by T. L. Cannon
“That was Dylan,” Donovan explained after he ended the call. “He and Kyle just got through checking the recordings from the bugs you planted in Jade’s apartment. There’s something on them that you need to hear.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ethan watched Gabriel with eyes as sharp as cut glass as the other man listened to the recording from Jade’s apartment and heard his own voice. “You’re the one who told Jade about Kira’s plans to set up Jeremy. She told you everything before the meeting in The Atrium and you betrayed her confidence by spilling the beans to Jade who in turn tipped Jeremy off. He knew that she was setting him up. That’s why he had his triad friends waiting in the wings.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Gabriel said as he scooped up the recorder from it’s place on his office desk and shut it off with trembling hands. “If Jeremy knew what Kira was up to, all he had to do was not show up for the meeting. That would be the logical thing to do.”
“His actions at The Atrium show that he has abandoned logic all together,” Ethan explained with a calmness that he didn’t feel. “Clearly, he’s lost his mind.”
“Maybe he has,” Gabriel conceded grimly. “But Jade certainly hasn’t. There is no reason for her to have tipped Jeremy off.”
“Only if you don’t count the fact that she’s banging him,” Donovan replied brutally.
“What?” Gabriel sputtered, as he looked at Donovan with a combination of disgust and disbelief. “That’s impossible. She hates him.”
“It’s impossible because she hates him, not because she is incapable of such a betrayal?” Ethan queried, his eyes growing even colder than they’d already been. “So you’re not totally blind to her true, duplicitous nature after all, which makes the fact that you told her what Kira was up to even more unforgivable.”
“I didn’t know that she was sleeping with my own brother, for crying out loud!” Gabriel bellowed as he ran a hand through the dark slickness of his hair. “I still don’t.”
“Then let me clear the matter up for you,” Ethan replied as he pulled another small recorder from his jacket pocket and pushed the play button.
Gabriel winced as the sound of Jade’s voice filled the void of silence in his spacious office, murmuring and moaning while Jeremy had made love to her the morning before. Soon her voice was joined by Jeremy's as he'd urgently whispered salacious instructions to her between his own grunts and groans.
“Turn it off,” Gabriel pleaded before cradling his face with his hands, shaking his head with disbelief.
Ethan quickly obliged.
Slowly, Gabriel's hands slid down his cheeks, removing the shield from his face. “I didn’t know.”
“Now you do,” Ethan shot back unsympathetically. “Kira is in danger now because she was trying to help you. Now, you are going to help her by doing exactly what I tell you to do.”
Gabriel sighed heavily and then slumped back into his chair in resignation. “What do you want me to do?”
Rising to his feet, Ethan picked up the receiver of the phone on Gabriel's desk and handed it to him. “Call Jade and tell her to meet you at The Wong Estate right away.”
“Then what?” Gabriel asked as he took the receiver from Ethan’s hand.
“We’ll discuss that when you get off the phone,” Ethan said as he paced towards Dylan and Kyle who had posted themselves on either side of the door leading into Gabriel’s office like a pair of guard dogs.
“Well, that was easy enough,” Kyle replied as he watched Gabriel dial Jade’s number.
“That’s because that was the easy part,” Ethan replied as he ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. “The hard part is what comes next.”
“What happened to your hand?” Dylan asked as he noticed the redness and swelling on Ethan’s knuckles. “Triad punk?”
Ethan gave a quick shake of his head. “Donovan’s mouth,” he replied as he absently rubbed at his bruised knuckles, the resulting jab of pain barely registering. “He doesn’t know when to shut it.”
Dylan nodded sympathetically. “Been there, done that. Did it make you feel any better?”
“Nope,” Ethan admitted before walking back to Gabriel’s desk.
“She’s on her way,” Gabriel announced as he placed the receiver back into it’s cradle. “Now what?”
“Now, we start playing offense,” Ethan announced, a grim smile curving his lips like the blade of a saber.
***
“What do you mean I’m out?” Jade sputtered, staring at Gabriel in disbelief.
