There was silence from the bag and a subtle lowering of his shoulder away from her cheek. Tsk. She cupped his crotch and he froze.
She rolled his soft balls in her hand. “It was my brother that saved you. You know, the man you think betrayed you? He spared you and all he wants in return is for you to be useful, Alak. Don’t you want to show some gratitude for his mercy? I mean, you do owe him your life.”
She stroked the front of his pants, waking his cock to quivering life. With the handcuffs behind his back, he was helpless to stop her and could only press himself against the seat. The silly, silly fuck. He didn’t understand revulsion had nothing to do with sex. In fact, in her experience, the two were quite compatible. “I know I haven’t been very kind to you, Alak,” she murmured. “Believe me it could have been worse. John didn’t want me hurting you. Too much. Nothing that would kill you or do permanent harm. Given the circumstances he was very kind to you. Surely you get that?”
Alak Montri leaned his head back. There, there, relax. And then he head-butted her.
“Duck fucker!” she squealed, elbowing him hard in the stomach. Alak doubled over, and her fingers were dug into his windpipe before she pulled herself together. She shoved him back against the seat. “You’re lucky John wants you alive.”
She reached into her purse for her compact mirror. Nothing broken, but there’d certainly be a nasty bruise. She dabbed at the blood from her nose with a thick handkerchief she purposely carried for little mop-ups.
Alak Montri hadn’t moved, the cloth around his mouth suctioning in and out. She gripped his crotch hard this time and his body jerked. “You better pray that you can be of some use to my brother, because if not, I’m going to tie ten fishhooks on a line, jam them down your throat, and then pull them up out of your stomach one by one.”
The man turned his face towards her again. “You may wear the skin of a woman,” he wheezed, “but you’re a demon inside.”
Victoria tilted her head, and unzipped his pants. “You’re more right than you know.”
John Wakai watched Victoria yank the hood off his former boss and dump him onto the living room floor. Montri’s face was pulpy from bruises and cuts. Several of his fingers looked broken. Dammit. It was always so hard for Victoria to stop once she got going.
Then he noticed his sister’s face. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I was playing nice and he head-butted me. Fucker’ll pay, don’t worry.”
Wakai rubbed his temple. “Did you at least give him some water?”
“I tried. He wouldn’t drink.”
Wakai sighed and wheeled over to him. “Can you hear me, Alak?” He reeked of sweat and vomit and blood, the stench of resistance.
At first there was no response, then slowly their prisoner lifted his head, looking at Wakai with one eye, the other having swelled shut. Wakai worked at showing no reaction to the damage his sister had inflicted.
“I never intended for you to suffer so much,” Wakai offered. “In fact I never had any desire to harm you. Despite everything, I’ve always admired you.”
Montri’s mirthless smile revealed bloody gaps. “You’re a pretty shitty admirer.”
So much for the olive branch. “It was you that betrayed me, Alak. You’ve always had the courage and charisma, but we both know that I’ve been the brains of our organization. I helped you take this city. Took a bullet for you that left me in this chair. After all that, you couldn’t look the other way? You forced my hand. All this is your fault, not mine.”
“You expect me to turn a blind eye to that?” Montri spat blood and phlegm toward Victoria.
He had, but Montri’s face was twisted in disgust—the same look as when his boss had first confronted him with pictures of Victoria’s gross sadism. There’d be no forgiveness, no negotiation. “What’s done is done. What matters now is that I’m the one in charge of Bangkok. You need to recognize that power has shifted to avoid further bloodshed. Yours included.”
Alak sat back on his haunches. “Power hasn’t shifted. If it had you’d just kill me. You’re hoping to use me to run things, to get the city to fall in line for your new friends. You lack the means to make me, and sooner or later the gangs of Bangkok are going to organize and crush you.”
