The Noah Reid Series: Books 1-3: The Noah Reid Action Thriller Series Boxset

by Wesley Robert Lowe

  It will take a day or so for the snake’s blood to have the strengthening effect on the man. It won’t be much but he will be able to get out of bed, take off his bandages and get out of his prison.

  There has been no contact with King for over a week. That can only mean one thing. He makes a phone call.

  “Hello Sexy. What do you want?” says a female voice at the other end.

  “Not what you’re suggesting,” says Chin. “We need to talk.”

  “I’m not coming back to Asia.”

  “You won’t need to. Everything is going to happen in New York.”

  THE END… In the next of the Noah Reid Thrillers, the action moves to New York where Noah discovers the glitzy underbelly of the music scene and the Russian mob.

  THEFT OF INNOCENCE

  Introduction

  Under pressure from New York’s Russian mob to repay a loan, Queenie, Chin’s beguiling daughter, brings her arsenal of winged destruction to pressure Noah to return her family’s fortune, using a group of school kids as leverage.

  Much as we may not want to admit, depravity is everywhere.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “I need a week,” says the exotic twenty-five-year-old Eurasian woman, hiding behind a machismo that conceals her fear. “The shipment is temporarily delayed.”

  Alexei Gudonov, the burly Russian, growls in accented broken English, “We give you cash prepayment for guaranteed shipment and delivery. This not good, Queenie.”

  “This is the first time this has ever happened,” says Queenie defensively.

  “This is first time we give million bucks up front. I never do that for nobody.”

  “I’ll get it to you. You don’t need to worry,” says the babe with convincing confidence.

  “I always worry and you should worry even more,” says Alexei, lifting the shades off his eyes, revealing a nasty scar around his right eye socket and a left glass eye, obviously the result of some brawl, probably with a knife or the jagged edge of a broken bottle.

  Alexei is concerned because he ignored the business maxim, “If it looks too good to be true, then it probably is too good to be true.” When Queenie had offered him almost fifty percent off the regular price for Asian smack, the greedy and ambitious side of Alexei hadn’t been able to resist. Greedy because he wants the extra profit. Ambitious because as a mid-level Russian gangster in New York, he wants to muscle his way into the big leagues. It’s not just money that advances your standing but how you get the money and the connections you build.

  Gudonov figured that getting in with Shaolin mobster Chin Chee Fok through his daughter would be a natural. Chin normally wouldn’t give small potatoes, like Gudonov, the time of day but the Russian figured that if he built a relationship with his daughter, she would put in a good word to her father about him.

  That’s the only thing keeping Queenie alive right now. If anybody else treated him like this, then that person would be swimming with the fishes in the Hudson River. Queenie knows that and she knows that if she shows weakness, her already crumbling empire will disintegrate.

  “Are you trying to tell me that everything you do goes according to schedule? Do you not watch CNN and see the monster storms that have hit the Pacific?”

  “If there is delay, why you not tell me?”

  “Because we thought we could make up the time. Unfortunately, we couldn’t,” says Queenie with ice in her veins.

  Alexei eyes the delectable Queenie lustfully. For the three years he’s known her, he has always wanted to get his mitts on her, and for three years she has always said “no.” Seeing that she has been a small but profitable supplier to his operation, he has gone along with it. But that doesn’t stop him from wanting to Kim Kardashian this exotic woman with a red patch on top of her jet black hair who always wears a handmade feather boa.

  Now he’s going play his cards. “What you gonna do for me if I give you the week?”

  “I promise that I won’t kill you.”

  Not the answer he expected. “You threaten me? I should take you now.”

  “Business is business. Pleasure is pleasure. And you, Alexi, are definitely not pleasure.”

  Alexi leans back in his sumptuous chair. He’s worked hard since coming to America in the early eighties from Kiev. Started off as a dishwasher in this upscale Russian restaurant that he now owns. Worked his way up to security, to enforcer, to distributor and occasional hit man. Father’s connections or not, bedding her or not, damned if this bitch is going to disrespect him.

