Who was I becoming?
I stared at Lincoln’s hand, reaching out to me, waiting for my handshake in return.
“Do you like me Lincoln?” I asked.
“Of course,” he replied. “I’m smitten by your beauty, your entire don’t-fuck-with-me persona you have going on. But most of all, I adore your heart, which seems to be in the same state of oblivion as mine at the moment.”
“You hide your pain very well,” I said.
“I hide many things very well,” he replied. “There once was a time when I wore my heart on my sleeve but apparently people mistook that heart for a bulls-eye. Now, I keep everything concealed away.”
“Except for your penis.”
Lincoln cracked a smile. “What can I say? I enjoy the pleasures of the female body.”
There was a moment where the mood lightened between us, but that faded away quickly as the reality of what we’d done set back in.
“I still love Shadow,” I stated. “He’s treated me like trash, and by all that is right, I should have kicked him to the curb for making me feel miserable. But I can’t control how my heart feels.”
“The human heart does fail us so many times,” Lincoln agreed. “I never thought I’d fall in love with a murderous sociopath.”
“Before I can move on, I need to speak to Shadow. I need to sort it all out with him. Without that closure, I’d just be using whoever I become intimate with,” I took a deep breath. “I once used Justin. I knew he loved me and I should have let him down sooner, but I wanted his friendship so badly that I decided to string him along. I was lonely.” I looked into Lincoln’s blue eyes. “I don’t want to do the same to you.”
Lincoln nodded. “That’s fair,” he agreed. “I guess we’re both all different kinds of messed up right now.”
There was another moment of lingering silence while I searched for the right combination of words that could alleviate the awkwardness between us.
But who was I kidding. The man had fingered me into an orgasm while I was on top of an antique piano. The awkwardness was going to last for quite a while.
“You look tired,” I said.
“I’m exhausted.”
“You should go to sleep.”
“Are you going to watch over me?” Lincoln smiled. “Sleep is when we’re the most vulnerable after all.”
No. We were most vulnerable when we were in love.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Shadow
Reiko opened the door of her condo and took a long, hard look at our mangled faces. “Rough night?” she asked.
Cairo and I walked past her and collapsed on the couch in the living room. I was exhausted, and fairly confident that I had five years of my life beaten out of me over the past two nights.
“You both look terrible,” she said, glaring at us. “I guess it’s too much to ask for you two to return home without looking like you’ve been catching bricks with your faces?”
Cairo smirked as he leaned back and stretched his arms out, taking up most of the couch. He was encroaching in my personal space.
“Do you mind?” I asked. “I’m sitting on this thing too you know.”
“My couch,” he said.
“My couch,” Reiko stated matter-of-factly. She sat in the love seat facing us.
“Did you manage to get anything out of Elena?”
I shook my head. “Shot dead just as she was about to spill the beans.”
Reiko raised her brow.
“By who?” she asked.
I shrugged my shoulder. “Some guy named Duckface,” I replied.
“The psycho nerd,” Cairo added. “This guy was an absolute lunatic. I hit him with a few solid punches that could knock out a cow, but he stood there and took them with this goofy grin on his face.”
“Was it an assassination attempt?” Reiko asked.
I nodded. “He had a chance to kill both Cairo and I, but he seemed content on handing our asses to us instead. He packed light in terms of ammo—one bullet, one body.”
Reiko frowned. “Do you think it was Nathan or Calisto that hired this guy?”
“I tried to get a read on Nathan, but from what I could tell, it didn’t look like he was in on it,” I said. “Nathan is very strategic when it comes to making a play this big. It would have to benefit either him or the Triad. Having the daughter of Yuen Xi Zhao murdered in his restaurant makes no strategic sense.”
“Nathan seemed to hate her,” Cairo pointed out.
“He doesn’t seem like the type that would put his emotions before logic,” I said. “I don’t think it was Nathan.”
“Calisto then,” Reiko said.
“That’s the safer bet,” I agreed.
Reiko pursed her lips. “I still find it hard to believe that she would murder her closest ally and risk facing the wrath of her father’s empire. He may be retired from the business, but he’s still one of the most dangerous men alive.”
“Calisto’s a crazy bitch,” Cairo said. “Who knows what the hell she’s thinking. Maybe she thinks it’ll be fun waking up that psycho dragon man.” He turned and looked at me. “Good job smearing shit all over the Zhao name during your birthday ceremony by the way.”
“File it under lessons learned,” I sighed.
I pulled Elena’s cellphone out from my pocket and tossed it over to Reiko. She caught it effortlessly with one hand.
“Elena’s cell,” I said. “I believe the last person she called was Calisto. When I checked the caller log, she’s identified as unknown.”
Reiko nodded. “I’ll see if I can pull some information out of this first thing tomorrow.” She looked at Cairo. “Come on black Pikachu, let’s go fuck.”
Black Pikachu?
I should have rented a hotel.
“Aww baby, I’m sore all over tonight,” he whimpered. “Maybe we can just cuddle instead?”
Reiko glared at him, as if he were a piece of meat, too rare for her liking. “I’m not giving you a choice,” she said.
