Runaway Hearts: Seduced by Danger

16. Confessions

Chapter 16

Confessions

T he car hums steadily along the open road, the rhythmic thud of tires against pavement filling the air. Sunlight dances through the leaves of passing trees, casting shifting patterns of light and shadow across the car’s interior. And an invasive thought pops into my head, like a call for redemption. “What’s in Vancouver?”

He nods and lets out a deep sigh. Are we on a need-to-know basis?

“Information I need.”

“What kind?”

Anguish twists Kai’s features. His lost kitten look jabs my gut.

The following silence is heavy, dangling between us like a pendulum poised to fall. I glance at the rearview mirror, half expecting the reflection of my life before this moment to stare back at me, but all I see are empty roads and doubts stretching to the horizon.

“Did you kill someone you shouldn’t have?”

Who am I now to speak of murder in a neutral tone?

“No.” The mood in the car shifts as Kai grins, his eyes taking on a strange, interested glow. “Two years ago, my father brought a girl from Japan for me. A potential wife.”

Imported for him? Mmkay.

“It was a total clash, didn’t work.” Kai chuckles. “But it made me question my parents’ history. My mother always told me they married out of love. You know, the typical romance tale. I gobbled it up like the night swallows the day.”

“Was it a lie?” I ask, failing to mask my keen interest.

“Yes. It was fucking bullshit. The way she looked at him, the way she touched him, the sad veil in her eyes when he asked for her… It all should’ve been a warning sign, but I was too young to realize.”

The plot thickens. Marianne, what!

I hold my breath, fascinated by Kai’s story, hanging onto every word as if I were listening to a gripping true crime podcast about a notorious criminal. Ooh... I am.

An arranged marriage built on lies. What else has he been deceived about?

“So, you think your father forced her into the marriage?”

“I know he did.”

Plot twist! Oh, Kai...

My heart rate picks up. This isn’t the direction I expected the conversation to go. But it’s morbidly interesting.

“How can you be so sure?” I ask.

“I found letters. Love letters she wrote to another man.”

I gasp, wishing I had a pint of ice cream. “Oh, god.”

Stop smiling so wide.

Kai stares at me with mixed feelings. “You shouldn’t be enjoying this so much.”

“I’m sorry.”

I can’t stop smiling.

“No, you’re not. You think this is fascinating,” he says smirking.

I squeak like a little kid caught with its hand in the cookie jar. “I can’t control it. I’m sorry. Does it bother you?” I look away, embarrassed by my lack of control.

A soft chuckle rumbles in his chest. “Not in the slightest. It’s delightful to have someone so in tune with the real me.”

“Keep going, then.” I wiggle in my seat with a grin.

A chuckle burst out of Kai in the most carefree manner, one I’ve never heard before. He reaches for my hand and places gentle kisses on each knuckle. “What about you put that wonderfully crazy brain of yours to work?”

“What do you mean? You want me to do what exactly?” I hesitate, mostly because I like when he confides in me and partly because I might fuck this up.

“Tell me how the story goes.” He nods at me, his fingers interlacing with mine. “Please.”

The softness of his plead knocks me out of myself, and I clear my throat. “Okay. But you’re not allowed to hold it against me.”

“Cutie, the only thing I want to hold is your hand.”

Shut up, baby. People might mistake your cheesiness for a midnight horror movie.

“Fine, here goes nothing. Your father forced your mother into a loveless marriage to get either power or money.”

“We’re getting warm,” he says, rubbing his palms together in glee.

“With my limited information, I’d say power more than money.”

Kai’s voice drips with an icy coldness I don’t want toward me. “Six needs to be in charge. Always.”

“Okay. So, your father is on a business trip in Europe, but things don’t go as planned. To avoid a shitshow of any kind, the other guy offers to sweeten the deal with a girl he kidnapped. That gives Six power over him.”

Kai nods, a sick, curious gleam in his eyes.

“He brings her back and forces her into a loveless marriage without her consent. Treating her like property, and she’s miserable until you come along. And that makes Six happy because an heir means the Kwunarus line lives.”

I take a breath before I continue.

“And because he treats her better, she learns to respect him. Power, again. But when she has an affair with your math tutor and tries to leave with you and the new lover, his control starts to slip. That big loss of power is unacceptable. Your father executes her, keeps you, and raises you as his personal soldier. And his power returns because who would dare cross a man who killed his wife just to prove his dominance?”

