Playing With Fire (Games of Chance Series Book 2)

by T. L. Cannon

  “Oh, baby. It’s going to take more than just money,” Jade murmured as she lightly brushed her lips over Ethan’s.

  Ethan pulled his lips away from hers, ending the kiss before it got a chance to get started. “Why Ms. Vandercamp, I think you are trying to seduce me.”

  Just like you seduced both Gabriel and Jeremy Wong, Ethan thought to himself but refrained from mentioning.

  “Would you have a problem with that?”

  “Why would I?” Ethan hedged. “You are a very beautiful woman.”

  “So is Kira St. James,” Jade pointed out somewhat begrudgingly. “I got the impression that something may be going on between the two of you the night of the exhibition.”

  Ethan fought off a pang of guilt as he stroked Jade’s cheek with the back of his hand, watching her through eyes that mirrored the calculation he saw in hers. “There’s nothing going on between Kira and I that would prevent you and I from coming to a mutually satisfying arrangement.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Jade practically purred as she moved in for another kiss. Ethan rose to his feet before she could make contact.

  “We’ll delve into this matter more deeply after you get me that sub-concession.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “So Jade Vandercamp is banging both of the Wong brothers.” Donovan stroked his chin as he rolled this new bit of information around in his mind. “I’m surprised that none of this information showed up in any of my intel reports on the Wong family.”

  “Clearly, you’re not as good as you think you are,” Ethan groused as he slouched in his chair. The desire to knock Donovan’s teeth out had faded somewhat in the wake of Jade’s proposition but the anger he felt over Donovan’s attempt to rope Kira into one of his dangerous plans hadn’t.

  Ethan’s testy tone prompted Donovan to pivot away from the spectacular harbor view stretched out in front of him as he decided that it was wise not to turn his back on an angry man, brother or no brother.

  “And now she wants to sleep with you,” Donovan noted with amusement as he made his way from the window to the bar. “I guess there really is no accounting for taste. However, this certainly works to our advantage.”

  “I’m not sleeping with her,” Ethan said firmly.

  Donovan poured three fingers of scotch into a glass. “I didn’t say anything about you sleeping with her.”

  Ethan closed his eyes and absently began rubbing his temples. “You were about to.”

  Donovan downed his scotch with one gulp and then eyed his brother intently. “Given the nature of her relationship with both Gabriel and Jeremy, Jade is the best source of information about what’s been going on in Gau Lung. I’d bet my last dollar that she knows more about Yi’s murder than she’s letting on.”

  “Be that as it may, that’s not going to change my mind.”

  Donovan’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “If you were able to get the information that I need from Jade, I would have no need to go through with the plan I proposed to Ms. St. James.”

  Ethan quickly re-opened his eyes to glare at Donovan. “You manipulative bastard.”

  Sitting his empty glass down on the bar in front of him, Donovan raised both his hands in the air defensively. “I’m not saying that you have to sleep with Jade. Just string her along long enough to get your hands on the sub-concession. Or until you get enough information out of her to allow us to get the sub-concession some other way. Whichever comes first.”

  Ethan jumped angrily to his feet. “I’m not about to ruin whatever chance I have of getting Kira back, no matter how slim, just so you can get a damn gambling sub-concession!”

  “This isn’t about a damn gambling sub-concession and you know it!” Donovan fired back. “This is about avenging our mother. You vowed, along with me and Dylan, to do whatever it takes to make Jared pay. Have you changed your mind about that?”

  Ethan clenched his fist tightly at his side as he stared at Donovan with muted fury.

  Donovan nodded with satisfaction at Ethan’s telling silence before making his way up the staircase, leaving Ethan to continue to silently fume alone.