I thought I’d point out the obvious. “I’m sitting right here guys.”
“There’s chicken in the fridge,” Reiko said, her eyes still focused on Cairo. “Help yourself Shadow.”
“Don’t I get to eat as well?” Cairo asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll give you something to eat. Now stop whining and get in the bed room.”
The last thing I wanted was to hear another one of their apocalyptic sex sessions.
“I think I’m going to get some fresh air,” I said as I headed for the balcony. I stepped outside and took in a deep breath of the cool spring air. I closed the sliding glass door behind me.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed her number.
She answered on the third ring.
“Hello,” she said. The liquid warmth in her voice told me she was drinking.
“I’m done here in Hong Kong.”
“Oh?” she asked.
There was a brief, awkward pause.
“Elena Zhao is dead.”
“Shadow…” Leah began, in a tone that told me I was about to get scolded. “…what the hell?”
“I didn’t kill her,” I stated.
“I never said you did,” Leah sighed. “But seriously, I’m starting to wonder if you’re the harbinger of death. Everywhere you go, you leave bodies in your wake.”
I held my tongue.
“So if you didn’t kill her, who did?” Leah asked.
“Some guy Nathan Tse identified as Duckface.”
“Hold on, you just dropped two bombs in a single sentence,” she said. From the tone of her voice, I could tell she was caught off guard by my statement. “I guess I’ll address the first one. Did you just say Nathan Tse?”
“Yes.”
“The Hong Kong police have been investigating him for a while. Nathan Tse is a hot topic.”
“He’s the current leader of the Triad,” I stated. “Tsung’s nothing more than a smoke screen.”
“We�
�re well aware of that,” Leah said. “The Hong Kong police had a mole within the Triad’s organization that’s been feeding intel back to them.”
“Had?” I asked, knowing full well what Leah’s next response would be.
“A few months ago, the mole disappeared,” she replied, “Vanished without a trace.”
“Nathan got to him,” I stated.
“The Hong Kong police think so.”
“Nathan’s a cunning bastard,” I said. “He’s also unpredictable. He’ll smile and pat you on the back with one hand while stabbing you with a shiv in the other.”
“What was your interaction with him?” Leah asked.
“Luckily I got the pat on the back,” I replied. “He was the one who helped me get a face-to-face with Elena.”
“There’s a good chance he was the one who had Elena assassinated,” Leah pointed out.
“I don’t think so.”
“How do you know for sure?”
“I read his body language.”
There was a brief pause from the other end of the phone. I could hear her swallowing something, which I envisioned was a vintage Beaujoulais red. It had always been her drink of choice.
“You read his body language?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“Well, I sure hope you’ve gotten better at it. Calisto gave you the run around for the better part of thirteen years.”
Low blow Leah. Low blow. She never was one to hold back.
“What did you give him in exchange for Elena?” Leah asked. “Nathan doesn’t seem like someone that grants favors at a whim.”
“I gave him his own empire,” I replied. “Nathan is now a dog with no leash. The Triads belong to neither the Midnight Society, nor the Revenants.”
“Jesus Christ Shadow.” Leah wasn’t pleased. “You might as well give Satan the bloody keys to heaven.”
“It’s not that bad,” I said.
“It’s pretty bad.”
“I’ll deal with it then,” I said. “But for now Calisto is the greater threat.”
“I think you just tripled the workload of everyone who was investigating him,” Leah sighed. “Everywhere you go, you’re altering the landscape. You’re a hurricane.”
“Moving on…” I continued, annoyed with the lecture I was getting, “…tell me about this Duckface psychopath.”
“I don’t even know where to begin,” Leah said. “Just be happy that you weren’t the one being targeted.”
“We traded a few blows.”
“And?”
“I got my ass kicked.”
“I wouldn’t have expected anything less,” Leah said. “Duckface Duncan is currently the most sought after assassin, after the demise of the Crow brothers. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s far more dangerous than both of them combined.”
“He had a little girl with him,” I said. “It was the strangest thing.”
“Hmm, so I guess all the stories are true then,” Leah said. “There’s a tale surrounding Duckface. Word on the street was that a couple of years back, Anthony Pellegro—ruthless mafia boss—had murdered his own consigliore, on the account that he was having an affair with his wife. There was only one witness to this murder—the consigliore’s daughter. After witnessing the death of her father, the girl ran and went into hiding. Pellegro was freaked that the cops would get to her first and she’d testify in a court. Pellegro hired Duckface—the meanest bastard the mafia had—to find her and kill her.
“Well, Duckface did find her, but he didn’t kill her. Instead he turned the gun on Pellegro and the rest of the mafia. Single handily, he annihilated the same organization that hired him in the first place—all to protect this little girl.”
“No shit,” I said, surprised.
“After that, Duckface disappeared for a while. It’s only in recent reports that he’s resurfaced, taking on work as a hired gun. What you said, him bringing a little girl with him to the hit, seems consistent with what I’ve heard. Duckface Duncan has become quite notorious amongst the inner circles.”
“This is the first I heard of him.”
“I’m surprised,” Leah said.
