by Amelia Autin
* * *
Alana collapsed into a wingbacked chair opposite her mother and kicked off the shoes that were pinching her toes, incredibly relieved the funeral was finally over and she could be comfortable again. She’d get up in a minute and go change out of the funereal black her mother had insisted Alana wear...but not until her toes stopped complaining about the too-tight pumps she’d borrowed, which were a half size too small. She’d been forced to wear them at the last minute instead of her own because her mother had exclaimed in horror, “Not open-toed shoes, Alana! What are you thinking?”
As if Great-Aunt Susan or anyone at the funeral would have cared what shoes Alana wore. But she hadn’t had the heart to argue, so she’d dutifully donned the shoes her mother had quickly unearthed from the vast selection in her walk-in closet, and had gone off to pay her last respects.
But she was glad she’d attended the funeral after all. She’d sat in the pew next to her uncle Julian and tried to fill Juliana’s place with a man both she and her cousin loved unreservedly.
The funeral had taken more of a physical toll on her than she’d thought it would, however. She’d never experienced morning sickness—apparently she was one of those women who were lucky that way—but she did seem to tire more easily these days, something Juliana had warned her to expect.
“That went off well,” Alana’s mother said with satisfaction, breaking into her daughter’s thoughts. “And thank goodness you didn’t mention anything about your fiancé!”
She was startled for a moment, then remembered she’d never told her parents about her broken engagement. Dirk and Mei-li—yes, of course. And Juliana, who’d been sworn to secrecy. “Why thank goodness, Mom?” she asked now.
“Because we haven’t told anyone, you goose, and it would certainly have raised questions about him. Questions your father and I aren’t prepared to answer.”
Alana debated with herself, wondering if she should say anything, then mentally shrugged her shoulders. “You don’t have to worry, Mom. Jason broke our engagement.” She counted back. “It’ll be a week tomorrow.”
“He did? Then that means your father’s trip to Hong Kong wasn’t wasted.” Her mother smiled with gratification at the news. “Why didn’t you tell us right away?”
Ice water trickled through her veins, and she said slowly, “When was Dad in Hong Kong?” A suspicion suddenly formed, one so monstrous she didn’t want to think it, but... “He never came to see me.”
Her mother’s mouth formed a surprised O, confirming her suspicion.
The ice dissipated in a flash. Alana sprang to her feet, comprehension and fury combining to make it impossible to stay seated as she confronted her mother. “Dad went to see Jason. Didn’t he? Didn’t he?”
“Don’t use that tone of voice with me, Alana. Your father only did what any father would do.”
“Oh. My. God,” she breathed. “Do you know what he’s done? Do you have any idea?”
She whirled and ran from the room, forgetting her borrowed shoes in her haste. She checked in the doorway to her father’s office, where her dad and Uncle Julian were enjoying a snifter of her father’s prized cognac after the funeral.
“I have to talk to you, Dad,” she said abruptly.
“You’re interrupting, Alana,” her father chided. “Your uncle was speaking. Can’t it wait, whatever it is?”
She shook her head vehemently. “No, it can’t wait.”
Uncle Julian put his snifter down on a side table and stood. “Perhaps I should—”
“No,” Alana insisted. “Please stay. I want you to hear. I want you to know what—” She choked as emotions welled up in her throat. Not just anger and hurt on her own behalf, but for Jason. Jason, her knight sans peur et sans reproche. Jason, who’d been wounded as no child should ever be wounded, but had still managed to grow into a man in whom she had nothing but pride.
“You went to see Jason last week, Dad. Don’t try to deny it,” she cried when he opened his mouth. “Mom already let it slip. What did you tell him?”
“I only said what any father would say.” But his eyes shifted under hers.
“You liar.”
“Alana!” This from a shocked Uncle Julian.
Tears were forming, but Alana struggled to hold them back. “Look at him, Uncle Julian. He’s lying. He went to see the man I love...a man so wonderful, you just can’t imagine...and he said something to him.” She was sobbing now, tears coursing down her cheeks. “Something that hurt Jason dreadfully and made him break our engagement. And I want to know what he said.”
Julian looked at his brother. “Alan? What did you do?” When Alana’s father refused to answer at first, her uncle demanded again, “What did you do?”
“I told him when she came to her senses, she’d be ashamed. Of him...and any children they had.”
“Alan! You didn’t!” Julian exclaimed.
“I have every right to protect my daughter,” her father blustered. “Especially from a man like him.”
“A man like him?” She swiped the back of her hand against her eyes. “What bothers you most, Dad? That Jason’s father works in the movie industry? Or that his mother is Chinese?”
The silence that greeted this accusation was all the confirmation she needed.
She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her mouth with her hands to hold back renewed sobs...for Jason. Who’d done nothing—nothing!—to deserve this. When she had herself under control again, she confronted her father. “Do you know what you’ve done, Dad? Do you know Jason saved my life, not once, but twice? And the first time he didn’t even know me, but he risked his life for me. He would have died...gladly...to rescue me.” She placed a hand over her abdomen, as if shielding the innocent life she carried against her father’s prejudice.