  ***

  Kira glanced down at her watch. She still had a few minutes before her scheduled meeting with Jade. Reluctantly, she picked her cell phone up from it’s resting place on her desk and flipped through the “missed calls” log, stifling the feeling of disappointment she felt at not finding Ethan’s number listed. She hadn’t heard from him since he’d left her apartment the day before. Perhaps he too had concluded that their relationship was hopeless. Maybe he had even left Hong Kong. The thought caused the knot that was already in the pit of Kira’s stomach to tighten further. Reaching into the inside pocket of the fitted navy blue blazer she wore, she pulled out Donovan Chance’s phone number. She still hadn’t given him an answer to his proposition. Idly, she tapped the card against her desk as she contemplated Donovan’s plan. While the idea of entrapping Jeremy into implicating himself was tempting, Ethan’s parting words about the dangerousness of the plan haunted her, as did the look on his face when he’d told her that he hadn’t walked away from their relationship unscathed.

  “Ugh!” Kira groaned to herself as she shoved Donovan’s business card back into her pocket, furious with herself for her inability to get Ethan out of her mind. Rising to her feet, she glanced at her watch again, relieved that it was time to head over to Jade’s office. Although, she had initially been dreading the meeting, she found herself eager for it to begin, grateful for any distraction she could get from the hot mess that passed for her love life.

  She was just about to round the corner leading to the hallway where Jade’s office was located when the timbre of a familiar male voice, seductively lowered, caused her to freeze in her tracks. Her heart slammed violently against her ribcage as a feeling of pure dread suddenly filled her. Cautiously, she peeked around the corner with the trepidation of a motorist rubbernecking at a car wreck on the highway, fearful of what she was about to see but unable to resist the morbid curiosity that caused her to look anyway.

  “So, you’ll talk to Jeremy today,” Ethan reconfirmed as he placed one hand against the door frame of Jade’s office and leaned in close to her.

  “My, aren't you in a hurry,” Jade cooed as she smiled up at Ethan.

  Damn right, I’m in a hurry, Ethan griped to himself. He had just agreed to pay Jade handsomely to push through the deal for the sub-concession and had heavily implied he’d give her much more than that in added “perks” so he expected results, pronto. The sooner he wrapped up this unpleasant charade with Jade, the sooner he could start working on getting his relationship with Kira back on track.

  “The sooner I get what I want, the sooner you get what you want,” Ethan explained huskily.

  Jade gave a quick, subtle glance down the hallway just in time to see Kira peek her head around the corner. Pretending not to notice her, she wrapped her arms possessively around Ethan’s waist. “I can hardly wait.” Suddenly flinging her arms around his neck, she planted her lips to his, unbothered by the stiffness of his response as she watched from the corner of her eye as Kira quickly scurried away.

  ***

  “Ms. St. James, what a pleasant surprise,” Donovan proclaimed as he waved her into his penthouse.

  Kira couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t seem at all surprised to see her.

  “I'm afraid Ethan's not here at the moment,” Donovan said as he followed her into the living room.

  “I'm not here to see Ethan,” Kira replied crisply. “I’m here to see you.”

  “In that case, can I assume you’re here to give me an answer to my proposition?”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. Are you in or out?”

  Kira took a deep breath before speaking. “In.”

  “Excellent.” Donovan smiled broadly.

  “Under one condition,” Kira added.

  The smile faded from Donovan’s face. “What condition?
”

  “I don’t want Ethan involved in this operation in any way. In fact, I don’t want him to know about it at all.”

  Donovan sighed deeply. “You ask a lot. Ethan and I are brothers, after all. Keeping him out of the loop could sow the seeds of disharmony in our little family. You saw how angry he got over my going behind his back to make this proposition to you in the first place.”

  Kira shot Donovan a withering glare. “Oh, please, spare me the family loyalty routine. You and I both know that you aren't above keeping secrets from your brother.”

  “Under ordinary circumstances you would be right, but this is different.”

  “How so?”

  “Because my brother happens to be in love with you.”

  Kira snorted derisively. “Yeah, right.”

  “As much as it pains me to admit it, it’s true. Ethan is crazy about you.”

  Kira blocked out the mental image of the kiss she'd witnessed between Ethan and Jade. “You and I are just going to have to agree to disagree on that point. But regardless of how your brother may or may not feel about me, I don’t want him involved in this Jeremy sting. I don’t want him around me at all. Those are my terms, take it or leave it. Deal?” Kira extended her hand to Donovan.