  He’s about to open his mouth when Queenie springs up from her chair and wraps her boa around his thick neck. She pulls on it like a garrote—unlike ordinary flimsier boas, Queenie’s boa is strung together with nylon cord with a tensile strength of over a thousand pounds. The Russian gangster tries to free himself but Queenie is incredibly powerful.

  Alexei’s eyes bulge and his hands wave in the air. He struggles to speak but words stay choked in his throat.

  His henchmen watch helplessly, worried that if they try to overcome her, she’ll just pull tighter and strangle the boss.

  Then one brave soul pulls out a gun and aims it directly in the middle of Queenie’s forehead. He cocks the trigger.

  Suddenly, the one-hundred-and-twelve pound Queenie relaxes her hold. Alexei gasps. Cigar and cigarette-filled air has never smelled this good.

  Queenie glares. “Never forget I am my father’s daughter.”

  The last thing Alexei would do is forget. He admires Chin Chee Fok’s ruthlessness, his physical strength, his obsession with the Shaolin. Alexei pales knowing this black widow spider can deliver on any threat she hints at, and what he just went through is nothing compared to what would happen if her father came at him.

  “You got yourself week to deliver merchandise,” says the Russian, trying to save face with an attitude puffed with bluster.

  Queenie sneers. “I will remember that you threatened me. Don’t you ever do that again.”

  She strides out like a confident bitch, knowing she’s got him by the balls.

  ***

  Stepping out into Little Odessa, Queenie knows she has just dodged a large-calibre bullet. Her hard-ass approach isn’t going to work forever and she’s freaked at the potential consequences. Sure, she can put on a show for a few minutes, or hours if need be, but the fact remains she has no idea whether she can get the goods in a week or even in a year.

  What the hell is happening with her brother King? He’s the source of the merchandise and he hasn’t been heard from in three weeks. He should have arrived on the Oregon Coast by now. The last communication she had with him was a short cryptic cell phone call when he said he was going to Shanghai to finish “some family business” but that he was going to expedite the shipment.

  At first, when he was just a week late, Queenie didn’t think much of it. After all, King was prone to be optimistic of time frames. However, when one week turned to two ...

  If Alexei weren’t so bedazzled with the prospect of getting into bed with her—or her father—he’d discover there is no way in hell her father is a threat to even a fly in his present condition.

  The word is not out yet but the renegade Shaolin monk and head of one of Asia’s largest crime syndicates is ‘out of commission’. More than that, Chin’s criminal empire has been virtually destroyed and Chin himself is still in rehab, recovering from almost fourth degree burns, inflicted when he lost the battle of the ages to his former lieutenant, Garret Southam, and to Garret’s protégé, young lawyer Noah Reid.

  This loss has wreaked havoc on the family’s finances. While Chin really is not much of a father, he did give each of his kids enough to get started in the business. In hindsight, he should have given them a lot more because most of his massive fortune has been stolen by Garret. When Chin discovered what was wrong, he tried by sheer brute force to correct the situation but Garret showed that in this instance, “brains beats brawn,” not to say Garret was short of brawn.

  Garre
t, Chin, Tai Shan and Noah were all disciples of the recently deceased Shaolin monk Master Wu. When they were younger, the three drifted from “The Way” and Chin controlled Garret and Tai Shan in using the Shaolin for dark advantage. While on paper Tai Shan was the president of Golden Asia Holdings and Garret was the senior lawyer in charge of the account, in reality both men were simply joe boys for laundering billions of Chin’s illegally gotten funds. When Tai Shan and Garret tried to get out, they were rewarded with the deaths of their wives. Redemption only occurred after the star of the next generation, Noah Reid, grew up and accepted the challenge of battle. Tai Shan and Garret wound up sacrificing their lives for this redemption, but the victory was incomplete. While Chin was brought down financially, unknown to Noah and Garret and Tai Shan’s daughters Olivia and Abby, Chin survived the onslaught. Chin is in hiding and in rehab.