She turned to her uncle, smiling through the tears at the man she’d always wished was her father. “You’d like him, Uncle Julian. You would. He doesn’t care what the world thinks of him—he just does what’s right. Always. And he loves me. He loves me enough to sacrifice our love...because he—” she flung a hand in her father’s direction “—told Jason he wasn’t worthy of me, when it’s actually the other way around.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying, Alana. I offered him a quarter of a million dollars to break things off with you, and...” His eyes turned crafty. “He bargained me up to half a million. He’s nothing but a damned fortune hunter!” The triumph on her father’s face was painful to see.
“Oh, Dad. You think you know him, but you don’t. He didn’t do it for the money.” She wouldn’t put it past her father to lie about this, too, but if it was true, she knew where the money had gone. Not into Jason’s pocket...but into the RMM coffers.
“Of course he did it for the money. A man like him—”
“I told you on the phone that if you spoke one word against Jason I was no longer your daughter,” she said fiercely. “And I meant it. As of this moment you are de—”
“Don’t say it!” her uncle warned sternly. “Don’t descend to his level.” Then he faced his brother. “All these years, Alan. All these years I’ve held my tongue. But your daughter’s right. You crossed the line. What you did is despicable, and I’m ashamed to admit you’re my brother.”
He turned back to Alana. “What do you want to do? What can I do to help?”
“I wasn’t returning to Hong Kong until next week. But now...oh, Uncle Julian, I have to see Jason as soon as possible. I have to explain...”
She gulped and scrubbed the tears from her eyes with the heels of her palms. “And I have to tell him about our baby.”
Her uncle ignored her father’s startled gasp and patted her cheek. “Of course you do. Tell you what. You go pack. I’ll get on the phone with my travel agent and book your flight.”
* * *
&n
bsp; This is the last time, the High Tiger promised himself as he switched trains. The last time I accede to this man’s demands for the utmost secrecy. Once I have the name, I no longer need the information this man provides. Because once I know who the High Dragon of RMM is, once I exchange him for Lin Fang—who is not long for this earth—then I can destroy him. And without him, RMM loses half its strength. He smiled to himself, ignoring the jostling of the train’s other riders. Oh, yes, once I have the name...
As always, the High Tiger saw the wizened little man in a business suit seemingly before the other saw him, but he knew that wasn’t true. He watched for the trifolded newspaper signal and was relieved to see it. He didn’t want to have to do this again.
He took a seat on the bench next to the man on the now-deserted boat dock, demanding as he did so, “His name. Tell me his name.”
The man shifted toward him, and suddenly there was a gun in his hand. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said softly.
And in the instant before the bullets tore into his flesh, the High Tiger realized he should never have agreed to these clandestine meetings in remote locations without his bodyguards. He should never—
* * *
Jason cursed into his body microphone. Followed by, “Shots fired! Repeat, shots fired! One man down—not our target. Move in!”
A half-dozen RMM men swarmed onto the dock, suitably disguised, semiautomatic rifles at the ready. The elderly man stood and calmly dropped his gun before anyone could demand he do so. Then stood passively as he was frisked for other weapons and handcuffed to the railing. One man removed his glove and checked for a pulse on the body sprawled on the dock, then silently shook his head. Another man bagged the revolver, careful not to disturb any fingerprints.
By the time Jason arrived from his vantage point on the hill above the dock, there was nothing left to do, except ask why.
“Why?” he asked his executive assistant, a man who’d been with Wing Wah Enterprises since Jason’s grandfather’s day.
“Why did I kill him?”
“I don’t care why you killed him. I want to know what I did to you to make you betray me to him.”
A supercilious little smile touched the man’s lips. “That was the one thing I refused to do.” When Jason shook his head, not following, the man explained, “Hurt you, yes. Leak whatever information I could find about planned RMM raids, yes. But I could not betray the CEO of Wing Wah Enterprises. Undeserving as you were to be his grandchild, your grandfather picked you to run his company. If I had told the High Tiger of the Eight Tigers—oh, yes,” he continued in that superior way when Jason exchanged meaningful looks with the men on either side of him, “that is who he was. If I’d told him who the High Dragon of RMM was, he would have killed you. And that would have been detrimental to the well-being of your grandfather’s company.”
Jason glanced at Trevor Garrett on his left, asking with his raised eyebrows if this made any sense to the other man. Trevor shrugged. “I’ve heard stranger tales.”
Jason looked back at his executive assistant. “So it wasn’t money.”
“Of course not. The stock shares your grandfather left me in his will meant I didn’t even have to work...although I did.”
“And it wasn’t anything I did to you?” he asked, still trying to understand. “I never insulted you? Made you lose face?”
“Of course not. In many ways you were a kinder and more considerate employer than your grandfather was.”
“Then why? Why did you want to hurt me? Hurt RMM?”
“Because you didn’t deserve to be your grandfather’s heir.” The elderly man turned his head and spat, then muttered the same insulting words Alan Richardson...and Jason’s grandfathers...had used. “You and your sister both.”
Jason was suddenly grateful Alana’s father had confronted him a week ago. That he’d already faced down the memories from his childhood, helping take away the sting now, so that the reminder almost didn’t hurt. Almost.
