Haruka took advantage of Kaito's weakness and quickly knocked him further onto the concrete. Instead of resisting, Kaito stayed in place. There was only so much pain he could handle in a day. By this time, he had already been sweating and feeling feverish because he didn't have any time to rest.

"I'm going to take you off your brother's case, and throw you back into prison where you belong." Haruka pulled Kaito's hands behind his back, but the lack of response concerned him. "What's wrong, boy? Cat got your tongue?"

"You need... me to do the case." Kaito huffed. "You never even listened to me to understand why I had to kill those men!" Kaito spat.

"Woah! What's going on here!?" A familiar voice stopped the two men. It was Wilson. Wilson quickly rushed inside the abandoned warehouse, where they all were to meet. He shoved Haruka off and rolled Kaito over. "Dude! He's hurt! Didn't he tell you he got stabbed last night?" Wilson snarled at Haruka.

"A little stab won't hurt him. He's survived much worse than that."

"You cops are really too much! And you wonder why the Yakuza hates you so much." Wilson opened Kaito's coat and yanked it off. Then he raised his shirt, revealing that his stab wound was bleeding again.

"He didn't tell me it was that bad!" Haruka's eyes widened when he saw the wound. "Kaito, did you go to the hospital?"

"Why would he go to the hospital?" Wilson rolled his eyes. "What doctor would want to help a dangerous assassin? There is a reason why he hires people like me, to do this in private!" Wilson searched around. "Do you have a first aid kit?"

"In my car." Haruka nodded. "Who the heck gave you stitches? They were done so poorly!"

"Samantha.." Kaito grumbled. "Asuka is still after me.. so I asked her to do it."

"Why didn't you call me?" Wilson hissed.

"Well, one of the perks of being married to her was finding out that she was a nursing school dropout. I thought she'd be able to handle it. But I forgot she was afraid of blood."

"Jesus, Kaito." Wilson shook his head and began putting more pressure on Kaito's wound. He howled out in pain. "Since when did you let a woman nurse you back to health? She could've finished you off! I doubt she stitched you up with her free will."

"I may have urged her." Kaito groaned with a faint smile forming on his lips.

"You threatened her life, didn't you?" Wilson mumbled.

"Of course not." Kaito bit his lip and eased up his body as William began to restitch the stab wound. Haruka was already angry for bringing Samantha to Japan, but he didn't want him to go ballistic if he found out he had been threatening her.

"Did you make sure Asuka's posse didn't follow you to your apartment, Kaito?" Haruka pressed his lips together angrily.

"I'm sure he did." Kaito snarled when Wilson poked the needle and threaded it through his skin without warning. "I'll kill you." He grabbed Wilson by the collar of his shirt.

"Endure it, you big baby." Wilson slapped Kaito's arm away.

"I moved Samantha to Hana's house." Kaito huffed heavily. "I made sure no one followed us there. She is safe now."

"You brought her to Keiji?" Wilson blinked at him.

"I was going to eventually." Kaito relaxed his shoulders once Wilson began patching him up and wrapping his torso with gauze and bandages. "The time came sooner than I expected. Plus, she wouldn't stop whining. For the first time ever, I wanted to get rid of a woman."

"That's adorable." Wilson placed the tools back into the first aid kit neatly.

"What?"

"You like her," Wilson smirked.

"When hell freezes over." Kaito snorted.

"You're used to women whining to you all the time, but you've never paid them any mind. They didn't affect you, which is why you never cared for them." Wilson snickered. He knew that Kaito would be in denial. "But now that you've met your match, she irks you and drives you mad. And it seems like you care a lot about her whining."

"I tolerate that woman." Kaito corrected his friend. "Don't go giving Haruka another excuse to beat me to a pulp."

"I beat you because you need discipline. You don't like to listen." Haruka rolled his eyes. "As deep as we are into this case, I can't control whether you like her or not anymore. You'll only continue to do what you want, you're still as stubborn as you were when you were a boy."

"You both are pissing me off." Kaito sat up and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "If you still want to arrest me, you won't get far solving this case alone. Asuka told me that he hasn't been in contact with Katashi. Katashi only came to him once, and it was for money."

"What did Katashi need money for? Didn't you pay off your family's debt and his college fees?" Wilson asked.

"I'm trying to figure that out." Kaito licked his lips. "While I was in America, Hana's financial situation has changed. I saw all the bills when I went to visit, but the strange part is that none of them are part of maintenance or electricity. They're not even addressed to her."

"Who are they addressed to?"

"Katashi." Kaito scratched his forehead. "But if Katashi went missing, it wouldn't make sense for him to receive any type of charge."