“I think the statement was fairly self explanatory,” Gabriel said sharply from his seat behind the desk in what had once been his father's study. “But if not, allow me to clarify. You are no longer affiliated with Gau Lung or the Wong family in anyway. Your access badge at Gau Lung has been deactivated, the passwords on your computers have been changed and your company credit card has been canceled.
“What? I...I don’t understand,” Jade stammered, a look of bewilderment distorting her delicate features. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because, although I have spent a lifetime having to share everything with my twin brother, I draw the line at sharing the woman I’m sleeping with.”
Jade stared blankly at Gabriel for a moment as she debated whether or not there was any point in denying his accusation. Her eyes narrowed once she’d made her decision. “How did you find out?’
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters now is that I know which is why you’re out.”
Jade's eyes darted frantically around as she quickly calculated everything she was losing. “You can’t do this.”
“Actually I can. With Jeremy on the run, I am now in charge of both Gau Lung and the Wong family which means that your days of feeding from the family trough are over. Now get out.”
***
From his seat in the back of the nondescript white van that Kyle smoothly pulled into a vacant slot directly across the street from Jade’s apartment building, Ethan watched as Jade hurried towards the front entrance through a thin mist of drizzle. She hadn’t noticed the van following her from The Wong Estate. The listening device Gabriel had worn during their meeting had assured that he’d followed Ethan’s script to the letter. Limiting Gabriel's knowledge of his plan entirely to the words contained on that script assured that he wouldn't muck things up any further. The rest was up to Ethan.
“You're on,” Donovan said over his shoulder from his position in the front passenger’s seat of the van.
Moving past the collection of high tech spy equipment cluttering the back of the van, Ethan reached for the handle of the door. The ringing of his cell phone stopped him from exiting the vehicle. His body tensed as he heard the voice on the other end of the line.
“That was a dumb move at The Atrium,” Jeremy hissed.
“Jeremy,” Ethan said through clenched teeth, immediately garnering the attention of the other three men in the van with him.
“You recognized my voice. I’m flattered.”
“Where’s Kira?” Ethan demanded.
“That is the million dollar question, isn’t it?”
Ethan's hand tightened into a tight, lethal fist around the phone. “I swear, if you’ve done anything to hurt her…”
“You can stop your chest thumping. She’s fine. For now. In fact, I’m looking at her right now.”
“Let me speak to her.”
“First we need to discuss some business.”
“What type of business.”
“Well, I find myself a bit pressed for cash right now, thanks to you and your brothers. I’m giving you the opportunity to remedy that.”
“You want money in exchange for Kira,” Ethan surmised.
“You catch on quickly.”
“How much?”
“I’m thinking twenty million should be sufficient for my needs at the moment.”
“You won’t get one red cent until you give me some proof that Kira is alive.”
Ethan’s
statement was met with a long, silent pause. When the silence was broken it was Kira’s voice that he heard in his ear.
“Ethan?”
She sounded weak and scared out of her mind but at least she was alive. That fact was enough to loosen the tight knot of fear that had been squeezing relentlessly at Ethan’s gut from the moment he’d realized that Jeremy had snatched her.
“Everything is going to be okay, sweetheart,” Ethan said, his voice soft yet firm. “I’m going to get you out of this, I swear.”
A fresh river of tears began to stream down Kira’s face at the sound of Ethan’s voice. “I know you will. I trust you.”
Ethan’s eyes briefly fluttered shut at Kira’s words. He had waited so long to hear her say them and mean them and even through the fear and pressure of the current circumstances he could feel their emotional impact. When he re-opened his eyes there was a look of renewed determination in them. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Kira managed to get out just before Jeremy snatched the phone away from her.
“So do we have a deal, now?” Jeremy asked impatiently.
“We have a deal,” Ethan replied.
“I’ll give you two hours to get the money together and then call back with further instructions.”
With that the line went dead.
***
Jade stood frozen in the midst of the snowy whiteness of her living room, the wheels in her mind reeling in her desperate search for a way out. She couldn’t return to Jeremy without any money. He’d kill her for sure. But without Gabriel, there was no way that she would be able to gain access to his accounts. And even if there was a way, there was no guarantee that Jeremy wouldn’t still kill her once he got the money.