  Donovan absently rubbed his index finger along the jagged scar on his chin as he contemplated Kira’s terms and the hand she offered him. Finally, he reached out and accepted both. “Deal.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Adrenalin pumped through Ethan’s veins as he moved swiftly and efficiently through Jade’s apartment. Although he liked to think that he had reformed from his wicked ways, he couldn’t deny that he still got a rush out of breaking and entering. There was something about being somewhere that he wasn’t supposed to be that appealed to the mischievous little boy in him. Not that gaining entry into Jade’s apartment had been particularly challenging. Although she resided in one of the pricier residences in the notoriously pricey Hong Kong housing market, security in her building was a joke. He had quickly cased the place on his previous visit to Jade’s apartment, gathering enough information to easily slip past the guard in the lobby and circumvent the handful of woefully inadequate security cameras that left far more blind spots than he would ever allow at a Chance owned property.

  Digging into the deep pockets of his dark, wool trousers, he pulled out one of several tiny listening devices that he’d brought with him and planted it on the metal base of one of the glass end tables that bookended the sofa. After repeating that process with the other end table, he went on to plant other bugs in strategically selected locations in the living room before moving into Jade’s bedroom. He had just finished planting one behind the headboard of her bed when he heard the door to her apartment open. On quiet, catlike feet, he crept towards the bedroom door and peeked out the tiny crack he’d left in it, grateful for the fact that he’d had the foresight to leave it exactly as he’d found it.

  “You’re a naughty boy,” Jade purred as she rubbed her chest against Jeremy's, running her hands through the stiffly moussed spikes of of his hair. “Calling me away for an assignation in the middle of a work day like this.”

  Jeremy removed her hand from his hair. “I didn’t call you here for an assignation,” he replied impatiently. “We need to talk and I didn’t want to run the risk of being spied upon at Gau Lung. As you very well know there are cameras everywhere.”

  “Just talk?” Jade pouted as she pushed away from Jeremy. “About what?”

  “Kira St. James.”

  Ethan’s ears perked up at the mention of Kira’s name.

  “Why would you want to talk about that bore?” Jade huffed.

  “Because I got a strange phone call from her this morning. She wants to meet with me in The Atrium at Gau Lung this afternoon.”

  Jade arched an eyebrow. “In The Atrium? That’s an odd place to have a business meeting.”

  Jeremy shoved his hands into the pants pockets of his flashy purple suit as he began to pace the living room. “I don’t think she wants to discuss business. At least not Gau Lung business. She was being very mysterious. Kept babbling on about some document that she thinks I will find interesting.”

  “Do you think that she’s found out about your extracurricular activities?”

  “I don’t know. I just know that I don’t like it.” Jeremy ran an agitated hand through his hair. “I don’t like it one bit.”

  Neither do I, Ethan thought angrily, clenching his fist at the realization that Kira had obviously decided to go along with Donovan’s dangerous scheme and that neither of them had seen fit to tell him about it.

  “I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” Jade concluded after considering the matter. “If that goody two-shoes knew anything you’d be meeting with the Hong Kong Police.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Jeremy sighed. “But just in case, you’d better give me that little item I left here for safe keeping.”

  Jade eyed Jeremy curiously before heading towards the medium sized, abstract painting hanging on the far wall of her apartment, taking her out of the limited line of sight provided to Ethan by the narrow crack in the door. Removing the painting from it’s hinges, she deftly turned the dial on the combination lock of the safe hidden behind it. Ethan’s eyes widened as she returned to his field of vision and placed the requested item into Jeremy’s outstretched hands.

  “So tell me Jeremy, just what are you planning to do with that? Plunge it into Kira’s back, perhaps?” Jade asked hopefully in response to the gleam she saw in Jeremy’s eyes as he eyed The Dragon’s Breath.

  “No, nothing that dramatic,” Jeremy replied absently as he pulled the dagger from it’s ruby encrusted scabbard and slowly turned it in his hand, admiring the way the mid-morning sunlight bounced off the sharp edge of it’s shiny blade. “If Kira is onto my extracurricular activities, as you put it, I have much tidier ways of dealing with her.”

