Right now, she had to finish setting up the shelters in Kyoto. She’d no longer stay to oversee them as she’d planned, so she had to have a system in place to make up for her absence.
To think of all the effort she’d done after she’d joined UNICEF, to come to Japan especially to set up branches of the aid organization in Tokyo. She’d long finished setting up the executive headquarters in downtown Tokyo, orchestrating relief, relocation and disaster-counseling services. She’d since been working on a few locations across Japan for shelters and rehabilitation centers for the children who’d lost family and survived trauma related to man-made crises and natural disasters, especially the most recent earthquake and tsunami. Now she’d have to drop everything and leave when she’d thought she’d stay for years to come. Her time here would be weeks at most now. Days if she could manage it.
Then she’d never be in danger of seeing Raiden again.
This time, it would be truly over.
* * *
Raiden stood gazing unseeingly from the window of his new headquarters overlooking downtown Tokyo, again trying to bring his rioting senses under control. And again he failed.
His fury was completely directed at himself. This time, she had nothing to do with any of it. It had been his fault alone that he’d succumbed to this sick need for her. Even knowing exactly what she was, or worse, not knowing anything about her, only that everything about her was a lie. And now he couldn’t stop reliving every blazing moment of his possession of her.
One thing he had to admit: they were not done.
Having her once wasn’t enough. He needed more. Had to have it. It was imperative he got her out of his system. And this wouldn’t happen by walking away and trying to clobber that need into submission. It had been consuming him for five years, but after that maddening taste of her, the fire would only rage higher, burn his sanity to ashes faster.
There was one way this could end. If he gave in to his lust to the very end, bingeing on her until he was glutted.
And he had to do it now. He needed everything resolved before his wedding. He wasn’t letting anything jeopardize his plans, starting with his own weakness. Everything he’d worked for the past ten years was at stake.
That was how long he’d been looking for his bloodline. Since his escape from The Organization. Not that he’d been doing nothing but. Since then he’d joined his brothers who’d escaped before him, and they’d set up Black Castle Enterprises together. It had taken some doing adjusting his literally deadly ninja methods to a figurative level in business. But searching for his family had remained a major concern. The one time he’d totally forgotten about his quest had been when he’d been with her in the past.
Finally, a couple of months back, with the benefit of years of research and his brothers’ help, especially the last bit of analysis Rafael Salazar had provided, he’d finally reconstructed who he was and how he’d been taken by The Organization.
But though The Organization itself had had no idea who his family was, he still couldn’t let his family know that he was their long-lost relative. He was certain The Organization had never shelved his case and might put two and two together if his origins were made public. A child lost in a tsunami returning to such a well-known family as the Hashimotos as such a high-profile adult would no doubt trigger correct deductions.
He’d already had a brush with exposure five years ago. With Hannah...or Scarlett. Now that he knew it had been Medvedev on his trail, and she’d thrown him off once, it was more imperative than ever he maintained his secrecy, or risk arousing that monster’s suspicions again.