The realization sent Jade, pacing around the room. Cheng had been right, Jeremy was completely unraveling and if she didn’t play her cards right he would take her down with him. It was time to cut her losses but she had no intention of walking away empty-handed. Not after everything she had done for Jeremy.
A knock on the door cut through her increasingly frantic thoughts. When she opened it, she found Ethan standing on the other side.
Jade's eyes lit up at the sight of a potential way out. “Ethan, what a pleasant surprise. Come in.”
With his hands stuffed into the pockets of his trousers, he casually strolled into the living room.
Jade smile sweetly up at Ethan. “At our last meeting, we discussed how much money it would take to get you the sub-concession. I have a firm number now.”
“Apparently, there’s a lot of that going around.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I just got a phone call from Jeremy Wong. He offered to return Kira in exchange for twenty million dollars.”
Jade's fake twisted into a frown. “Is that so?”
Ethan nodded. “As if I’d pay that much money for her.”
Jade darted an eyebrow upward. “You turned him down?”
“Not yet,” Ethan replied with a shrug. “I mean I supposed that I do owe it to her to at least try to negotiate her release since my brother and I got her into her current predicament. Using Kira to get the goods on Jeremy seemed like a good way to gain leverage over him in regards to the sub-concession. I had no idea that Jeremy would overreact like he did. I feel bad that Kira got caught in the crossfire, so to speak, but there is no way that I’m paying twenty million dollars ransom for her. Aside from the sub-concession, the only thing that I’d pay that much for is The Dragon’s Breath.”
Jade didn’t even bother to hide the avaricious glint in her eyes. “Well, this must be your lucky day.”
“Really?” Ethan asked, feigning surprise that he didn’t feel. “How so?”
“Because I happen to be in a position to deliver both the sub-concession and The Dragon’s Breath.”
Ethan snickered. “That’s not what I heard.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean bad news travels fast in Hong Kong. Word is out that Gabriel has kicked you out on your cute little keister, leaving you in no position to deliver that sub-concession or anything else related to Gau Lung.”
The fake smile on Jade’s face faded. “But I can deliver The Dragon’s Breath.”
“Why should I take your word for that after the bullshit you just tried to sell me about the sub-concession?”
“You won’t have to take my word for it when I place it in your hands.”
“Ah, but will it be the real McCoy or another fake like the one in police custody?”
“You can have your own expert on hand to authenticate it at the time of transfer.”
Ethan pretended to mull over the offer as he watched her squirm, her desperation becoming an almost palpable presence in the room. “How soon can you deliver?’
A Cheshire cat's grin spread across Jade’s face. “One hour.”
Ethan returned her grin with a sly one of his own as he ran a hand slowly down her back. “In that case, I’ll see you in one hour.”
CHAPTER TWENTY- ONE
Kira awoke from her nightmare in a cold sweat. Once again her senses took in the oppressive darkness, the dank smell of mold, the throbbing pain where the thin strips of rope cut mercilessly in to the flesh around her wrists and ankles.
Once again she realized with a sudden, heart shuddering start that her nightmare was real.
She had been drifting in and out of consciousness quite frequently, no doubt a lingering side effect of whatever drug Jeremy had given her. As a result she had lost all sense of time. Had it been a few hours since her brief phone conversation with Ethan or a few days?
Everything is going to be okay, sweetheart. I’m going to get you out of this, I swear.
Ethan’s reassuring words wrapped around her like a warm blanket, warding off the chill of fear. Just knowing that he was out there somewhere, fighting for her…for them…gave her hope that she would get out of this thing alive. But she couldn’t just lay around waiting to be rescued.
She needed to fight too.
