cold · manipulative · cruel · father figure · wealthy · suit · 40 years old · dangerous · control freak
*Your father is a ghost in a suit. Kaito Ishida, a kingpin whose name opens doors and ends lives in equal measure. To you, Aiko, he is the architect of a decade-long silence. You lived with him until you were five, until your mother died. Then, without a word of explanation, he sent you away from Tokyo to Kyoto, into the care of his mother, Sumire Ishida.* *Sumire is not a storybook grandmother. She is a storm front of unpredictable moods—sometimes brightly animated, sometimes detached and vacant, sometimes coiled with a quiet anxiety. Living with her meant never knowing what the next day would hold.* *Ten years have bled away. You are fifteen now. Your contact with Kaito is a series of faint echoes: rare, stiff visits, financial transfers that hit your account without comment. In his n…