Chapter 133: Gunshots in the Wasteland! Yamamoto, I Love Your Immortal Soul!

The underlings trusted to collect money or goods were all absolute confidants. So when his man told him he hadn’t arrived yet, the silver-haired middle-aged man had no reason to doubt him.

“Tomo, you don’t need to come. Head back.”

After that, the silver-haired man hung up and fixed the bald man across from him with a hostile stare.

“Yamamoto, are you trying to play me?”

At his words, the men behind him sensed trouble and drew their guns, aiming them at the bald man.

“What are you doing? Trying to double-cross us?”

“Bastards! Put your guns down!”

The bald man’s men drew their own weapons in response, trading curses and threats.

On the deserted stretch of open ground, the two groups stood three or four meters apart, poised on the brink of violence. Tension thickened the air; a shootout seemed ready to erupt at any moment.

“Yoshida! What’s the meaning of this? You took the money and now you won’t hand over the goods?” Yamamoto raised a hand, signaling his men not to get carried away, and glared angrily at Yoshida.

“Bastard!” Yoshida roared, panting with fury at the other man’s feigned ignorance. “The man I sent to collect the money hasn’t even arrived, and you’re telling me it’s already been taken—then you have the nerve to demand the goods?”

“Impossible! The man I sent to deliver the money would never lie to me! If he said he handed it over, then he handed it over!”

Yamamoto was convinced Yoshida was trying to double-cross him.

“My man wouldn’t lie to me either!” Yoshida declared. Then he added, “Who knows who your man handed the money to? I haven’t received it, so you’re not getting the goods. The deal’s off.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he began backing away.

“Stop! Either give me back my money, leave the goods behind, or leave your life behind!” Yamamoto roared, drawing his gun and pointing it at Yoshida.

“Fine, fine, fine! Yamamoto, so this is what you were after all along. You want the goods, but you don’t want to pay, either? You think I’m an easy target?” Yoshida’s face turned livid. The moment he finished speaking, he drew his gun and fired.

Bang!

“Ah!”

Yamamoto took a bullet in the shoulder and staggered backward. At the same time, he reflexively squeezed the trigger.

“Protect the boss!”

“Bastards! Take them out!”

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang…

Shouts and curses rang out, followed by a fierce burst of gunfire. Three or five minutes later, it stopped abruptly. A dozen bloodied bodies lay on the ground.

The two sides had been standing so close that their accuracy was frighteningly high. And Yamamoto’s men had outnumbered Yoshida’s, so in the end, Yoshida’s entire group was wiped out.

Of course, Yamamoto’s men had hardly come away unscathed.

Eight men had arrived. Now, including Yamamoto, five were dead and three wounded. They had inflicted heavy losses, but paid dearly for them.

“Boss, are you all right?” one of the men asked, supporting Yamamoto, who had taken two bullets and was bleeding profusely.

Another man, shot in the leg, endured the pain as he kept his gun trained on the bodies, watching warily in case anyone was faking death and planning a surprise attack.

“I’m not dead yet,” Yamamoto replied, his face pale. Then he said, “Take the goods and go.”

“Yes, sir!”

The three men fled with Yoshida’s goods.

A little over ten minutes later, the trusted underling Yoshida had sent to collect the money returned. He jumped out of the car, saw the bodies scattered across the ground, and froze, as if struck by lightning.

“Boss! Boss!”

Stumbling and crawling, he threw himself onto Yoshida’s body and burst into tears. Yoshida wasn’t merely his boss in the underworld; he was also his cousin, and the two had grown up together. They had been close.

His parents had died when he was young, and he had been raised in his cousin’s home. His uncle and aunt had treated him like their own son, even paying for him to study in China because he loved learning.

After graduating and returning home, he had repaid their kindness by helping his cousin manage the books. Working together, the two had steadily built up their business. They had planned to make enough money to immigrate to Europe or America and become estate owners. But now his cousin had met a violent end.

Yoshida Tomo was overcome with grief and blazing with fury. Tears streaming down his face, he clutched his cousin’s body and howled at the sky.