Victoria darted forward to kick her prisoner but Wakai raised his hand. Several breaths passed before she retreated. “I’ll be honest with you, Alak. I’ve turned Bangkok upside-down looking for your daughter, and so far I don’t have a clue where she’s hiding. Eventually I’m going to find her, and if we’re at war when I do, then whoever was protecting her is going to die. Is that really how you want to repay their loyalty?”
“Even if I wanted to help you, how should I know where she is?”
“Because you know her, and who’d protect her. You know which of your allies she’d run to, and where they’d keep her. We can cut a deal. She can live like a princess, and we can run this city together again. Surely that’s preferable to all the carnage you’ll unleash otherwise.”
Montri didn’t even blink. “Fuck you.”
Alak Montri really was a heartless bastard. He’d given up everything to protect his sister, and the overlord of Bangkok crime didn’t seem to give a damn about anybody. Not even himself, in the end. Only his almighty principles. Never in his life had Wakai felt morally superior to anyone until now. “No, huh? After all Victoria’s done to you, and all that she could do to you, your answer is that simple, is it?”
“Of course, it is,” Alak Montri said. “If you get hold of her, you’ll only use me to set up your own order. Soon as that’s done we’d be dead. Tell you anything and I might as well cut my daughter’s throat.”
Montri’s declaration sparked an idea in Wakai. A most excellent one. “Help me or not, Alak, you’re still a pawn in this game. A pawn to capture the queen.”
KANNON LOOKED UP, way up, at the towering skyscraper to which Gina had brought him and Ryota. The sight of a fifty-story luxury apartment building in the heart of the city wouldn’t have been unusual, except that this one appeared completely abandoned. Through the rusty chain-link fence, Kannon viewed the tangle of trees and vines entwining the Romanesque archways and columns along its front.
Gina smoothed her neon pink micro-dress as she stepped up to a padlocked gate, and producing a key from her matching purse, unlocked it. “Welcome to the Banyan Unique.”
“What is this place?” Kannon asked as he and Ryota followed her. He saw Ryota check out her behind, and might’ve shot him a look if he wasn’t doing the same himself. He’d never worked for a woman before, much less one this hot—although it would be a cold day in hell before he admitted it to her. Her skintight pink get-up—he didn’t buy her chatter about it being gang colors—had made him half-hard for the entire ride over, and it was a constant chore not to stare at her. It didn’t help that she was so blatant about her sexual overtures. He would have to find some diplomatic way to put her in her place but was afraid that place would be between him and a mattress.
“One of my father’s few bad investments,” she replied, locking the gate before leading them through the overgrown grounds. “Back in the mid-90’s the economy in Bangkok was flying really high. Buildings were sprouting up like weeds. My dad thought it would be a good idea to get in on the development boom so he and a bunch of business partners poured tens of millions into this place. Almost got it completed when the financial crisis hit, and suddenly there was zero demand. They mothballed it, and now here it stands—could be the most expensive abandoned building in the world.”
Kannon scowled, not liking the look of the structure. Despite the opulence of its design the place had an eerie hollowness to it, its windowless, graffiti-strewn exterior giving the place a distinctly post-apocalyptic feel. “Abandoned, not uninhabited I’m guessing.”
Gina grinned. “Well, there are ghosts. Ask the locals. They’ll swear to you it’s haunted, and that’s why it was never completed. Who’d want to buy a place here an
ymore?”
“How could a building be haunted if nobody ever lived in it?” Ryota asked as they stepped over the threshold into the stark, unfinished lobby. The ground floor was littered with cables, broken tools and old construction debris. At least, it was well-lit, thanks to sunlight pouring through the windowless facade. Above them things got dark fast—two escalators led up into the gloom, remnants of protective plastic drifting like cobwebs from their stainless steel sides.
Kannon caught movement from the corner of his eye, his hand was on his gun before he registered the two dogs.
“Well, look at you handsome things,” Gina said, bending over to pat them. As one, Kannon and Ryota took in the pink behind and looked away. “Kisses?”
She let the mutts slobber over her neck and cheeks, giggling like they all had nothing better to do.
