Playing With Fire (Games of Chance Series Book 2)

by T. L. Cannon

  “You want me as much as I want you,” Ethan murmured against her ear, his soft lips brushing lightly against the sensitive lobes, eliciting a ragged sigh from her in response.

  “I don’t want to want you,” Kira whispered, her voice small and pleading. “Why won’t you just leave me alone?”

  “Because I can’t,” Ethan explained as his teeth nipped at her bottom lip, drawing it out before devouring her entire mouth with his own in a deep probing kiss that left her breathless, freeing it only when he felt her body shudder beneath his. “We belong together. There’s no point in either of us fighting it.”

  His words were spoken with a matter-of-factness that sorely tempted Kira to shove him right onto the floor. She hated the arrogant way they were spoken and the unmistakable ring of truth they left clanging in her ears. Unfortunately, in that moment, his body proved to be more tempting than the idea of sending him crashing onto his butt. Despite her previous declarations of never repeating the previous night’s mistake again, it was only an urgent rapping on her office door that prevented Ethan from having her again, right then and there.

  “Don’t answer it,” Ethan commanded as he slid his hands up her outer thighs, dragging the hem of her skirt along with them.

  Summoning the self-control that had abandoned her earlier, she shoved Ethan off of her, vaguely disappointed when he landed on his feet rather than on his butt as she had imagined. Rising to her own feet, she smoothed her skirt back down over her thighs.

  “Come in,” she implored eagerly as she wiped blindly at any tell-tale smudge of lipstick that may be framing her lips, grateful for the interruption.

  “I have something you need to see,” Oliver Nelson, the head of security for Gau Lung announced as he entered her office, his bespectacled chocolate brown eyes landing neutrally on Kira while completely ignoring Ethan’s presence. If he suspected that anything inappropriate had been going on before his arrival he was too much of a professional to let on.

  Kira opened the red folder that he handed her and perused it’s contents. What she saw caused her previously flushed face to suddenly turn pale.

  “Is something wrong?” Ethan asked, being far too observant for Kira’s liking.

  “Yes, there is. It’s your presence here,” she said curtly. “Oliver, will you please escort Mr. Chance out of the building.”

  She felt like a coward for calling in reinforcements to get rid of Ethan but she needed him out of the building, for more than one reason.

  “That won’t be necessary, Oliver. I can find my own way out,” Ethan said as he studied Kira’s face, taking some satisfaction in the way she avoided making eye contact with him. Hooking his index finger under her chin, he forced her to look up at him. “You and I will finish this later,” he warned before he sauntered out the door.

  “Make sure he leaves the building,” Kira instructed Oliver, shaking off the shiver of anticipation that Ethan’s parting words evoked in her.

  When Oliver dutifully went off to follow her instructions, shutting the office door behind him, Kira sank back into her chair. With an exasperated sigh, she opened the file in her hand and once again looked over it’s contents, this time more thoroughly. Once she was satisfied that she hadn’t misread Oliver’s report on the computer breach that had occurred at Gau Lung she slammed the folder close and stormed out of her office.

  “Would you care to explain this?” she asked as she barged into Gabriel’s office and tossed the file onto his desk.

  Guilt colored Gabriel's cheeks as he glimpsed at the incriminating report, instantly giving Kira the answer to her unasked question.

  “So it’s true. You are the one who hacked into the computer system.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid it is true,” Gabriel replied, lowering his head.

  “But why?”

  Gabriel’s lips thinned with uncharacteristic stubbornness. “I had my reasons.”

  “That’s not a good enough answer, Gabriel. This is a very serious violation, regardless of your position within Gau Lung. I need to know what you were after.”

  Gabriel took a deep breath before speaking. “I hacked into the computer in order to cover the fact that Jade embezzled five hundred thousand dollars from Gau Lung.”

  “She did what?” Kira asked in utter disbelief. While she had no fondness for Jade, she never would have pegged her for a common thief.

  “She had good reasons for what she did,” Gabriel explained, immediately jumping to Jade's defense. “Selfless reasons.”

  “I can’t believe I’m even hearing you say that. What possible reason could justify her stealing from your father’s company?”

  “She needed the money to protect someone.”

  “Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” Kira practically yelled in her exasperation, “Who was she protecting?”

  “She was protecting her mother. Bunny was being blackmailed.”

  Kira shook her head in disbelief, stunned by all that was going on behind Yi's back and under her nose. “Blackmailed? By who?”

  “A lout by the name of Craig Parkinson.”

  Kira immediately recognized the name from the investigation that she had conducted on Bunny and Jade prior to Bunny and Yi’s wedding. “The man that Bunny was seeing before she married Yi.”

  “And after,” Gabriel added.

  “So Bunny was having an affair with Craig,” Kira deduced.

  Gabriel nodded his head. “And when she attempted to break things off…”

  “He got all blackmail-y on her,” Kira concluded.

  “I’m afraid so,” Gabriel confirmed. “Apparently he recorded one of their…encounters.”

  “I got the picture,” Kira shivered with revulsion. “What I don’t understand is why you would risk so much to cover for Jade and Bunny.”