He breathed sharply, then turned to Trevor. “Call in an anonymous tip to the police. Leave the body where it is, and leave the gun.” He measured distances with his eyes, then said, “And leave him cuffed to the railing.”
“Jason,” Trevor warned in an undertone.
“I know,” he told his second cousin, his eyes conveying a message. “When we hear the sirens, we’ll go.” He turned to his other men. “The rest of you...” He tilted his head back toward land, and one by one the RMM members melted into the night.
Jason and Trevor waited for the police sirens, then headed out. They were halfway up the hill when they heard a single gunshot. Trevor looked back, but Jason never did.
Chapter 23
When Jason’s smartphone rang at ten that night, he recognized the ringtone he reserved for his closest friend. “Hello, David.”
“So tell me why you left the gun where he could reach it,” David asked without preamble. “Because he could blow your cover?”
Jason didn’t try to prevaricate. “Would you believe that never occurred to me until afterward?”
“Then why?”
He smiled faintly, even though his friend couldn’t see it. “Because he was an old man. Because out of loyalty to my grandfather he didn’t betray who I was to the Eight Tigers...even though he had ample opportunity. Because it’s the kind of thing my grandfather would have done—allow him to save face. So he wouldn’t have to stand his trial for murder, wouldn’t have to suffer the indignity of jail at his age. Pick one.”
“Damn it, Jason, one of these days you’ll go too far!”
“That’s not what you said when we turned over Lin Fang and his confession. You were ecstatic, and not inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Silence at the other end acknowledged the truth of this, silence that was finally broken when David asked, “How did your executive assistant know anything about RMM anyway? He wasn’t a member.”
Jason winced. “There were various pieces of electronic equipment I bought from and through the company for RMM’s use. All open and aboveboard, but invoiced to me personally. Individually they were innocuous enough. But taken as a whole...a discerning eye could detect a suspicious pattern. And he had access to my electronic calendar from the moment I took over as CEO of Wing Wah Enterprises. I used coded notations, of course, but he must have eventually figured out what they meant.”
“How’d you know he was the one betraying you?”
“I didn’t. Cam found out.” Jason wasn’t about to reveal how. When Jason had first suspected RMM had a traitor in its midst, he’d discussed his suspicions with Cam. Without Jason’s knowledge or consent, Cam had installed illegal wiretaps on the phones of everyone it might have been...including his own brothers.
I’d just as soon you didn’t mention it to them, mate, Cam had told Jason afterward. Not that I really suspected them any more than I suspected anyone else. But it wouldn’t have been fair to Patrick, Trevor and Chao if I wiretapped them and not Luke and Logan.
Damn it, Cam, Jason had protested. One of these days you’ll go too far. Which, considering that was what David had just said to him, was really rather funny now that he thought about it.
So long as we found out who, Cam had replied with a touch of smugness. And now that we know who...
So RMM had set a trap to catch Jason’s executive assistant with the man they’d assumed was a member of the Eight Tigers triad. They’d never dreamed it was the High Tiger himself, or that he’d be shot and killed while under surveillance.
Now it was just a matter of mopping up. Something Jason was glad to leave in David’s capable hands. Detective Inspector David Lam, and the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau.
Jason and David conversed for a few more minutes, mostly about Lin Fang, who’d sung like a canary once he realized his fel
low Tigers had turned on him and had set him up to be assassinated. Even Jason had been astonished at the extensive reach of their criminal enterprise. He’d known about the prostitution—including their abductions of women for their brothels in Macau. And he’d known about the drugs and the pornography. He’d made a mental note while Lin Fang was spilling his guts to follow up on the two women RMM had rescued. But he hadn’t been aware of the extortion connection. Money laundering. Kidnapping. And gun running.
Shutting down the Eight Tigers triad would make a serious dent in organized crime in the SAR. Which meant RMM could take a small breather. Great for the other guys, who’d been stretched thin over the past few months. Not so great for him...because he’d have more time than he wanted to think about Alana.
* * *
Dirk stood in Jason’s office, staring out at the view. “Impressive. No question.” Then he turned toward his brother-in-law. “Mei-li would tell me to mind my own business.” He smiled faintly. “And you can tell me to go to hell in that snooty British accent of yours. But I’ve grown fond of Alana, so I’m going to stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
A muscle jumped in Jason’s cheek at Alana’s name, but then he steeled himself until his muscles ached because he figured he knew what was coming.
“You were engaged to Alana...and now you’re not.” Dirk said conversationally. “So...what does that mean? You loved her...and now you don’t?”
“I never said that.” The words were wrung from him before he turned and stalked to the far side of the room, staring out the other window...at nothing. After a moment he swung around, defiantly confronting his brother-in-law.
Dirk was nodding slowly, as if he was processing Jason’s unwilling admission and fitting it in with the facts as he knew them. “I love your sister more than I ever loved any woman in my life,” he said softly. “You know that. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have given anything I had if my first wife—the mother of my children—hadn’t died.” He paused to let that sink in.
“You’re throwing away the best thing that ever happened to you...on purpose. And that pisses me off.” A sad little smile touched the corners of Dirk’s mouth. “We don’t always get second chances in life.”
