forward, I kept my gaze on Akiro.

Finally, we can end this.

Then Akiro turned around and began to quickly move up the stairs, shoving his own guards out of the way.