  Once again, Gabriel shifted his eyes downward but not before Kira saw something in them that she had never noticed before. Something that made everything else make perfect sense. “You’re in love with Jade, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am,” Gabriel spoke the words adamantly as he stiffened his spine.

  “Is it safe to say that the feeling is mutual?”

  “Yes, it is. We’ve done nothing to be ashamed of,” Gabriel added defensively.

  Kira’s gaze softened sympathetically as she looked at her friend. “I didn’t say you did. We can’t help who we love. Believe me, I know that better than anyone.”

  Gabriel smiled at Kira gratefully. “We only kept our relationship a secret for my father’s sake. You know how conservative he was.”

  Kira nodded in agreement. The idea of his son being romantically involved with his step-daughter would not have sat well with Yi, personally or professionally. Kira’s mind returned to the private investigation that Yi had launched just prior to his death. Had he found out about Bunny’s affair? Jade’s embezzlement? Her secret romance with Gabriel? The latter bombshell, coupled with the theft of The Dragon's Breath, would have no doubt spelled the end of Gabriel at Gau Lung. She had contacted the private security firm Yi had hired looking for answers but had run into a brick wall. The firm, living up to it’s impeccable reputation for discretion, refused to even admit that they had been hired by Yi much less reveal what it was they had been investigating on his behalf. While she found their desire to protect the privacy of their client, even in the wake of his death, admirable it was frustrating as hell and she doubted that it would last in the face of an official police interrogation. If she had been able to so easily discover that Yi had enlisted the services of a P.I. firm, it was a sure bet that the Hong Kong Police Department had as well which meant that it was only a matter of time before they discovered whatever it was that Yi was looking into. In light of Gabriel’s revelations, the thought made her queasy. His involvement with Jade and his desire to protect her gave him what could be construed as a motive for wanting Yi dead, especially combined with the fallout from the theft of The Dragon's Breath.

  “Of course, you realize that
this would appear to give me even more motive to murder Yi,” Gabriel fretted, as if reading Kira’s mind. “That’s why you mustn’t breathe a word of this to anyone.”

  The sound of Gabriel’s door suddenly being slammed opened prevented Kira from replying to his admonition. Before she knew what was happening, two uniformed Hong Kong police officers were hauling Gabriel to his feet and slapping handcuffs onto his wrists.

  “You are under the arrest for the murder of Yi Wong,” a third officer explained in Chinese.

  “But I didn’t do it,” Gabriel insisted as he attempted in vain to squirm out of the officers’ grip.

  “Just go with them peacefully,” Kira implored, struggling to remain calm. “I will do everything that I can to clear your name,” she promised despite having absolutely no clue as how she would even begin to accomplish that goal.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I need your help,” Kira admitted reluctantly as she faced Ethan in the middle of his living room, feeling like a criminal returning to the scene of the crime. This was the last place that she wanted to be and Ethan was the last person that she wanted to be asking for help but in the face of Gabriel’s arrest earlier that day, she had no choice. She needed to get to the bottom of Yi’s murder and she needed to do it with a quickness which meant she couldn’t afford to let pride keep her from a potential source of information. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. The look of satisfaction that she saw on Ethan’s face pretty much guaranteed the she wouldn’t.

  “Given the fact that the last time we saw each other you were having me thrown out of Gau Lung, that’s kind of rich,” Ethan pointed out tauntingly.

  “Don’t do that,” Kira said sharply.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Make this harder than it has to be. What’s going on is bigger than our little game of cat-and-mouse. A man’s life is on the line.”

  Ethan ran a hand over his chin. “Yeah, I heard about Gabriel’s arrest.”

  “Of course you did. Everyone has,” Kira pointed out with a sigh. “I’ve been doing damage control at Gau Lung all day because of it, not that it's done much good. This situation is officially out of control which is why I’m here. As I stated before, I need your help.”

  “I’m not sure what you expect me to do.”

  “You can tell me what, if anything, you've dug up about Xiao’s killer. If the two murders are connected, tracking him down would be a good place to begin in proving that Gabriel didn't murder Yi.”

  “What makes you so sure that Gabriel didn’t murder Yi?”

  Kira pursed her lips in indignation, taken aback by Ethan’s question, “Because he told me that he didn’t and he has never given me a reason not to trust him.”

  “Unlike me.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you certainly were thinking it, weren’t you?” Ethan pointed out bitterly.

  Kira bit her tongue, refusing to be drawn into a fight. “Could we please just stick to the subject at hand which is Xiao’s murder? What have you found out about it?”

  “The markings on the killer’s jacket indicate that he was a member of The Yellow Tiger Triad.”

  “Xiao’s murder was a triad hit?” Kira asked, her voice rising in surprise.

  “It looks that way.”

  Kira sighed heavily as she plopped down on Ethan’s sofa, feeling deflated. “In that case, his murder probably had nothing to do with Yi’s murder. ”

  “That’s not necessarily true,” Ethan said as he joined her on the sofa.

