Markus had been busy during my absence. The remainder of our dinner, spread out in a tasteful array, looked even better as takeout. Thankfully, it fit on top of the dining room table in the kitchenette corner of the place, along with two bottles of a red wine sitting side by side. One was opened and two glasses were poured. Taking both glasses and turning, my gaze took in the delicious sight of Markus’s jean clad ass while he bent over to check the fire escape. I kept admiring the view of those tight jeans as they outlined a set of muscular thighs. Those jeans stretched even tighter as he shifted from foot to foot. It took a conscious effort not to come up behind him and run my hand over the thick columns of thigh muscles, lightly caressing my way up and tormenting him the same way he unconsciously had been doing to me for some time. My fantasies were cut short as Markus came back inside. No one in their right mind would call him prey, I thought to myself, he wears the aura of predator like most of us wear our skins.
I handed him one of the glasses of wine, then filled a plate with food before sitting down on the couch. “Okay, get comfy and tell me what the hell this is all about. We’re safe here and the only way they can come in is through that door.” I laid the knife on the table beside me and looked meaningfully into his eyes. “And they aren’t getting me without a fight.”
He got his own plate of food and sat down. “Does the name Stephen Mentari ring a bell?” he asked casually. His gaze lowered to my throat as he spoke.
“I know the bastard. If you’ll recall, his son was my stepsister’s fiancé,” I growled.
“And one of the major financiers of the Nakamura clan.”
“He’s what!” I grabbed my glass of wine and took a drink to prevent another bout of hoarse coughing from my abused throat.
Markus nodded. “They needed a contact here in the USA and Mentari, Sr. was the best person available. So, they got to him through his son, Cosar. The chance for more wealth and power was too great a prize.”
I shook my head. “What does all this have to do with...” Then it hit me, the light went on. “Hold that thought, Markus.” I dug out my cell phone and dialed a number, cursing as my fingers weren’t fast enough.
Markus watched curiously, as I paced my way over to the window and looked at the moon as it cleared the horizon. A click sounded as the phone was picked up. Nogura, himself, answered. “Yes?”
“Father, if you are alone and your phone is not bugged, say yes.” I said in a calm normal voice, despite the pain it gave me.
A pause. “Yes.”
I sighed in relief. “We have a problem and after I hang up here, I’m going to head for Joey Shin’s place tomorrow morning. But I have to know something and I need you to be honest. Does the name Nakamura mean anything?”
“How did you come by that name?” His voice was suddenly tense. “I didn’t tell you, but yes, I know the name.”
I looked at Markus and answered Nogura. “Paul Montegard is on a slab in the Seattle metro morgue with his throat cut. He’s also pumped full of psychoactive drugs and alcohol. The last thing I heard before he attacked me was that they wanted some information out of me. Information I don’t have.” I paused to let that information sink in before adding, “He tried to kill me. My own dad forced me to kill him in self-defense. I had no choice. I’ve got a bruised throat and a set of cracked ribs to prove that he was trying to kill me.”
“The Nakamura clan has been our violent rivals for decades. They have always been willing to coldly exploit and savage any weaknesses in our family.” His voice became wary.
I rolled my eye and began to pace the room while talking. “Well, I’ve probably just become number one on their hit list. I may have a few of the answers, but they’re going to cost lives. Call Joey Shin and tell him to expect me and a friend at nine am tomorrow morning, our time.”
Markus’s eyes narrowed slightly as he listened to my side of the conversation. He reached over, picked up his glass of wine, and took a drink. I looked away and concentrated on the phone in my hand. It was hard, but I succeeded. Just something about that man made me want to go pour that wine down his bare chest and lick it up.
Nogura brought me back to the current situation and asked. “Who is the guest that is accompanying you to Joey Shin?” A suspicious note had entered his voice. “You bring trouble and...”
I had no choice now. With an apologetic look to Markus. “Does the name Kage Oni mean anything to you?”
A gasp from Nogura’s side of the phone. ”You have the Shadow Demon with you?” Then concern. “Are you all right, he hasn’t hurt you. Because if he has …” The threat, left wide-open, meant serious business if he followed through.