  There is a call from a person with no ID that comes through on Queenie’s cell phone. That’s not a big deal because her private number is given only on a need-to-know basis, so she knows that whoever is on the other end has already been vetted.

  She picks it up. “Hello Sexy. What do you want?”

  “Not what you’re suggesting,” says the familiar voice.

  Queenie gulps. Not a good way to start a conversation with your father. “Hello, Father.” Queenie can never bring herself to call this almost totally absentee parent “Dad.”

  “What do you want?” There’s a coldness to her voice. A month or so ago, when she went to see him in a cave in India, he had sicced tigers on her and her siblings. She knew he’d only wanted to teach them a lesson about always being on guard but that didn’t stop her from thinking it was an asshole thing to do.

  “King is dead.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” This confirms her worst fear. “That is so not good. We had a deal going and that means I won’t be able to deliver. I bought some time for a week but that’s all.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  It’s your damn fault, Queenie wants to scream but restrains herself. “You know I’ve been working with King on bringing illegals to America. He brings them, and I make sure they behave.”

  “So you should have some good cash flow.”

  “Not enough. When they hear he’s gone, everyone in America will stop paying. But my bigger problem is Alexei.”

  “The Bolshevik Meathead?”

  “That’s the one. King found a deal for some Asian hard candy but it was bulk buy and King and I didn’t have enough cash. We needed to bring in a partner. Alexei gave us a million bucks prepayment for a shipment. It’s worth three times that on the market but no one else came through so we had to take it.”

  “Live and learn.”

  “No, I learned but there’s a good chance I won’t live.” She takes a breath. “Do you know what happened to my boat and cargo?”

  “Confiscated by the authorities.”

  “Cheryl should have been able to handle them.”

  “Cheryl is dead too. King took her on a wild goose chase. He thought he could force Noah and Master Wu to tell him where our money was and get it back ... he was wrong and he paid for it.”

  Just as I’m going to pay for it. Queenie groans inwardly. “That was stupid.”

  “If you don’t buy a ticket, you won’t win the lottery.”

  Queenie screams at the phone, “Can you stop it with the corny sayings? It’s not helpful.”

  “I say them because they are true. And I’ve got one more for you.”

  “What?” growls Queenie.

  “Greedy people wind up with nothing. King was greedy. He thought he could go for everything, become a multi-billionaire overnight with little work. It took me years to build that fortune and I guarantee that not I nor anybody else would give it up lightly.”

  “That’s a lecture, not advice.”

  “The advice is, if you want to save your skin, put pressure on Noah Reid. He’s the one who brought King down, and he’s the one who almost brought me down. Go for his hot spot and press until it hurts, until he has no choice but to give up.”

  “Didn’t you and King try that? And look where that got you.”

  Chin ignores the jibe. “Go for that girlfriend of his but do not be greedy. Don’t try to get all the money. Go for something he’d be happy to lose.”

  There is a brief tense moment of quiet before Chin continues. This is very hard for him to say. “I know because I tried to get it all back. I failed ... and so did King.”

  Queenie twists her mouth into a thoughtful curl. “So from a guy who has a few billion, ask for two hundred and fifty million?”

  “Make your life easier. Ask for a lot less. If you had three billion dollars, how much of that could you drop without feeling any pain?”

  “Three billion dollars?” says an astonished Queenie. “You had three billion?”

  “More or less, but I couldn’t tell you if what was more or less.” In reality, Chin had no real idea what he lost but three billion was a good guess.

  Queenie takes a moment to breathe. She knew her old man was rich but had no idea he was worth that much. The fact that he didn’t know showed her how ignorant he was. She has to bite her tongue from screaming at him now for being such an idiot with money. She and King had only asked him for twenty mil, and the old man turned them down. Keep cool, Queenie.

  “What’s his girlfriend’s name?”

