by Tom Stern
Kelley asked, “Why are you really here, Anastasia?”
Her beautiful face curled in a slow, easy smile. “My love, I came here to give you three gifts.”
Kelley shook his head. He had no idea what she was talking about.
With the gun still aimed for a spot between Kelley’s eyes, Anastasia reached into her pocket. She brought something out. She put it on the desk. Kelley’s old desk. She put it next to the muddy boot print he’d left in his wake as he sent a kick into Cuchulain’s throat. It made a little clink against the hard desk surface. It was small and metal.
Anastasia’s first gift was a bulls-eye amulet suspended from a golden chain.
Kelley stared at it. And he realized: “Only one man has that amulet. Dilip Gaur.”
“That’s right.”
“Which means – ?”
“He’s dead. I killed him.”
Kelley stepped back. Anastasia stepped forward. Even without the gun in her hand, Kelley would have been stricken by the look on her face. Proud and challenging and incredible. Like a fallen goddess, she was. As cruel and impassive and lovely as an eidolon. No woman on Earth could have stood before her. No man.
Kelley found himself. He returned her icy gaze. He asked, “How?”
“Like this.”
Anastasia lowered the gun. She squeezed the trigger. The gun barked. A neat, red hole appeared in Cuchulain’s left temple. She was loaded with dum-dum bullets. A baseball-sized chunk of skull and brain exploded out the other side.
Cuchulain died in the way he always thought he would: drunk and pathetic and messy.
Kelley was numb to surprise by now. He didn’t jump or flinch. He simply watched. Detached. Drifting toward the no-mind. Kelley knew that he was at a cross-roads. Every word and movement determined if he lived or died.
Anastasia said: “He was a soldier for the Irish Republican Army when I found him. But the Troubles were already winding down. Ireland was heading towards peace. He’d grown up in violence. Identified with violence. Killing and bloodshed was all he knew. Without it, Cuchulain didn’t know who he was, or what. He was aimless. He would have killed himself. He needed another bloody cause. And I gave it to him.” She smiled at Kelley. It was chilling. She said, “Sound like anyone you know?”
She meant him. Kelley brushed past it. He said, “Cuchulain told me you were in his control, that you owed him a debt.”
She laughed. High and cruel, like a shattering chandelier. “Quite the opposite, my love. And that,” she said, flicking the gun barrel at Cuchulain’s corpse, “is your second gift.”
“What’s the third.”
“I think you know by now.”
Kelley didn’t say anything.
Kelley didn’t say anything.
And then, without a single outward trace of emotion, he said, “You sent the numbered emails.”
Anastasia remained silent. Letting Kelley work it through to the conclusion.
He said: “You lured me into hitting the ‘heavy water’ ship because you needed something over my head. Something to control me. Because you didn’t want me investigating Pulau Rapat. Which you knew I would, since I kept mentioning it to Cuchulain, and he’d pass it along to you, like everything else I said to him.
“There were two reasons you wanted me to stay away from Pulau Rapat. First: you didn’t want me to have conclusive proof of the tanker operation. Nothing I could potentially show Rasa, if I had a mind. And second, you knew Cuchulain was working with Dilip Gaur to maintain that pipe line.
“You knew Cuchulain would do anything to protect the millions coming in through that set-up, including sending a chopper and ship to kill me, though it might mean ending the privateer operation.
“And you wanted the privateer mission to keep going. You told Cuchulain to approach me in the first place. But why? I think it was to smoke out the traitors. You knew that, if I was successful, either Yap Chew or Dilip Gaur would come to me, try to subvert me to their own ends. And the man who did that was obviously someone who wanted to take control of the whole organization.
“And it turned out to be Yap Chew all along. He wanted to kill everyone and take control of the entire thing. And he saw me as the perfect tool, never knowing that my entire mission was nothing but a trap for him.
“But you made the mistake of thinking that heavy water trap was enough to stop me. You never thought I’d see what was happening at Pulau Rapat and make it back alive to Kuala Lumpur. You never thought I’d realize that you gave Yap Chew the idea of the heavy water run.
“And all of that can only mean one thing.”
“Which is what, my love?”
“Anastasia, you are the real King Pirate.”
Silence.
She lowered the pistol. Anastasia stepped toward Kelley. She said, “I didn’t want to fall in love with you.”
Kelley told her: “Last thing in the world I was looking for. My whole being was about revenge. Until you came into my life.”
“But it was because of that accident that I believed my love was true,” Anastasia said. “You had no guile, no desire. You were just there. And I knew you were the only man I would ever truly love with all of my heart in this lifetime.”
“I realized it the second I saw you.”
“I couldn’t deny how I felt.”
“Hard as I tried.”
Kelley said, “It was impossible. Like trying to ignore the sun.”
“With its light and warmth.”
“You gave me my life back,” he said.
“Those calls, late at night.”
“I’d despaired for so long,” Kelley nearly whispered. “Your voice in the darkness kept me alive. I’d given up hope, until you came along.”
“I longed for you every moment.”
“The same way I long for your touch now.”