I tried not to laugh at the expression on Markus’s face and Ashi Nogura’s tone in my ear, “Father, he saved my life from the four monkey boys in the forest near the temple. He’s also the one that gave me the info to unlock this damned mess and solve Sara’s murder. So stop fussing. He’s keeping me alive at the risk of his own life. So do me a favor, be nice and clear him with Shin.”
He grumbled. “All right, all right. But be careful, Daughter. I don’t want to lose you as well.” The buzz of a dial tone in my hear let me know Nogura had hung up.
I put the phone down, then turned to Markus, “I know, I know, you said not to use that title. But I had to make it plain to my stepfather just how deep of a hole we were in and needed help to get out.”
He nodded. “So what happens now?”
“We finish this food, then we get some sleep.” I snagged a piece of Baklava from the plate and nibbled it. “You want the couch, or the bed?”
He looked at me with eyes that had gone darkly sensual, then handed me some wine, using his pinky to swipe some of the sticky food from my chin, and licked it clean. Watching him slowly lick that finger caused me to close my eye and down a large swallow of wine. Not that it did any amount of good. This time, my body definitely knew the real thing sat within reach. No fantasies could touch me like Markus just did. Just one tiny brush of flesh on flesh created an explosion of heat roaring through my system. Ignoring the sexual heat turning my body to jelly, I got up and stalked to the window, leaning against it to cool the dangerous attraction in my body. The tenseness of my body alone caused every bruise and sore spot to protest. But even that couldn’t dispel the physical demands.
He watched me as I moved. “Terri,” he murmured, “what’s wrong. You look like a nervous cat about to jump at anything.” He stood and came up behind me to touch my shoulder.
At the touch of his fingers, the medallion started to get warm. I drew it out of my shirt and glanced into the tiny mirror in time to see two hearts meld into one. Then the vision disappeared, leaving only a mirror that revealed both of us in it’s reflection. In my head, Her voice spoke one word. “Soulmate.” I turned to look Markus in the eye, and knew he had seen the same thing in the mirror. I spoke before he could ask. “I’ll explain later. It’s a bit complicated.” My heart thundered in my chest as my eye turned to watch the moonlight glitter on the waves like tiny diamonds dancing in the water.
Markus moved up behind me. Close enough so that his chest almost brushed against my back. “I heard her too.” He whispered in my ear, sending shivers up and down my spine. A memory of his lips on my neck below the Temple of Amaterasu flashed through my brain. Before I could react, he stepped forward to close the gap between us, then wrapped his powerful arms around me. It felt like a warm blanket with a heartbeat, his soft lips began planting tiny sensual kisses along the back of my neck and over my shoulder to the collarbone.
I tried to get my brain to function while my body had other ideas. “You what?”
One of his graceful hands reached up to flip over the mirror to reveal the kanji symbols. “I don’t know how it happened,” he whispered in my ear. “But the moment I went against the contract, it’s as if someone has been guiding me to you. I didn’t know who it was until I remembered whose shrine you were at in Japan.”
I reached up with my ow
n hand to touch his. It wasn’t enough to listen to his voice, to see his face, my body cried out for the feel of him. “We’ve only met, what? This makes the third time we’ve met face to face?” My hand caressed his forearm. “Why do I feel like I’ve finally found a missing part of my soul?”
He moved so I could see his face and he, mine. Ever mindful of my recent injuries, he pulled me into his arms and hugged me to him. “I can’t explain it either,” he murmured softly, “I don’t want to analyze it. Just try and relax for now.”
That made me smile. “Easy for you to say when we’re up to our eyeballs in assassins and murder.” I tried to wink, one-eyed, but it just isn’t the same. You had to have two eyes for that.
He looked down at me, running his hands over my face as if memorizing each dimple and contour by touch alone. His eyes followed his hands as they made their path downwards. The slow touch of his fingers forced a moan of anguished torment from me, especially when his fingertips grazed the hard nipples beneath the thin fabric of my t-shirt. My hands had a mind of their own as they caressed the hard muscles of Markus’s ass, then slowly caressed their way around to the front where the hard outline of his cock pressed against the fabric of his jeans. Moaning, his lips crashed down against mine in a sexual fever, wordlessly demanding that I surrender. My hands went to work on the zipper of his jeans while his hands were at work with my shirt.