  “Why would a triad want Yi dead? He had no involvement in organized crime.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were you. You’d be surprised by how often the interests of big business and the criminal underworld intersect. But even if you are right and Yi had no involvement with organized crime, my father sure as hell does. And, as it turns out, he has very close ties to The Yellow Tiger Triad.”

  Kira arched an eyebrow. “Coincidence?”

  “Not likely.”

  Kira rose to her feet and began to pace the room. “So you think that Jared may have used this triad to kill Yi and set up Gabriel, thereby getting them both out of the way of his plans for the sub-concession and then had Xiao killed to cover his tracks.”

  “That’s the working theory for now.”

  “That’s pretty damned diabolical.”

  “We’re talking about Jared Halifax here. Diabolical is his middle name.” As usual, Ethan’s voice took on a chilling quality when talking about his father that left Kira feeling unsettled. “What about you? Have you been able to dig up any useful information on your end?”

  Kira’s mind instantly returned to her last conversation with Gabriel and the revelations it had yielded

  You mustn’t breathe a word of this to anyone.

  Gabriel's desperately uttered admonition haunted her as did the look on his face as the police hauled him away. There was too much on the line for her to risk spilling her guts to someone that she didn’t trust and when it came to people that she didn’t trust, Ethan was, sadly, at the top of the list.

  “Nope,” Kira lied, averting her gaze from Ethan’s. “I got nothing. That’s why I’m here.”

  The expression on Ethan’s face when she returned her gaze to his was unreadable. “In that case, the only lead we have to follow up on is this Yellow Tiger connection.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “We don’t do that. Donovan and I will handle this.”

  Kira strategically bit back an angry protest. “Okay. How exactly do you and Donovan plan to do that?”

  “We’ve done some digging around and found out that The Yellow Tiger Triad runs a high limit poker game out of the VIP room of The Shangri-la on Macau and their Red Pole is a regular fixture at them.”

  “Red Pole?” Kira asked, puzzled

  “That’s triad-speak for ‘Enforcer’.”

  Kira nodded knowingly. “In that case, it makes sense that he would be in attendance at this poker game.” While she was hardly an expert on the triads, everyone knew that the VIP rooms in Macau were notorious for being a hotbed of illicit activities. “Do you think that this ‘Red Pole’ is the same person who killed Xiao.”

  “Most likely, which is why Donovan and I have arranged to play in the game scheduled for tonight. I want to get a look at this guy.”

  “But you didn’t even see his face.”

  “No, but I did get a good look at his height and build as well as the way that he moved,” Ethan explained. “That should be enough for me to figure out if we’re barking up the wrong tree or not.”

  “I got a good look at all of those things too, which is why you should take me with you to this game. Two pairs of eyes are better than one, after all.”

  “Absolutely not. I don’t want you anywhere near that VIP room.”

  “I don’t really care what you want,” Kira stated angrily.

  “You’ve made that abundantly clear. Regardless, you still aren’t coming with us.”

  “But…”

  “No buts!” Ethan barked loudly. “You’re not going! End of story!”

  Kira opened her mouth to say something but, seeing the look of fierce determination on Ethan’s face, quickly closed it. “Okay,” she said with a shrug as she headed towards the door.

  “That’s it?” Ethan asked incredulously as he followed on her heels. “That certainly wasn’t much of a fight.”

  Pausing at the door, Kira turned to face him questioningly. “Did you want a fight?”

  “Maybe,” Ethan said with a shrug. “After all, they say negative attention is better than no attention. Besides, I have always found our little skirmishes to be quite stimulating. And if you’re honest with yourself, so have you.”

  “Let me know what happens at the poker game,” Kira replied, not bothering to deny his assertion.

  Ethan gave her a wink as he reached out to run the back of his fingers down the side of Kira’s face, releasi
ng what felt like an entire flock of butterflies in her stomach in the process. “Oh, I'll definitely be keeping in touch with you.”

  ***

  The acrid smell of cigarette smoke mixed with the scent of desperation wafted up Ethan’s nose as he surveyed the thirtieth floor of The Shangri-La Macau, one of a handful of flashy new casinos to pop up on the Macau peninsula, standing out among the older casinos like a gilded rose amongst a field of wilting flowers. Leaning casually against the golden balustrade that cordoned off the wealthy denizens of the VIP section from their less affluent counterparts herded into the ground level of the casino, Ethan watched as a pair of triad members circled losing gamblers like sharks attracted by the smell of blood, offering lines of credits or in some cases extending previously issued ones, luring their hapless victims further and further into their trap. Neither of them were Xiao’s killer.

  “Still no sign of the shooter?” Donovan asked as he brought a high ball glass full of whiskey to his lips.

  “Nope,” Ethan replied as he idly stroked the stack of chips in his hand, allowing them to smoothly slide one by one through his fingers. The steady, rhythmic clack of plastic against plastic as the chips fell back into place drew a sharp glance from Donovan.

  “Watch your tells, little brother,” Donovan warned as he gave a slight nod towards Ethan’s anxiously moving fingers. “The minimum bet for this game is two hundred grand a hand. If you keep telegraphing your emotions like that, you're not going to last long against the crowd we will be playing against.”