  “Olivia Southam, Garret’s daughter. She’s in New York with Abby, Tai Shan’s daughter.”

  Garret Southam. Tai Shan Sung. On the few occasions she met with her father, he always talked a lot about both of them. How they made him a lot of money. How he had them so scared of him that they would kowtow to him if he snapped his fingers ... The last time, Chin was not so brash. He talked of their deaths and how they had cheated not only him but his children of his hard earned cash.

  “I remember them. Never could stand either of them. Abby thought she was so great going to Julliard, and Olivia? Give me a break. If she got into Harvard Law School, anybody can. I thought they moved back to Hong Kong.”

  Queenie hears a sneering snort on her cell. “They think they’re musicians and want to play in the big leagues. Hong Kong’s nothing to them.”

  “Oh,” says Queenie, nodding her head with growing interest.

  Musicians. Insecure, trusting and gullible. Always waiting for a break that never seems to come. Chasing dreams that never get caught.

  “Musicians are easy.”

  “Don’t be cocky, Queenie. Everyone can be dangerous.”

  “So why did you call me if you don’t trust me?”

  “I called because it’s your turn to see what you can do.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Twenty-two Years Ago

  “Where have you been, Chin? I haven’t seen you in seven months,” says twenty-three-year-old former Miss United States of America runner-up Elizabeth Watson. “A girl gets lonely you know,” she says as she massages his back with the fragrant and more-expensive-than-gold agar wood oil as she straddles him on the bed.

  With Chin, it’s always like this. Sex before talking but even after the intense, dynamic intertwining of bodies, there isn’t a whole lot of conversation. No matter. She got what she wanted: somebody who would take care of her in style. Like clockwork, she had made Chin happy every seven months when he would visit for a few days. He would then disappear again until his next trip to America.

  For Chin, Elizabeth was a white girl trophy that he could brag to his friends and associates about. The fact that a blonde curvy beauty queen would want to be with him made him a respected business partner. Especially when he showed them some of the very private pictures he had taken with her.

  Today, though, is different. There’s a slight smile on his face that isn’t normally there. At first Elizabeth thought her performance was especially outstanding. But then, Chin deflated her with a simple statement. “I have a present for Queenie.”

  “Queenie but not m
e,” pouts the mother.

  “Get her.” His tone indicates that this is a command, not a request.

  The couple get dressed quickly. Elizabeth goes to fetch Queenie while Chin goes to the door and brings in a small cubed wooden crate, two feet tall, two feet wide, and two feet deep.

  Three-year-old Queenie dashes in. Dressed in a ballerina tutu with more makeup than a fourteen-year-old skank, it’s obvious Elizabeth wants to turn her daughter into a junior version of herself.

  “Daddy!” cries Queenie with a joyous smile that would melt the coldest heart. She hasn’t seen him in seven months and has probably forgotten who he is, but undoubtedly Elizabeth, the man-pleaser, has been teaching her daughter.

  “Hello my Queen. I brought you a present.”

  Queenie’s eyes glisten with hope as Chin carries the wooden crate in front of her.

  “What is it, Daddy?”

  “Just watch.”

  Chin pulls back his arm and stretches open his hand. With one swift targeted shot, Chin swipes at the center of the box. His hand lands directly at a key structural point. The whole box splinters and falls apart, revealing two live baby cranes. Barely a few weeks old, the little birds’ tiny feathers are tawny-colored.

  “These birds are ugly, Daddy.” Just as truth often comes out of the mouth of babes, the little girl does not hide her disappointment.

  “Did you ever hear the story of The Ugly Duckling? Little ugly birds that grow up to be beautiful?”

  “That doesn’t happen.”

  Chin goes back out the door and wheels in a much bigger cubed crate, about five feet all around. As with the smaller box, he makes one well-aimed strike and the box splinters. This time there are two fully-grown majestic red-crowned cranes with white and black plumage.

  “This is the same bird when they are grown.”