  “Then what are you going to do with that.”

  “Sell it. I want to sever all ties between me and the theft of The Dragon's Breath as soon as possible. Of course, with Xiao dead, I'm going to have to line up a new buyer.”

  “That's a shame. It really is a remarkable piece,” Jade sighed regretfully as she stepped in closer to Jeremy and ran a finger lightly over The Dragon’s Breath’s lethal edge before dropping her hand to cup Jeremy’s crotch. “Speaking of a remarkable piece…” Jade’s voice trailed off as she began nibbling provocatively on his ear.

  Oh, for crap’s sake! Ethan silently cursed as he watched Jade take Jeremy by the hand and begin guiding him towards her bedroom. Ducking inside Jade’s walk-in closet, he'd just managed to shut the door behind him a split second before Jade and Jeremy entered the room. Through the closed closet door, he could hear the tell-tale sounds of impending lovemaking as Jeremy and Jade quickly shed their clothes. Realizing that he was good and trapped for the duration, he settled into his darkened hiding place with more than a little impatience as he silently willed Jeremy and Jade to finish up quickly.

  He needed to get to Kira and talk some sense into her before it was too late.

  ***

  Kira looked down at the grainy, black and white photograph in her hand. Despite the low quality of the film used, the image of Jeremy, surrounded by what appeared to be a bunch of his triad cohorts was easily made out. “Where did you get this?”

  “From an associate in law enforcement,” Donovan explained, keeping his back to her as he stared out the window of her apartment.

  “In law enforcement?” Kira asked, not bothering to hide her incredulity.

  Donovan tilted his head curiously as he turned to face her. “You sound surprised?”

  “I am,” Kira replied. “I would have assumed that all your associates were of the unsavory variety.”

  “You also naively assume that there is a significant difference between the two groups.”

  “Spoken like a true misanthrope.”

  “More lik
e a realist,” Donovan explained with a shrug. “I’ve been around the block enough times to know that, for most people, morality is fluid, shifting and changing according to one’s self-interest. For the most part, I have no problem with associating myself with those who’s self-interests dove-tail with mine, regardless of the labels that society chooses to put on them.”

  “In other words, you are willing to lie down with dogs and ignore the fleas as long as it gets you what you want. Not exactly an admirable trait.”

  “But not an uncommon one as evidenced by the joint endeavor that we are about to embark upon despite your obviously low opinion of me,” Donovan replied. “Although, I assure you, no matter how unsavory you find me, I don’t in fact have fleas,” he added with a smile.

  Kira didn’t smile back. Unable to refute his point, she decided to get back to the subject at hand. “What do you want me to do with this photo?”

  “Show it to Jeremy when you meet with him along with the forged letter from Yi. The combination should be enough to get a reaction out of him.”

  “But exactly what kind of a reaction will it trigger?” Kira asked, apprehension suddenly creeping up on her as she recalled Ethan’s warning about the potential dangers of rattling Jeremy’s cage.

  “We’re not going to let anything happen to you,” Donovan stated firmly, sensing Kira’s trepidation.

  “We?” Kira asked, her apprehension turning to dismay. “What do you mean we? I told you I don’t want Ethan involved in this.”

  “I wasn’t referring to Ethan,” Donovan explained. A knock on the door prevented him from providing further clarification. Moving to answer it before Kira did, Donovan gave a slight nod of approval at the two men on the other side of the door as he ushered them into the apartment. “Right on cue.”

  Kira recognized the dark haired man the minute he entered the room. “Dylan? What are you doing here?”

  “Providing backup,” he replied as he flashed her a smile that contained an openness that was markedly different from the cynical grins favored by his two older brothers. As the youngest of the Chance brothers, Kira had found Dylan to also be the most level-headed of the trio during the time that she had tangled with them in Vegas and his presence went a long way towards easing some of her anxiety about her upcoming meeting with Jeremy. “And who is this?” she asked, turning her attention to the man who had arrived with Dylan.