It also means his mother and her lover were killed in a gruesome way.

Oh, that’s awful. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

The car falls into a heavy silence after I finish speaking. Kai stares ahead, fidgeting with his fingers. “You were made for this,” he says, and I can’t identify the tremor in his tone.

He’s going to get mad.

“Wait! What? Did I guess it right?” I ask, horrified and excited.

His subtle flinch tells me to be careful.

“He was my literature tutor,” Kai admits. “I determined with the last letter I read there might be a safe house in Vancouver. Maybe I can find answers there.”

My breathing accelerates. “I need therapy.” I squeal.

And a pill.

He must be angry.

My fingers clutch the steering wheel, but I wiggle them loose when my grip hurts. I need an escape. “I’m hungry. Can we stop for something to eat? Maybe I’ll take a pill and—”

“I’m not angry, and I won’t hit you. Take a deep breath, Marianne.”

My lungs protest at first, but after a few rounds of focused breathing with Kai, my heartbeat slows down to a normal rhythm. “You’re not mad? Really?” I blurt.

But his large hand slides in between my legs, and he caresses the jiggly softness of my inner thigh. “I’m impressed at how you connect the dots,” he breathes before his mouth finds my bare shoulder.

“Do you know how many thriller novels and true crime podcasts I’ve consumed?”

“A fair amount, I’m sure.” He smirks. “I guess that’s where your fascination for villains comes from.”

My nervous giggle fills the car as Kai’s lips form a full-on sexy grin. His hand slides higher, creeping closer to the wetness between my legs.

“Kai!”

“Oh, I guessed right, huh?” His deep voice teases as his fingertips graze me through my shorts.

“It’s more of a controlled interest, really.”

“Lies,” he hums against my skin, and I shiver despite myself.

“Can we go back to you, telling me why you’re traveling to Vancouver?”

Kai leans in his seat, satisfaction glazing his eyes, and nods.

“After learning my parents’ story, I wondered what my worth as a man was. I asked myself if I could live without the backing of an army. If I could be something else.”

“And?”

“It’s not very fruitful. I’ve been on vacation three times. The first time, my father thought I wanted to escape, and he had me followed. When I returned, he scolded me with a three-hour reading on a Kwunaru’s obligations to him. Before diving into that life, I told him I wanted to see something else. He was furious. The second time, I met a girl.”

He’s hesitant to continue, but I urge him on with a nod.

What happened to the girl?

“But Six threatened to leak the picture you have on your phone to rival gangs, and I had to return home to handle that.”

Who released the picture, then?

“Most of the time, I find a bit of mind peace when I’m far enough. But when I come back, every bad part of me comes to life and suffocates all the others.”

What about the girl?

“A few months ago, I met a guy who wasn’t supposed to be, you know, alive, and he advised me the beach was the perfect place to unwind and maybe find my true path.”

Sounds familiar.

“For some reason, I trusted him.” Kai snorts.

“What about the girl you mentioned?”

Kai sighs heavily as he stares out the window, collecting his thoughts. “I met her at a country bar. We drank and played pool. It was nice to feel like an ordinary man for a few days. But she bolted as soon as she found out who I was.”

“Oh. You’re taking a break from your life before returning to marry a supermodel and take the reins of a filthy empire.” I state the fact calmly, but my soul trembles inside me.

Don’t leave me.

“I don’t want to control the Kwunarus,” he mutters. “Being the Seventh is all I know, but Six’s ambition has led us to expand beyond our capacity. Now we’re seeing cracks in our structure for the first time in generations. My training taught me to hurt, not to negotiate, which doesn’t help my role in the family business.”

“You have quite a reputation...” I trail off.

“Yes, but power or money doesn’t mean shit if I have no one to share it with,” he says with a pained expression. “I might be delusional, but if a woman could fall for Six, I figured I’d find someone someday. I guess I’m a dreamer.” He pauses, taking a deep breath.

He believed his parents’ love would guide him to find his own.

Kai closes his eyes and rubs his face. “But the more I embrace my role, the more that dream slips away.”

“You’re a soft light in a very dark universe.”

When I think he’s done, more words fly out of his mouth until he’s pouring his heart out. Every experience that shaped him. I keep my eyes on the road. There’s so much darkness with only some vague glimmers of light.