Our actions were brought to a screeching halt when a bright flash lit up the night sky a mile south of our hotel. As one, we turned to look and my jaw clenched painfully. Flames shot skyward as we both watched. Even at this distance, I could tell the explosion came from the marina where my houseboat was moored. But my mind went blank at the flames. They held me paralyzed for precious moments as sweat broke out on my forehead. No! I whispered in my mind. I will not give in to hysterics. Fire will not hold me in its grip! Closing my eye, I fought an internal struggle, fighting the urge to whimper on the floor. Suddenly, I felt a hand in mine, giving me the warmth and the strength to fight back to the here and now. Opening my eye, Markus stood there, holding my hand. He smiled at me and whispered, “Stay with me.”
Standing, I moved to the phone near the bed after draining the last of my wine. Markus opened the window to peer down into the alley, giving me another view of his jean-clad ass. Looking away, I punched a button and got the main desk. I asked one question. The answer made me slam the phone down. “Markus!” I yelled, reaching for my duffle.
His head hit the windowsill with a painful grunt. Once inside, he took one look at my face and ran for the door, slamming all the locks home. Snatching up his jacket and putting it on, he reached into the back of his pants and came up with a Glock nine mm. He checked the clip and the chamber then closely inspected every corner of the room. Not much in the way of cover, but he made some by lifting the mattresses up to form a barrier between us and the door. While he worked, I rummaged through my C- bag for the laptop, camera, and the two swords. The Tanto I stuck in the small of my back. The disks and negatives went into the padded case with the computer while the camera fit perfectly in a small part of the computer case. The whole thing looked like a backpack, which would come in extremely handy if we needed to run. The Wakizashi I strapped sideways across my back so that the hilt jutted up over my right shoulder. I carried the Katana.
He looked at me in amazement. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” As he noticed the swords, “You said you didn’t know how to use those things.”
I flashed him a feral grin. “We have Nakamura’s punks on their way up the elevator as we speak. They find swords of this caliber lying around this room, they’ll find a way to use them against my stepfather. Now shut up and get ready to go.” I tilted my head slightly and chuckled. “I have my own aces in the hole, Markus. If you want to talk about it over Shinai swords one day, I’ll be happy to oblige you.”
He blinked. “Go where?” The gun was still pointed at the door.
“Down the fire escape. Do you really want to be here when they come through that door?” I asked with a touch of sarcasm. “I’m sure they’d love to talk to you.” I bent over, hissing in pain while squeezing out onto the fire escape. Six floors down is a long way to fall if we goof up. “Besides, I thought an assassin type like you would have already figured out at least three escape routes, not sit there and think about going out the front door.”
Popping noises from inside the apartment had me plastered to the cinderblock wall outside. Markus’s Glock responded with equal violence as he peppered the door with bullets. Taking a risk, I snuck a peek around the corner for a quick view and hollered. “Quit dicking around in there and let’s go!” Seconds after I ducked back out of sight, bullets chewed up the window frame where my head had been.
Markus dove through the shattered remains of the window and over the railing of the fire escape. He kept himself from taking that six-story plunge to the ground floor by grabbing onto the metal balcony with both hands. It was a white knuckled grip and his eyes were wide with alarm as he stared at the window.
I looked up in time to see one of the killers step out onto the landing. His eyes were on Markus instead of checking for a backup. Big mistake. I shifted my weight slightly and brought the sheathed Katana across the man’s kneecaps with all the force my body could muster. The sickening crunch of kneecaps breaking and the scream that followed were immensely satisfying. Still screaming, he fell forward and tumbled end over end, to finish up a red mess on concrete. Still hanging onto the railing, Markus began to grunt and swing his legs. When he let go, his feet had sufficient momentum to come down on the fifth floor landing. When I looked back at the window, company had joined us on the iron grillwork of the fire escape. He hadn’t aimed yet, which gave me time enough to draw the Tanto, step up behind him and lay the sharp edge up into his crotch, freezing him in place.