"Could you bring me a copy of one of those bills?"

"Oh, so now you want me to work with you on the case? I thought I was off."

"Don't get snide with me, son." Haruka slapped him on the back of his head. "When you're all healed up, bring me a copy of the letters. Once I do some investigating we can find out why he needed the money, and why he went to a Yakuza member to get it." Haruka ended his conversation there and left. He walked over to his car and hopped inside before driving off.

"You're welcome." Kaito rolled his eyes at the car as it sped off.

~

Samantha was more than surprised to find Kaito lying across the couch, out cold. She didn't even know he came back the night before. Her mother-in-law and son were still asleep, and Samantha was up because she had trouble staying in bed.

She originally feared Kaito coming back and taking Keiji away, but here he was, sleeping peacefully in the living room. She walked over to the small couch and observed him.

His steady breathing made her feel at ease. There was nothing harmful he could do while he was in this state. Samantha noticed that his face was a bit redder than usual, and placed her palm against his head.

He had a fever. She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a rag before drenching it in cold water. Then she stopped herself. Why was she helping him? The man was a killer. He took her away from her home and was keeping her captive.

This wasn't Leo Takemi. It was Kaito Takashi.

But she never did thank him for showing her where Keiji was. She disregarded all her thoughts. It was way too much for her to handle so early in the morning. Samantha walked back into the living room and placed the cold rag over his head.

The moment the wet and damp cloth touched his skin, Kaito's hand shot up and grabbed her by the neck. She didn't even manage to let out a gasp before his grasp firmly took hold of the area where her windpipe was.

She started to choke and tapped his shoulder, but his eyes remained closed. He was still asleep. She didn't understand how it was possible for him to use so much of his strength while he was out cold.

She was running out of air fast, and if he kept his grip on her, she'd soon be dead. Samantha began trying to pry his hands off, but he only tightened his hold making the situation worse. Her vision started to blur, so she fought back with all her might. All her moving caused Kaito to finally open his eyes.

Kaito squinted his eyes at her but released her when his vision cleared. Samantha fell over him and began wheezing, and coughing. Every gasp of air she took made more tears fall from her face.

Kaito sat up in a daze, completely confused as to why Samantha was hovering over him like that. When he reached his hand out to her, Samantha scrambled away from him. "N-no!" She shrieked. "You almost killed me! Don't you touch me!"

"Lower your voice." Kaito glanced at a nearby clock on the wall. It was 5 AM. What in the world was she doing up? "What were you doing on top of me?"

"Choking to death." Samantha spat. "You have a fever, I was trying to help you!"

Kaito glanced at Samantha, and then the wet rag that was sprawled over him. "This wasn't a very bright thing to do." He raised the rag and tossed it at her. "Fever or not, you should've left me alone." When conducting dangerous jobs as an assassin, there were plenty of times Kaito had to endure extreme cold.

The few who double-crossed him had locked him in freezers, attempting to murder him and take away his money. He had trained to save all his strength while unconscious in the cold, so placing the cold rag on him, must've triggered his reflexes.

Samantha was not at all happy with his ungrateful attitude. But what else could she expect from a devious being such as Kaito? She felt the heat in her cheeks and chucked the cold rag back at him. The rag smacked Kaito in the nose, and he flinched because of her sudden reaction. "What the he—"

"You can fend for yourself when you get brain damage then, don't call me for help when you're sick. I won't do anything for you anymore."

"A fever won't kill me." Kaito chuckled. Then he threw his legs off the couch and stood up. His wound still ached. It was going to take some time to heal. He hated that he left his back unwatched to be ambushed by Asuka. What in the world was he thinking?

Although he was working with the cops, the only way for him to truly get back into his game was to think the way he had before. Samantha knew his real identity, but she and Keiji were still his cover story. At the end of the day, he was still an assassin.

In order to find out where Katashi went and why he borrowed money from the Yakuza, he was going to have to do some investigating on his own, without Haruka's help. Those bills were a start, but he had to begin with his first mission.

Suddenly, he remembered his first assignment. The imposter who killed the Chinese woman in the convenience store years ago, Asuka never mentioned her in their conversation. It wasn't like Asuka to keep silent about his schemes. In fact, it was more like Asuka to pick up and run away after he was caught.

This just proved that Asuka truly had nothing to do with Katashi's disappearance.

"Kaito." Hana's tired voice took him away from his thoughts. He glanced at her, only to have a grocery list shoved into his face. Hana gestured between him and Samantha, before telling him that she needed some ingredients to start food prep before she opened the shop next door.

Before Kaito could refuse, she grabbed an oversized T-shirt and threw it at him, motioning for the couple to leave to go shopping.