After sharing all his gruesome experiences involving killing, dismembering, torturing, and drug use, all I see is his need for a brighter future.

The man yearning for love and acceptance despite his past.

Just like I do.

My brain connects dots in my mind, so far apart from each other that I doubt my sanity. Again. But if this adventure taught me one thing: trust my instincts. “Is that why you sent me your picture?” I ask, surprising even myself. “Because you wanted me to bolt before getting in too deep?”

Kai takes a shuddering breath. “I guess I’d like to be normal.” He snorts. “As normal as I could be.”

I relate to that.

My mouth opens before I get a real chance to think about it. “Let me help you.”

We’re two lost souls adrift in a tempestuous sea, each seeking refuge from our own personal storms.

“Help me what?” he snaps.

Leave that monstrous life behind.

But unlike me, his empire won’t dump him to fuck other women, and he can’t flee. His empire will consume him until he becomes only the Seventh Hiroshi, the most ruthless Kwunaru in a hundred years, bound by his genetics to lead a criminal kingdom.

“What happens if you leave?” I ask.

Kai lets out a ridiculous snicker. “I die.”

And if he tries to kill them first, he’ll die even faster. If he escapes, they’ll surely send people after him, and he’ll be on the run for the rest of his life.

On the run…

“Do you have any friends?” I ask.

“No. Just henchmen who are overpaid. No brothers or cousins.”

My heart twists at the thought of him being so alone.

You have me.

Those words burn in my mind, and I fight the urge to voice them.

His jaw clenches as his fingers clench into a fist, only to extend again. He’s trying to figure out how to escape the life he was born into, and it’s terrifying him.

I assume he took off with some money. “Can your men reach you through your cell phone?”

“No one has my personal number except three people. Rory—my contact, Six, and Yuzu—my father’s right hand.” He whips out an old flip phone from the nineties, and I titter until I burst out laughing.

“That’s not a phone; that’s a flip-phonosaurus,” I blurt, my laughter echoing in the car. The ancient relic of a phone seems out of place in this technological world we inhabit.

A low snarl escapes Kai’s lips as he glares at me, his eyes ablaze with annoyance.

Undeterred by his reaction, I reach into my jacket pocket and retrieve my phone, a gleaming marvel of technology. “What if you change your phone?”

“It’s not that simple,” Kai says. He leans back in his seat, running a hand through his disheveled hair as he closes his eyes for a momentary respite. “They’ll find me. Six knows everything that goes on.”

“How? If you drop your phone, how can they track you?”

I try to decipher the complex web of thoughts that swirl within his mind.

“You use only cash; don’t attract attention to yourself; no one even knows what you look like,” I say to emphasize his remarkable stealth. “How can they find you if you leave no traces?”

“My people know what I look like.”

Right...

At that moment, I yearned for the life of adventure and intrigue Kai was born into, like Seito and the enigmatic Paulina from another world. If only I could access the vast resources that dance tantalizingly beyond my reach.

On the run…

In my mind’s eye, I conjure an image of myself, far away from this mayhem, lounging on a hidden beach along the sun-kissed Costa Rican coast. Sipping margaritas and losing myself in the pages of captivating stories, perhaps even writing my own tales of wonder.

Crazy idea, right?

Kai stares out the window, his jaw tight. “It’s not that easy. The Kwunarus have eyes and ears everywhere on the West Coast.” He turns to me, his eyes haunted. “If I run, he’ll see it as the ultimate betrayal. He’ll tear the country apart looking for me. And he won’t stop until I’m dead or back under his thumb.”

Kai opens his eyes and cracks his knuckles. “Yeah,” he mutters and slumps in the seat like he’s accepted his fate. “I just want to check out the safehouse and stay there a bit. Maybe it’ll help me find a solution.”

I ponder his words carefully. The web of the criminal underworld he’s trapped in seems unavoidable, but I refuse to believe there isn’t some way out. Some paths I just haven’t thought of yet.

His hands sink into his hair as if grappling with inner demons.

After a pause, Kai turns to me, his gaze penetrating my defenses. “Why don’t you call your father ‘Dad’?”

My mouth hangs open, but no sounds come out.

“It’s okay. Take your time.”

“Richard’s an okay guy, I guess.” My lips curl into a melancholic smile. “But as a child, I never heard a kind word from him.” Not smart enough, not athletic enough, and yet too demanding.

