Reading sample

 

 

 

 

Aurora: From Tokyo, with love!

 

 

 

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENT:

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter 1 - The Chicago incident

Chapter 2 - Open Season

Chapter 3 - Wolves at the Door

Chapter 4 - No Country for Dead Cops

Chapter 5 - The Black Bridge

Chapter 6 - Red Lights and Revenants

Chapter 7 - The Accountant of Pain

Chapter 8 - Digital Ghosts

Chapter 9 - The Ice Queen of Osaka

Chapter 10 - The Knife-Eater of Kyoto

Chapter 11 - The Ghost in the Wind

Chapter 12 - The Frozen god

Chapter 13 - The Dragon Sleeps Alone

Chapter 14 - Cinders and Ghosts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

The light from the vending machines spilled blue onto the alleyway. Nagatomi Nagasaki stood silently in a temple courtyard, incense burning beneath a statue of his ancestors.

His son Sammie was dead—shot point blank in Chicago. Shot by a cop. A woman, no less.

Her name? Detective Sophia Blake. Chicago PD.

Sammie wasn’t just blood. He was heir. Future of the League. Raised on steel and secrets, battle-tested in the alleys of Shibuya, and whispered about from Bangkok to Berlin. And now? Laid cold by a bullet from some American bitch’s Glock.

Nagatomi knelt and whispered something in Japanese. His voice was calm. His eyes were not.

“Aurora,” he muttered.

The name she'd earned from the Tokyo underworld. Cold. Bright. Lethal.

He stood, nodding to the men behind him. Seven bosses of the League sat in silence.

“Place the bounty,” Nagatomi said.

A pause.

“How much?”

“Ten million. For her head.”

 

 

 

 

 

PROLOGUE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tokyo – Midnight

 

Rain slid off the neon signs like blood down a blade.

The city never truly slept—just held its breath between crimes. Somewhere in the heart of Shibuya, inside a fortress disguised as a gentleman’s club, Nagatomi Nagasaki sat beneath a massive dragon mural, nursing a glass of 60-year Yamazaki and his son's death.

The news had come in grainy, shaky bodycam footage. One bullet. Point-blank. Straight through Sammie’s skull.

Delivered by a woman.

She didn’t flinch. She didn’t hesitate. She just pulled the trigger, stepped over his body, and kept firing like it was just another day at the office. The camera feed ended in a blur of blood and static. But Nagatomi had already memorized her face.

Detective Sophia Blake.

Her name was burned into his brain like an old brand scar. Chicago police, decorated, notorious, relentless. She was a problem. One the League hadn’t planned for. One they couldn’t afford to ignore.

Sammie was his firstborn. His heir. His flesh and blood. And now he was just ash and bone in a box. Nagatomi wasn’t known for mercy. He was known for making examples.

“Bring me her head,” he said in fluent English, the room silent around him.

A pause.

“I don’t want her captured. I don’t want her arrested. I want her dead,” he growled, setting the glass down.

He reached into his jacket and dropped a black credit chip on the lacquered table.

“Ten million. For the head only. I want it on a silver platter.”

 

Chicago – One Week Later

Sophia Blake hadn’t slept in 36 hours. The precinct smelled like old coffee and regret. Bodies were piling up—first in alleys, then in hotel rooms, and now in broad daylight.

Every assassin from here to Hong Kong had crawled out of whatever pit they’d been hiding in. Names she’d only heard whispered in deep agency files were suddenly showing up in her mirrors. One came at her in a parking garage. Another slit her motel mattress in half while she brushed her teeth.

Every single one of them wanted the prize.

She’d killed nine in five days.

The tenth she didn’t even let speak. Just a clean double-tap through the temple. She couldn’t afford kindness anymore. Couldn’t afford trust. Hell, she couldn’t even afford to stand still.

Because this wasn’t just another case. This was a war.

They didn’t want justice. They wanted her head.

 

Tokyo – Present Day

They called her a ghost now.

A curse in a trench coat. A whisper on the wind. No one saw her coming. No one walked away if they did.

Seven bosses.

That was the number.

Seven heads of the Tokyo Crime League. Seven symbols of power, corruption, and death.

And she would find them all.

One by one.

The streets of Tokyo would run red. The night would know her name.

She was coming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 1: The Chicago Incident

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The air reeked of cordite and burning rubber. Rain pattered lightly against the broken windows of the old meatpacking warehouse on 39th and Halsted, but inside, it was hell.

Sophia Blake moved like a razor through smoke—no wasted motion, no hesitation. The tactical vest on her chest was soaked in blood and sweat, but none of it was hers. Not yet.

“Blake, six o’clock!” someone yelled behind her.

She spun, dropped to one knee, and fired twice. The Yakuza soldier went limp mid-run, his body sliding across the concrete floor in a smear of crimson.

"Clear that corner!" she barked, her voice sharp and commanding through the radio. “And someone keep an eye on the roof. These bastards like their aerial exits.”

The warehouse had been a ghost on their radar for months—shipment logs, dummy corporations, money trails all led to one conclusion: illegal weapons from Tokyo were flowing through Chicago like cheap liquor. Tonight, they were shutting it down.

She had been the one to make the call. The intel was shaky, the op rushed. But she didn’t care. This was personal.

The men in this warehouse had taken kids off the streets. Flooded the South Side with modified firearms and drugs laced with god-knows-what. They weren't just criminals—they were parasites.

Sophia wasn’t about to let parasites live.

Gunfire cracked again. She moved fast and low, ducking behind a stack of metal crates marked in kanji. One of them popped open

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 03.07.2025
ISBN: 978-3-7554-8087-7

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