But how? Kira twisted uneasily on the bed, wincing at the painful strain in her lower back from the awkward way that she was now splayed across the bed. As she attempted to adjust her position, she noticed for the first time that the mattress had shifted beneath her while she was sleeping with the top half hanging precariously over the edge of the metal bed frame, no doubt as a result of all the tossing and turning she had been doing while asleep. Utilizing as much mobility as the restraints around her ankles and wrists would allow, she attempted to maneuver the mattress back into place by twisting her torso in the direction she wanted the mattress to go. In the midst of her awkward shimmying she felt a jab of pain shoot up from her right elbow as it scraped against something sharp and metal. Looking down, she ignored the blood that dripped from the open cut that was now on her elbow, focusing her attention instead on the source of the cut. The sharp, jagged tip of the broken coil jutted out approximately one and a half inches from the side of the mattress, tearing easily through the thin cloth material covering it.
Was it sharp enough to cut through rope? Kira asked herself, her heart racing with a sudden surge of hope as she deliberately rubbed her injured elbow over at again in an attempt to further gauge it’s cutting power. Convincing herself that it was sharp enough, she began to shimmy again, this time maneuvering her body up towards the top of the mattress so that she could position her bound wrists over the broken mattress coil. A sharp prick at the delicate skin of her wrist brought a halt to her quick, frantic movements, reminding her to proceed with caution. She wanted to sever the ropes around her wrists not the veins within. With slower, more deliberate movements, she began to rub the rope against the metal, focusing her efforts on the point in the middle where her two wrists met. To her almost overwhelming relief, she felt the rope snag on the jagged metal. Ignoring the pain that shot through her back and shoulder blades in protest against the awkwardness of her contortions, she continued to rub the rope against the coil in a s
teady back and forth motion, causing the metal to slowly but surely saw through the myriad of tiny strains of brittle hemp that comprised the rope.
Even though the rope was relatively thin, the process of cutting through it was arduous and time-consuming but after what seemed to Kira like a million passes over the coil, she finally felt the rope begin to give way. After what felt like a half million more strokes, her wrists were free. Moving quickly now, she reached down to untie the ropes binding her ankles.
Clearly, Cheng had never been a boy scout, she thought with gratitude as she was able to undo the rudimentary knots tethering her ankles to each other and the bed frame with surprising ease.
Flinging her legs over the side of the bed, she sat motionless for a few moments, allowing the blood that had been restricted by the ropes to flow down into her numbed feet. As she waited for sensation to return to her limbs, she scanned the room and plotted her next move. When she was finally able to feel her feet again, she moved quickly. Kneeling on her knees on top of the mattress, she clawed at the torn material surrounding the protruding coil, widening the hole. When the hole was wide enough for her to slip her hand inside, she ripped viciously at the material with all her strength, grunting loudly from the effort.
“Come on,” she urged as she struggled to pry the material off in strips. After a considerable amount of exertion she had managed to accumulate about a half dozen strips of nylon of varying lengths. Layering them together, she wrapped them around her hand as she gauged the jagged coil again, this time with her eyes. Using the layers of cloth as a buffer between her hand and the sharp metal, she began to sever the protruding piece of coil away from the rest of the framework of the mattress. Pulling and twisting at the metal prong with every bit of strength she had in her, she was finally able to break off about three inches of the coil.
Racing to the storage room door, she pressed her ear against it and listened. Hearing only the sound of her own heart thumping loudly within her chest, she knelt down in front of the door and began manipulating the metal coil, getting it as straight as she possibly could. Then, with hands that were surprisingly steady given the amount of adrenalin she felt coursing through her body, she inserted the coil into the tiny hole located in the middle of the doorknob, using it as a make-shift pick. Calling to mind the memory of the ease with which Ethan had picked the lock on the storage room in her apartment building, she attempted to duplicate his movements. Of course, she wasn’t the master thief that Ethan was but she was a strong believer in beginner's luck. With neither finesse nor skill, she wiggled the piece of metal in the lock, up and down, left and right, round and round, praying to catch a break. After several minutes and an abundance of blind faith, she felt the piece of metal still between her fingers, as if it had gotten caught on something inside the lock. Sending up another barrage of silent prayers she twisted the metal spike to the left, almost crying out loud with relief as she felt the cylinders inside the lock follow suit.