Bitter memories resurface, weaving threads of sorrow and regret through my voice.

Soccer practices where he wouldn’t look at me.

“I wasn’t the child he wanted.” It hurt to realize I wasn’t good enough for him. “Despite my efforts to make him proud, it was never enough. One day, I just stopped trying, and we drifted apart.”

A lip curl because of a B in math.

The loss of those years presses upon me, threatening to suffocate me once more. “When my mother left, Richard blamed me,” I confess, gazing out the window at the passing trees. “And it triggered a spiral of anxiety and depression. I felt like an outsider in my own life, unloved and unwanted. To him, I was the daughter who shattered his marriage and caused constant conflict.” There’s a lingering sadness in my soul as I continue my story. “He went from being ‘Dad’ to ‘Richard,’ going from a paternal figure into nothing more than a biological stranger.”

A wistful sigh escapes me as I speak of what could have been. “Corey took me in when my mother left, and I stayed in touch with Richard until he met Olga. Then everything changed; he cut me off without a second thought.”

The realization exposes the twisted foundation upon which I had built my sense of self-worth. Richard implanted in my mind the notion I was worthless. It’s easy to see now why I remained entangled in a toxic relationship for four years. The sickening belief that I held value, even if it was solely to satisfy Eric’s violent desires, seemed preferable to the suffocating emptiness that consumed me. It was a desperate attempt to escape my own darkness.

I didn’t know I could embrace it.

As I reveal my past, Kai meets my gaze with compassion. It gives me the courage to uncover his secrets. If he can understand my mind, I can understand his.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” I want to peel back the layers that cover him.

He hesitates before confessing, “I killed way too many people.”

“Were they bad people?” I ask, wincing but curious at the thought.

“Not really,” he replies. “Just did what needed to be done, followed orders.” He pauses. “Growing up, my father and his henchmen constantly drilled into me that our actions were necessary for the network to function properly.”

“It corrupted your conscience.”

“It’s difficult to undo that programming.” He nods. “It’s more efficient to mute it down with anger. What about you?”

My stomach tightens, and my fingers tingle. The tingling spreads to my neck and arms, and I hyperventilate.

In an instant, I’m transported back to my old car. My eyelids drooped heavily under the effects of too many sleeping pills I just swallowed. My hands are numb, but whether it’s from the freezing temperature outside or because I’ve stopped breathing, I can’t recall. That’s the last thing I saw—my bluish fingers. And I thought, “What a peaceful way to die” before I blacked out.

Do I feel safe enough to tell him?

“You’re so gentle. I can’t imagine you hurting someone. Or stealing something,” he adds. “But you can drive better than a few racers I know.”

Kai’s words make me weird inside, and without logic, I answer. “I’ve attempted suicide. I’m not that good a person.”

The sound of my voice confessing my worst act echoes in my ears. It wraps around my throat like Eric’s hands did so often, squeezing any willpower left in me. Guilt consumes every inch of my soul until I’m nothing but a hollow shell aching with emptiness.

Kai’s question comes out breathy. “When?”

His openness is disturbing, but it pulls me in. “After the breakup,” I exhale, shame pouring over me like an icy shower.

A tiny sniff rings next to me. “When was that?”

“F… four months ago.”

A heavy pause stretches for infinity.

Until Kai scoffs and then his lips curl into a mischievous smirk. “Attempted murder, not so bad.”

Attempted murder on myself.

My jaw drops in shock. “Oh no,” I murmur, “you are delusional.”

Kai simply shrugs. “Nothing you didn’t already know.” He smirks, all the while pouting, and it makes me want to lick his freaking face.

I can’t believe I just told him the darkest secret I’ve ever had, and he’s making jokes. Laughter bubbles out of my mouth. It’s been so long since I’ve laughed so hard without fearing repercussions that I can’t stop.

And I realize how much of a mess we are and how normal I feel around him.

Kai, the only guy who willingly gives me power.

We’re silent for a few seconds. The sun in his eyes shines brighter than the one outside. I’m like an iceberg in the Caribbean. Melting quickly.

My heart hasn’t been this light in years. Or ever?

A delicate thread stretches with the significance of unspoken words and buried fears. But instead of snapping, it weaves itself into a curious kind of bond that neither of us wants to break.