She picked up on the second ring. “Where are you?”

“Five minutes away,” he said.

“How did it go?”

“It went well. I’ll tell you later. Have you seen your father?”

“Yes,” she said. “He wouldn’t talk to me.”

“I’m sorry, Sakura.”

She didn’t reply. Her relationship with her father, Hachirō, had soured after their marriage. Hachirō and Takashi were brothers and Takashi was father to Miyasato and Katsuro. There had been a time when Hachirō and Takashi had got along, but then Hachirō had suffered a crisis of conscience that stemmed from his role in the family business, and a fissure had developed between them.

Miyasato had agreed with Hachirō’s decision to step away, but felt that his uncle’s refusal to give his blessing to his marriage to Sakura made the old man a dreadful hypocrite. Hachirō might have forsworn the yakuza now, but that had not always been so. He had been wakagashira, or first lieutenant, just as Takashi had been. Miyasato had chosen a different path when he had decided that he could not stomach the things that he was asked to do. Takashi had not suffered the same qualms and had risen to the top.

The choices made by Miyasato and his own brother, Katsuro, mirrored those of the two old men. Katsuro was all-in with the yakuza, determined to impress his father and rise to the top of the clan. But Miyasato had rejected them, just as Hachirō had rejected them. Miyasato wished that Hachirō would approve of him, if only to prevent Sakura from having to choose between her father and her husband, but, on reflection, he supposed that it didn’t matter. She had chosen.

“Where are you?” he asked her.

“Ogikubo,” she said. “Outside Otaguro Park.”

“On my way.”

“Be careful, darling.”

“I will. We’re nearly there.”

They had been planning their escape for a month, but had only felt confident enough to make the final preparations—packing their cases and purchasing their flights—yesterday. Miyasato was fearful—and rightly so—that his father or brother would find out what he had done, and had insisted that there must be nothing in their lives that would provide any evidence to back up their possible suspicions. That meant they could not leave packed cases around the apartment in Hiroo on the off-chance that anyone else from the clan might visit and see them. It was only now, when the die had been irretrievably cast, that he had told Sakura to get started.

He pulled up outside the entrance to the park and saw that Sakura was waiting for him. He reached over, opened the door and pushed it back for her.

“Well?” she said. “Did you get it?”

“Open the bag,” he said with a grin, nodding to the bag in the footwell.

She sat down in the seat, hoisted the bag up onto her lap, unzipped it and looked inside. “Oh, my goodness.”