Anastasia came close.
Kelley asked, “What is the third gift?”
She met his eyes with hers. There was no lying between them, no game. Nothing but honesty and love.
“I want you to join me,” she said. “I want you to come with me, take Cuchulain’s place. Become my right-hand man. We’ll have money and power and happiness and love beyond anything we’ve ever imagined before. Everything you want out of life, I’ll give you. Please. Kelley. I have never said this to anyone before: I love you. I am yours. Come with me. And be mine.”
The gun drifted to her waist. Kelley stepped to face her. He slid his hands around hers.
He kissed her, then. Long and fierce and hard. She was right. He’d never in his life had what she was now offering. It was beyond a dream.
That kiss lasted their entire lives. In that single embrace, they saw it all: years of happiness together. Children. Marriage. Power. Wealth. Fulfillment.
Kelley pulled away. He looked into her eyes. Anastasia smiled up at him.
“Does this mean ‘yes?’”
Kelley guided the gun in Anastasia’s hands up so the barrel pressed against the bottom of her chin. He wrapped his big, scarred finger around hers and squeezed.
The bullet went up through her head and into her brain. She died instantly.
The point-blank gunshot deafened Kelley. His ears screamed, ringing. Blocking out all outside sound. Trapping Anastasia’s last words in his consciousness, rebounding around in his mind like trapped birds.
Kelley let Anastasia’s body drop to the floor. He looked at his empty hands. They were covered with blood. Hers, his, others. Dripping. He’d never truly get it off.
Kelley reached down and pushed her eyelids closed.
He slid out through the hidden back door in Cuchulain’s office. Moments later, Rasa and his men arrived to find the carnage.
…
Kelley walked for a long time. The rain washed the blood off his body. Though it remained to stain him everywhere else it mattered.
He went down to the docks. There was only one thing he had left to do.
Kelley stood in the doorway
of Dao Jia’s bar. She was waiting for him, as he knew she would. Sitting the shadows. Pouring them a drink.
Kelley would never remember actually crossing the room. He blinked, and he was standing over her table. Dripping with cold rain water. Eye burning.
Dao Jia slid a shot of whiskey across the table. He scooped it up in mid-slide and knocked it back. Kelley tossed the shot glass over his shoulder. He pulled Dao Jia to her feet.
Kelley slid his tongue between her full, brown lips. She didn’t resist. She responded in kind, curling her hand around the base of his neck to draw him closer. Her skin was slick with beads of salty perspiration from the humid night. Dao Jia’s hair clung to Kelley’s damp face. He breathed her warmth. Her scent.
Kelley spread his fingers, covering her shoulder blades. He slid his fingers down the edge of her spine. She softly moaned in his mouth. Still kissing. He reached the base of her back. Kelley moved his hand upwards, now under her shirt, along her skin. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts pushed against his pecs. Kelley felt her nipples harden. He caught the hem of her shirt with his other hand. Lifted it over her head. Still kissing. Dao Jia’s arms drifted upward, letting him take her shirt off.
The rain came down harder. A torrent.
Dao Jia’s hands drifted across the front of his jeans.
She whispered, “I’m dreaming.”
“You’re not.”
Dao Jia opened his zipper. Took him in her hand. She gasped, surprised at his size. Kelley was used to the reaction from women. He eased her pants down.
Kelley cradled her ass. He lifted her off the floor. His fingers slid inward. She bucked at the invasion, bringing her mound directly in contact with his cock. She had nowhere to go but forward. With no other choice, Dao Jia gave in. She slid him inside her.
Thunder shook the building. Lightning flicked in the unlit bar. The windows were wide open, but there were no pedestrians to look inside and see their passionate fucking. The rain came down harder.
Years of pent-up desire fired their movements. It was everything Kelley had imagined.
She clung to his neck with both hands. Nails digging into his skin. Eyes screwed shut. Focused on nothing but the sensation of the moment.
Kelley felt Dao Jia shudder. A subtle quake with its epicenter deep in her g-spot, rippling up to her body to her face, pressed against his.
She whimpered, “Stay in me.”
He did.
They came together with such fury it was as if the typhoon’s fury had, for that one burning moment, focused in the place where their two bodies met. She howled in long, plaintive wails for long moments, finally drifting into a soft, satisfied breath.
Dao Jia climbed off Kelley. She hugged herself to him. She came so hard, she was crying. Dao Jia swiped at the tears, intermingled with his sweat and rain.
Barely audible, she said, “Stay with me.”
This time, Kelley poured the shots. They clinked a cheers and drank them together.
Wordlessly, Kelley went back to the bar’s doorway. He stood in that space, a man-shaped silhouette stark against curtains of rain back-lit with lightning.
Kelley went out into the rain. Within moments, he vanished from Dao Jia’s view.
She sat back down, and pulled the whiskey bottle close to her chest for company.
…
Kelley looked for a ship that was heading out to sea. Even with the storm, he found one. He asked if they needed an experienced hand. They did.
Ryan Kelley left Kuala Lumpur.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