“You done?” Kannon cut in. Ryota gave him a surprised, almost reproachful look. His apprentice had spent a full year with him and two hours after getting subcontracted to Gina, he’d switched loyalties.
Gina’s answer was to shoo away the dogs and begin the upward climb, addressing Ryota’s question as she went. “After the place was abandoned several homeless people moved in. Within a few weeks there were deaths. People falling down stairwells or through incomplete floors in the dark. Suicides off the balconies. One guy hung himself right where we’re standing. Then it really started getting weird.”
Ryota hesitated as they reached the upper level of the lobby. The place was shadowy, the hallways radiating from it lightless, large portions of the ceiling and walls only half-constructed, exposing pipes and unfinished wiring. “What do you mean? What happened?”
Gina paused, fishing for something in her purse. “People started seeing strange lights on the top floors late at night. Heard screams and crying, but when they searched they didn’t find anybody. If that weren’t enough a pack of feral dogs moved in. Wasn’t long before nobody would come near this place. Locals say it’s cursed. Call it the ‘ghost tower’.”
Pulling out what looked like a small flashlight, Gina gave a jack-o’-lantern grin. “Pretty spooky, huh?”
Ryota nodded.
“To children. Where next?” said Kannon impatiently.
Gina clicked on the light, which emitted a spectral purple glow. Walking to one of the hallways she shone it at the wall, a previously invisible arrow glowing into existence. “UV flashlight and paint,” she explained. “Need the first to see the second. Follow me.”
Ryota was game but Kannon took Gina’s elbow. “You’ve been away for ten years. How do you know so much about this place?”
Her face caught in the dim circle of light, Gina met his eyes. “I was away, Kannon. Not gone. Daddy and I talked on the phone all the time, and if he didn’t tell me everything Darae thought I needed to know, Darae would call me up. I’ve always been in the loop, even when I didn’t want to be.”
There was a thread of resigned bitterness in her voice. Had circumstances been different between them, he might’ve talked it through with her. As it was, he let her lead him and Ryota into near total darkness, the glowing arrows directing them through the maze of the building’s interior. Passing down bare corridors littered with debris and up endless stairwells of raw concrete, Kannon and Ryota trudged after Gina to their mysterious destination. With no railings and long, long drops, even he felt wary as they climbed. The air was hot and humid as a sauna, a few filthy windows admitting the only light, and by the time they reached what he estimated to be the 30th floor, Ryota had had enough.
“Stop, please,” he called from two floors below.
Gina aimed the light down the rail-free stairs, and Kannon felt the same frisson as when his daughter made a boneheaded move. “Watch it!”
She turned to him, her back heel nearly over the edge. He yanked her away and called down, “Hurry up!”
Gina was looking at him, her purple-illuminated face flushed and invigorated. She was breathing hard, her skin warm and damp and scented, too. Like a hot tropical night. He dropped his hand quickly.
“You’re in good shape,” Kannon remarked, reaching inside his jacket. He pulled out a pack of nic gum and popped one into his mouth.
“Are you actually going to quit smoking?”
“You threw out my last pack.”
“I’m sure you know where to get more.”
He concentrated on his gum. He hoped she would turn her pink ass around and keep climbing. No such luck. She shimmied up to him until he only had to wrap his arm around her and they’d be in a tight clinch. “So, did you do it for me?”
“I made a promise.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“To my daughter.”
“Why start now?”
“Seemed as good a time as any.”
“That’s your story and you’re sticking to it, huh?”
She wore pink lipstick to match the dress, which didn’t look right. The redness of her lips showed through too much. His fingers itched to rub it off. “How come you’re in such good shape?”
By some kind of miracle, she stepped back. “I bike to work and run on my treadmill an hour a day. I’m amazed you’re not huffing and puffing. And how is it you don’t sweat?”
Even though she’d made room physically, she still crowded his mind. “Congenital defect,” he replied vaguely.