I sighed. “Sorry, I haven’t been keeping up with the recent issues of Assassin’s Weekly.”
I heard another swallow from Leah’s end, just before she spoke again. “My advice is to just stay out of his way, unless you’re the one he’s targeting. If that’s the case, run and pray you’re faster than him. The fact that he was hired to kill Elena shows that whoever hired him means business.”
“I think it was Calisto,” I said.
There was a brief moment of silence before Leah replied. “It makes sense I suppose. Calisto may have had second thoughts about Elena, especially if you were able to get close to her. Elena was a weak link, one that Calisto had to remove.”
“But at the risk of a war with Yuen Xi Zhao?”
“Hey, I’m just spitting in the wind like you are,” Leah replied. “When it comes to your sister, who really knows what’s going on inside her head anymore.”
For the past thirteen years, I thought I did. I was wrong, so very damned wrong.
“For now, my sources say that Yuen Xi has sat on the sidelines, allowing Elena to run his empire. He’s off on some island retreat somewhere, discovering religion and making peace with his demons.” Leah said. “But you can be bloody damned sure that once he hears his only daughter’s been murdered, he’ll stop at nothing to get revenge. We’re looking at a war—one that may completely change the landscape of both the business world and the underground societies.”
“Nathan will dispose of her body,” I said. “Maybe that will buy us enough time to draw Calisto out and have her confess to Elena’s murder. We can hand her over to Zhao after, to appease him.”
“Zhao’s going to keep her alive and torture her every single day, you know that right?” Leah asked.
“She deserves nothing less,” I replied.
“I tend to agree,” Leah said. “But once again, when the time comes, are you willing to hand Calisto over to Zhao?”
“How about we work on finding her first?” I said.
There was another pause from her end of the phone. “Sorry Shadow, but there won’t be much of a ‘we’ anymore,” Leah said. “My superiors are starting to suspect that something’s up. I’m tired of trying to outwit my own people. Please tell me that your trip to Hong Kong thus far has not been a total waste of time.”
“I have Elena’s cellphone,” I said. “I’m hoping I can trace the number.”
I had thought about telling Leah that I had enlisted Cairo and Reiko to help me, but that would only lead to conversations about the past, which was filled with too many old wounds. There were reasons why most of us from the Academy no longer spoke to one another.
“So let me get this straight. You flew over to Hong Kong, gave the second most dangerous man in Asia his own empire, witnessed the assassination of the daughter of the first most dangerous man, and got your ass kicked in the process. All of this, for Elena’s cellphone.”
“That seems about right,” I said.
“I sure hope you get something out of that phone Shadow,” Leah said. “Unless you can get a confession from Calisto and her involvement in Elena’s murder, I guarantee there will be more dead bodies before the day’s done—possibly of those that you care about.”
I thought of Aria, and what her death would ultimately mean to me. I suddenly felt fire sear the back of my eyes as another blinding headache took hold of me.
Fuck, when was this going to end?
“No one else is dying,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
I wasn’t.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aria
Dusk was always my favorite time of the day. The ambient orange light cast by the setting of the sun, like a candle burning through the last bit of daylight, was always a reminder that soon I would be home. Soon, I could rest.
But that
was before the Midnight Society.
I had no home anymore.
I stood against the rail of the old antique steamboat—a wondrous breathtaking construct—as it traversed through Louisiana’s waters. Us being the only ones on the boat, it was quiet and peaceful.
I always had a misconception of the swamps, believing they were filled with stained waters, unruly moss, and vicious insects. But standing in the steamboat, staring at the orange sky that was dusted with elegant purple clouds, I realized just how beautiful these swamps actually were. The bald cypress trees that emerged out of the waters reminded me of elderly wise men, standing watch with eternal patience, while the world slowly eroded. The leaves from the trees drifted downwards like wet strands of emerald hair, casting a morose look on their weathered visage.
There was a beautiful sadness to these trees.
“Careful you don’t lean too far over the edge,” Beau warned. “I swear the gators in these parts of Louisiana are possessed by demons themselves. They’ll leap right out of the water and shear your arms off that picture perfect body of yours.”
I shot Beau an incredulous look.
“Sounds like a tall tale,” I said.
He smiled back at me with a backwards southern grin which told me he was up to no good. Beau looked handsome in the black, slim fit suit of his. I had to admit, his roughneck charm was endearing at times, though more often than not, it fell into the ‘annoying’ category.
Tonight, he was dressed to impress.
Lincoln on the other hand…
“Did you have to cut the sleeves off my shirt and my suit?” Lincoln asked. He looked absurd with his bare arms protruding from what once was a fine looking suit.
“Let’s get it straight, that suit you’re wearing is actually mine, and I thought a fellow like you, with ink—temporary by my guess—all over his arms, would want to display those magnificent pieces of artwork.
“I look like trailer trash,” Lincoln stated. “The least you could have done was given me dress shoes too.”
I looked down at his feet and couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of his faded pair of sneakers.
“Had I had known you’d sabotage my formalwear, I would have went out and purchased something,” Lincoln said.
Penumbra (The Midnight Society #2) Page 22
