The Yakuza’s Mute Bride novel Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

(Go to Tadashi’s Point of View)

I leaned against the wall after my outburst with Yukito.

The corridor was quiet now, but the echo of his voice still clung to the walls like smoke.

This was the first time he’d dared to speak to me like that.

—

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Usually, Ota was the one with the trouble mouth reckless, always testing the edges of my patience while Yukito… Yukito. had always been loyal. Silent in his obedience. Unquestioning in his devotion.

But tonight, his words had burned.

Maybe the pure soul changed him.

Naomi.

Didn’t he know that I already feel guilty enough?

Didn’t he know that I’ve been drowning in that guilt since the day I found her in that cursed warehouse – broken, bloodied, breathing like someone who’d forgotten how?

I slammed my fist against the wall, but it did nothing.

The ache in my knuckles was nothing compared to the hollow that had been living in my chest.

He said I was too slow.

That I should’ve saved her sooner.

That I should’ve killed Reiko before she come to London and aim Naomi.

As if I hadn’t thought the same thing every night since.

He didn’t understand

–

no one did – how hard I had tried to keep her out of this world.

How every decision I made was meant to protect her from the rot that follows me.

But no matter what I did, the darkness still found her.

And I was too late.

I closed my eyes.

In the silence, her voice- no, her silence – echoed louder than any accusation could.

And for the first time in weeks, I let my mind drift back – back to the beginning.

The day this all started.

The day my grandfather told me he had hired a young woman.

I still remember that afternoon.

My grandfather had a habit of summoning me without warning- a tradition that, in his mind, preserved discipline.

10:43 Tue, Jan 6 j⚫

Chapter 30

In mine, it was simply another test disguised as ritual.

When I entered his room, he was seated by the window, a cup of green tea cooling untouched beside himn.

–

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The paper lantern cast a soft yellow over his white hair, and for a moment, I saw the man he used to be sharp, unyielding, the kind of presence that could command without speaking.

“You called for me, Ojisan” I said.

He didn’t answer at once. He was reading something – a printed letter, folded twice, the paper thin and foreign. I recognized the seal of the agency we used for overseas staff, but that detail alone was enough to set my teeth on edge.

He looked up finally, his eyes clear and amused in the way old men often are when they’re about to do something reckless.

“I’m hiring help,” he said.

That was all. No preface, no explanation as if he were announcing the weather.

–

I stared at him. “You already have a staff of ten. What kind of help do you need?”

He smiled faintly, lifting the page. “A girl. From London. She arrives in two weeks.”

My breath left me in something that might have been a quiet laugh if it hadn’t tasted like disbelief. “A girl from London?”

“She’s young,” he went on, ignoring my tone. “Quiet. Polite. Educated. She’ll assist me with my appointments, household matters, and language correspondence.”

The list sounded like something rehearsed, but the content irritated me more than it should have. “And what makes you think some English girl can handle life here?”

He placed the paper down and looked at me, the faintest glint of challenge in his eyes. “Because she wants to.”

It was such an absurdly simple answer that I nearly laughed. “You don’t even know her,” I said. “Foreigners come and go. They say polite words, then run the moment they smell the truth of this house.”

The truth being me.

He poured himself tea and said, “She reminds me of someone.”

That silenced me.

The old man had his ghosts. He’d been burying them longer than I’d been alive, and I’d learned not to ask their names. But now, he looked at me with something almost like defiance. “This house has been cold for too long,” he murmured. “Maybe a quiet soul will remind it to breathe again.”

I frowned, folding my arms. “You’re romanticizing strangers again, Grandfather.”

He smiled thinly. “And you’ve stopped seeing people as people, Tadashi.”

The words stung – not because they were wrong, but because they came from him.

He’d taught me that weakness was dangerous, that emotion was a tool for others to use against you. I had built my life around those lessons: control, precision, restraint. Every deal I made, every blade I kept hidden, was forged in the fire of his principles.

And now, he wanted to bring a stranger into that quiet order?

“She’s mute,” he added, as if that would explain everything.

10:43 Tue, Jan 6

Chapter 30

I blinked. “Mute?”

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He nodded. “An accident when she was young. The agency mentioned she writes, draws, communicates through gesture. They say she’s diligent, gentle.”

“Gentle doesn’t survive in this house,” I said quietly.

“Then maybe it’s time something gentle did.”

That was the first time I looked away. Not because I was persuaded, but because the tone of his voice told me that his decision was already made.

I sighed. “You’re trusting a stranger in a house full of secrets.”

“I’m trusting myself,” he said simply. “And perhaps, in time, you will too.”

His words followed me out of the room, clinging like smoke.

That night, I stood by the engawa, cigarette between my fingers, watching the snow fall.

The world beyond the garden was quiet that kind of deceptive calm that hides sharpness beneath.

A girl from London. Mute.

—

–

calm, deliberate

–

It didn’t matter who she was. She would stay for a month, maybe two, and then leave when she realized what kind of blood ran through this house.

But I still caught myself wondering – what kind of life brings someone like that here?

What kind of silence follows a person across oceans?

I exhaled smoke, watching it curl into the air and vanish.

I told myself it didn’t matter.

I had no space in my life for curiosity, let alone sentiment.

And yet… somewhere in the back of my mind, I caught myself thinking about that word my grandfather used.

“Gentle.”

It had been so long since I’d seen gentleness survive anywhere near me that I’d almost forgotten what it looked like.

I crushed the cigarette in the ashtray and turned back toward the house!

It didn’t matter.

She would arrive.

She would leave

And the world would go on exactly as it always had cold, ordered, untouched.

Or so I thought.

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