“Yamamoto, I’ll fucking kill you!”

He swore to himself that he would spend the rest of his life avenging his cousin. If he didn’t, he would no longer be a man.

Meanwhile, Nakamura Shinichi had no idea that he had inadvertently caused a tragedy. He was already home and was about to count how much money he had.

But when he opened the cases, he was stunned.

They were packed full of banknotes.

But they were all U.S. dollars!

One case of yen and one case of dollars.

The two were worlds apart in value.

Nakamura swallowed and hurriedly opened the other case. It, too, was packed full of dollars.

He estimated there had to be at least ten million in there.

“Unbelievable. He’s so generous,” Nakamura muttered to himself. Damn, no wonder he worked at a bank. Was he so used to handling money that he’d lost all sense of its value? He’d just handed over more than ten million dollars like it was nothing.

His cell phone rang.

Nakamura came to his senses and took a deep breath to steady himself before answering. “Hello?”

“Detective Nakamura, this is Yagyu Kaiju, Secretary Kimura’s aide. Have you still not arrived?”

Inside the abandoned factory, Yagyu Kaiju’s words were polite, but his displeasure was plain to hear.

Damn it! How dare he keep me waiting this long!

“Huh?” Nakamura blinked, still muddled. As he looked at the two cases of dollars, the meaning of it all suddenly dawned on him. After a moment’s silence, he said, “Hello, Secretary Yagyu. Inspector Aoyama said the money was a gift for you. He’s sorry to have made you come all this way for nothing.”

Yagyu Kaiju, who had been seething with anger, was instantly dumbfounded. He hurriedly reconsidered his tone. Had he sounded a little too brusque just now?

“Th-this is too much. It was a gift from Minister Nakamura to Mr. Aoyama. Would it really be appropriate for me to accept it?” His voice had softened considerably.

Nakamura cut him off. “If it was given to Inspector Aoyama, then it belongs to him, and he can do as he pleases with it. Even if Minister Kimura found out, he wouldn’t say anything. Of course, it’d be best if he didn’t find out.”

“Yes, sir!” Yagyu replied, now all smiles. “Since this is Inspector Aoyama’s kind gesture, I won’t refuse. Please give him my regards, Detective Nakamura. If there’s ever anything I can do for him, I’ll do my utmost.”

Take a man’s money, and you’ll have a hard time refusing him.

“Certainly,” Nakamura said.

After hanging up, he quickly called Hidenobu Aoyama.

“Inspector, there’s been a bit of a mishap.”

“What kind of mishap?” Hidenobu was watching television with his sister-in-law. More accurately, his sister-in-law was watching television.

He was watching her.

Haruko Aoyama’s long hair fell over her shoulders. She wore a pale pink camisole nightdress, the creamy skin beneath the lace at her neckline just visible. Her flawless, delicate legs showed beneath the hem, her small feet crossed at the ankles.

He wasn’t even trying to hide it. He really wanted to keep his sister-in-law company all night long.

“I was just…” Nakamura explained the mix-up that had taken place that evening, along with his suspicions.

Hidenobu couldn’t hold back any longer. He stood and walked outside. “So, by accident, you took someone else’s transaction money.”

“Yes, sir.” Nakamura felt just as helpless.

“How much?”

“I’d guess somewhere around ten or thirteen million dollars.”

“Whew. That’s a lot of money. They’re bound to come looking for it.” Hidenobu grimaced and thought for a moment. “No matter how much there is, take ten million and give it to me. Keep the rest for yourself. If any trouble comes of it later, I’ll handle it.”

“Yes, sir!” Nakamura agreed readily. A few million dollars would be more than enough for him to live comfortably for the rest of his life.

And just as Hidenobu had said, the original owner of that much money wasn’t likely to give up looking for it. If trouble did arise, Nakamura couldn’t handle it on his own.

“That’s that. Don’t overthink it.” Hidenobu hung up, then went back inside.

His sister-in-law looked up eagerly. “What was that about?”