In Japanese, I said. “Tell your boy to back off. Now! Or you’ll be explaining to your boss why you let a mere woman gaijin castrate you like a useless dog.” To emphasize my point, I pulled upwards slightly, raising himself onto his toes. My gaze went downward in time to see Markus crouched there, his gun pointing up.
He relayed the message and the movements inside the room ceased. I slowly moved around the man in my tender care, taking full note of the tiny spider decorating his neck underneath his right ear. The Nakamura trademark. Fun. If there had been a spider web attached to it, he could’ve been a hostage until Markus and I reached the ground. But this one, his friend would probably shoot through him if we tried that. Soldiers of the Nakamura were always expendable if they were in the way of the target. Their clan always had soldiers who were fanatically loyal. If a soldier were to become a hostage, they were dead. No ifs, ands, or buts. They knew this.
I got in my captive’s face. “Good boy. Now, what I’m going to do, is go down this fire escape with my friend here. If you don’t want to die, you can wait right here and explain yourself to the cops.” In the distance, sirens were screaming and getting closer, lending credence to my words. “I’m sure they’d be very interested in why you’re in a room that I rented for two nights.”
He twitched. That got to him. “You will die in a most agonizing way. But only after you have begged our master for death a thousand times.” He grinned at the thought. “And then he may just feed you to his dogs a piece at a time while you still live.”
I matched his smile with one of my own, a rather unpleasant one. “That may be, asshole, but you won’t be alive to see it.” My gaze dropped down to see Markus covering me with his gun. “Besides, you so much as twitch right now, or your pal gets cute, the gentleman below you doesn’t miss. Choose, dog. Stay and explain as a whole man, try to continue this fight and die as a eunuch, or walk away and pray to your gods that we match wits one more time?”
He slowly made a hand motion behind him, and they both disappeared back into the room. I counted to ten, then took the stairs down three at a time. It’s a wonder we didn’t break our necks. With
Markus hot on my heels, we hit the ground running and quickly disappeared into the shadows of the alley.
Chapter Twelve
>Dawn broke over the land, warming it so that frost turned to steam in the morning light. It made the abandoned building look more ethereal with the reds and oranges coloring the walls. I tried to move from my curled up position only to find that the cold made my joints stiff. It took several minutes before my body decided to thaw out, but it gave me time to assess each ache and pain as it woke up from the cold. The pain of my ribs, the soreness of my throat, all made worse because of the weather.closed my eyes and indulged in a fantasy of a large tub filled with hot water and a mug of mulled cider sitting on a bench nearby. My imagination warmed my blood a bit more, causing me to move my hands with a bit more animation.
Markus stood on the other side of the building, gazing out at the darkened alley. His whole body on alert, even though he seemed to be dozing. At the sound of my moving around, trying to get everything to coordinate in my body, he turned and smiled at me. “You going to be okay?”
I sighed at the question. “As okay as it gets at this point.”
After several hours of playing dodge ball with cops and Yakuza killers, we made it to the Olympic marina. The fires were out, but that didn’t make the scene any easier to bear. Debris littered the dock area and floated like dead leaves in the water. Luckily, none of the fuel barges were in flames, but the Coast Guard had foamed them down just in case. Several of the boats that hadn’t sank, had emergency floats strapped to the sides to keep them afloat. Depressed, I moved through the crowds, keeping my head down and listening. Shortly after I had left in the taxi, my neighbor spotted something odd attached to the outside propane tanks of my boat as she walked her dog. Mrs. Maloon, a very nice elderly lady, headed for the main office to call the authorities. She barely made it to the safety of the dockside apartments when it blew. Her boat had been her retirement home. The only thing she had left in this world. Now some bastard had sent her home, her life, to the bottom of the marina. Hidden in the shadows, I watched her sob uncontrollably in the arms of a marina worker. Feeling helpless, I whirled and stormed back down the alleyway, the sounds of anguish still ringing in my ears. “Oh yes,” I thought to myself, “someone will bleed for this.” A silent human wraith paced next me as we searched for a place to calm down. Finding the abandoned building, we managed to catch catnaps for the rest of the night in freezing weather.
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