Gina cocked her head. “So what, you don’t have sweat glands or something?”
Looked as if they were parked on the 30th floor until Q & A was done. “I have them. My brain doesn’t turn them on.”
“So, you don’t feel overheated?”
“I don’t feel much of anything.”
Gina frowned. “What about walking up all these stairs? Your legs don’t hurt?”
“No.”
“What about when someone punches you? Does that hurt?”
“No.”
“What about when you spill something hot on yourself? That must sting.”
“No.”
“What about—?”
“I don’t feel hot, I don’t feel cold, I don’t feel pain and I don’t feel like talking about this anymore. All right?”
Once again she closed those precious inches between them and he held his breath. “What about pleasure? Can you feel that?”
“Yes.”
She flashed him a grin. “I’ll have to test that for myself one of these nights.”
Kannon straightened. This would be a good time to talk about whose place was whose. “I thought we were clear on this. We’re not doing that.”
He couldn’t have been blunter. It couldn’t have been more of a rejection. Instead, she stayed put, her body a perfect mold to his, so close magnetic energy might soon snap them together. And he didn’t risk moving a stitch, otherwise they’d touch and he’d have her against the wall, her legs not curled softly against him like when he carried her, but wrapped tight around him, her pink heels on him and his hands cupped on the swell of her ass, her dress riding up, opening to where he could press his hard cock to her softness.
“No, as I remember it, the flight attendant showed up,” Gina said, so quietly he had to watch her lips to catch every word. “Left me curious why you didn’t want to have sex with me, given you are attracted. And don’t tell me you aren’t. Those sunglasses hide your eyes, not what’s going on in those pants of yours. You want me to leave you alone, I will. First, tell me why I should.”
He wasn’t about to share his reasons. A woman like her would mock him, and it was bad enough she was his boss. She was a Daddy’s girl, and she’d manipulated the situation to make him into Daddy’s go-boy, and then her own. Now, he had to hunt for one boss while working for another who wanted to scratch her itch for a hit-man.
Job satisfaction would be higher with the second.
So would the consequences.
“My reasons are my own. No clause in the contract says I have to sleep with you.”
Gina brought those breasts right up so they were straddli
ng his tie. “If I recall right, you have to obey me....” she trailed off.
Obey me. He’d sucked it back when they’d been on the yacht. A good lesson there about how to kill a man without a bullet. “You want to know the reason? I’ll tell you. I’m not interested in being used. You want to get it on with me because you think you can. You think that whatever belongs to Daddy Zaffini belongs to you. Except he doesn’t own me, and I’m not your toy to play with.”
Her honey eyes widened on him, her lips with the mismatched lipstick parted and she lifted her hand to his face—.
Ryota came into view, and Kannon had never been so relieved to see his junior. He broke away from her and stepped to the stair’s edge. “Come on. It can’t be much farther.”
Ryota’s hands were on his knees and Gina made a sympathetic mew, her attention diverted to her other lackey. Ryota looked up at him, practically begging for mercy. Kannon cut away to lead the ascent. With Gina’s backside to follow, the boy would catch his second wind soon enough.
Five more floors brought them to a heavy steel door, the UV light revealing ‘B²’ written on its surface, and before they could knock, a heavy bolt was pulled back and the door swung open.
Beyond was a large air-conditioned room lit by dozens of computer monitors. The place looked like a low-rent version of a NASA control center, a bunch of youths of every ethnicity manning terminals, surrounded by masses of cables, takeout cartons and spent soda cans.
The man who’d opened the door didn’t look the part of the hip urban hacker. He was in the full bristly blossom of middle-age, and was dressed in jeans and a white polo shirt. He and Gina exchanged bows. It was amazing how quickly she’d fallen into this traditional greeting. If Kannon and she had done that back at Cause & FX three years ago, they’d be in a completely different relationship. One where nobody felt owned or owed.
Gina Takes Bangkok (The Femme Vendettas) Page 7