“Just work,” Hidenobu said with a faint smile, rolling up his shirt sleeves. “You must be exhausted from working at the flower shop, sister-in-law. Let me massage your legs.”

Don’t misunderstand. He was simply trying to be a good brother-in-law.

“Oh! You… You don’t have to. You work hard too, Hidenobu,” Haruko said, drawing her legs back and declining shyly.

Hidenobu considered this for a moment, then nodded. “You’re right. Then you can massage mine.”

With that, he lay down on the sofa.

“Huh?” Haruko was even more bewildered. When she recovered, she nodded. “Oh, all right.”

She shifted position, bent over, and slowly began massaging his calves with both hands.

When Hidenobu raised his head slightly, he could see the pale softness beneath her nightdress swaying before his eyes.

As Haruko continued massaging him, she noticed the bulge forming beneath her brother-in-law’s clothes. Her face flushed. Flustered, she pulled her hands away.

“Let’s stop here. I’ll give you a proper massage another day. I’m tired, so I’m going to bed.”

She hurried upstairs as soon as she finished speaking.

The door slammed shut.

Leaning against it, she panted softly, nerves fluttering. She touched her face; it felt scorching. Biting her red lip, she looked every bit the shy young woman.

Hidenobu… how could he be so… big?

Haruko, who had not been intimate with her husband in a long time, looked mournfully at her index and middle fingers, their nails clipped short. Once again, she’d have to make do with her own fingers tonight.

Meanwhile, Nakamura was counting money until his hands cramped. The more he thought about it, the more absurd it seemed. Why hadn’t that bearded man even checked who he was?

“How was I supposed to check?” The bearded man looked at Yamamoto, who had just had his gunshot wound treated, and said plaintively, “Besides, it was the middle of the night. Who else would go there except the people we’d arranged to meet? I even asked him beforehand if he’d come to collect the money.”

“And you think that makes it all right?” Yamamoto glared at him in exasperation. The more he thought about it, the less sense the whole thing made. If Yoshida had been planning to double-cross him, he wouldn’t have brought only that few men.

He would have had another group lying in wait.

That was why Yamamoto had begun to wonder whether Yoshida’s men really hadn’t received the money. After asking the bearded man how he had delivered it, he became even more convinced that something had gone wrong that night.

Yamamoto’s eyes shifted as he thought it through. “You said the man didn’t even count it? Who in our line of work doesn’t count money on the spot? And he really was going to the factory to pick up money. The only possibility is that another group had arranged to exchange money there that night, and we got mixed up with them… Damn it!”

Once he understood, he couldn’t help cursing.

Because of a bizarre coincidence, he had fought Yoshida that night and lost several key members of his crew.

And he had killed Yoshida.

Yoshida’s cousin would probably come after him for revenge.

“Boss, whatever happened, we got the goods back. Losing the money isn’t a total loss,” the bearded man said softly, trying to comfort Yamamoto, knowing he was at fault.

“Bullshit!” Yamamoto snapped. “If the deal had gone smoothly and Yoshida had received the money, then sure, it wouldn’t be a loss. But now several of our men are dead, and some outsider has taken the money. How is that not a loss? We have to find it! That’s our hard-earned money. Thirteen million isn’t pocket change!”

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He didn’t just want the money back—he wanted to kill the bastard who’d taken it by mistake.

“Boss, for safety’s sake, we chose a place in the middle of nowhere with no surveillance cameras. We don’t have a single clue. How are we supposed to get the money back?” The bearded man had little hope.

Yamamoto’s mind raced, searching for a way out. “There may be no cameras near the abandoned factory, but there’ll be cameras at the shops along the roads leading to it. There aren’t many cars going to that place in the middle of the night. If you saw the car again, you’d recognize it, right?”

“I would,” the bearded man said with a nod.

Yamamoto let out a sigh of relief. “You’re the only one who can still move. The rest of us need to recover. At first light, pretend to be a police officer and check the surveillance footage at the businesses along the route.”

“Yes, sir,” the bearded man replied gravely.

“We have to track that bastard down!”