The bang of a door slamming shut above Roman, made him jump. Everything throughout the building had quieted to nothing. He didn’t even hear a peep from those still downstairs. It was a good thing, actually. He doubted everyone killed each other. If someone survived, it was probably Violet. That also meant that Willy might have too. After the multiple run-ins with Mako’s people, he seriously doubted a couple of B-list thugs could take down those two.
His best men are probably already dead.
Back against the wall, Roman gripped his gun and spun out into the hall, ducking onto one knee. If it were him, he would’ve faked the door slam and continued with the plan he’d come up with earlier.
But Mako was gone.
“Well, then…” Roman muttered, taking the wood steps one at a time, noticing the trail of blood as he did. Once at the top, he peeked through the slight gap between the door and its frame. Unfortunately, it only gave him a view of about a quarter of the roof. Mako could be standing just out of sight, and he’d never know it until it was too late.
“Hmmm.” Roman needed to think of a way around the problem. He shifted and leaned against the left-hand wall, feeling something poke into his lower back. It was his other gun.
“Eh, what the hell.”
He gripped his second pistol and drew it, readying them both. He would do his best to make Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid proud. Breathing in deep, he looked back down the hall, hoping he’d see Violet and Willy appear to help.
But they didn’t.
Roman was on his own.
“Well, here goes nothin’.”
He put everything he had into the kick and burst through with the intent on putting every bullet he had into Mako. But as he leveled the guns at the surrounding rooftop, doing a complete three-sixty, Roman found it to be totally empty. His adversary was nowhere to be seen. Nonchalantly, he scratched his temple with the tip of his gun’s barrel, looking back to the roof access in utter confusion.
“What the hell?”
He was half in the dark and couldn’t see very much, but what he did know, was that Mako had vanished into thin air. Unlike Bish’s building across the street, this one didn’t have an outside ladder to scale down.
Did he fake the door like I thought? Maybe he stayed on one of the other upper floors?
Roman knew better. Even a wounded killer was still a killer. Mako wouldn’t be running away from this fight. Plus, he would’ve seen a trail of blood leading somewhere else.
“Where’d you go, Jaws?” Roman asked, hoping the taunt would reveal the shark’s location. He sniffed. “Where’d you run off to, Fish Breath?” He waited and listened. “Maybe we should change your name to Bruce instead?”
Nothing. Not even the Finding Nemo jab worked.
Backing away, Roman moved ever cautiously back to the stairs. If he couldn’t find Mako here, he’d try to go back and look for Violet and Willy. The only way out of the building was the front and rear doors. They would be able to wait for him at either and take him down then.
Violet.
Her beautiful face and perfect body flashed across his mind again, as did her aggressiveness in bed. She was an animal that needed someone to love and tame her. Roman wanted to be that man.
The memory of Violet was the reason he didn’t notice the ghostly form jumping down from the shack to the stairs.
Mako landed hard, right on top of Roman, knocking both his guns away. One went left. The other went right. Then, he did what was natural, Roman covered his face with his arms and did what he could to deflect the barrage of fists that met them.
He quickly lifted his legs and shoved Mako in the ass, knocking him off balance. His compromised leg made him comply, and he shambled away in rage. Roman leapt to his feet and squared off against the equal-sized opponent. While usually confident in his ability to fight unarmed, he knew that Mako was just like any other wounded predator. He was bound to be wild and unpredictable.
The fact he had no gun was a blessing too. He must have run dry before moving to the roof. If he had even one more round left, Roman would’ve been a dead man. He let his lust for Violet cloud his judgment and distract him from his task. Roman had never been so unfocused since joining the CIA.
“How’s the leg?”
Mako snarled like a rabid dog.
“Down boy.”
“You’ll never stop us.”
Roman laughed. “Do all you super villains use the same corny-ass lines?” He belted out another laugh. “Are you gonna tell me that my ‘attempts are futile’ next?” He sniffed and relaxed. “Seriously, though, you should try out for the next Incredibles movie or somethin’. At least with a comfy voice-over gig, no one will have to see that gruesome eye of yours.”
Mako roared and launched his next attack, using mostly a combination of left jabs and straight rights. Roman knew the guy could use his legs just by the way he set himself up to fight.
Probably can’t now, though.
The “bad leg” snapped up and surprised Roman. He blocked it but felt one of his fingers snap in the process. He cried out in agony and bull-rushed Mako, shoving him to the ground hard. Before moving in, Roman grit his teeth and popped his dislocated finger back into place. It had happened to him once before when he got tackled in a game back in college.
He thought about going for one of his guns but, instead, decided not to give Mako any more time. Roman dove on top of him and tried to pin him to the ground. It worked long enough for him to get his arms wrapped around the rampaging beast of a man. Mako clawed and pounded on Roman’s arms, trying to pry him free of the chokehold.
Roman was caught off guard when Mako let his body go limp, yanking free of his grip. Then, he kicked out Roman’s legs and ran for the nearest gun. Almost not making it in time, Roman kicked away his outstretched hand and once again went for his throat.
But Mako was ready for it.
He grabbed Roman’s right arm and flipped him over his back, slamming him to the unyielding roof. Landing with a thud, Roman got the wind knocked out of him and wheezed for air. As he struggled to breathe, he was dragged to his feet and punched half a dozen times in the face and stomach. The blows took most of the fight out of him.
The next thing he knew, Roman was leaning headfirst over the street below. Mako was trying to toss him over the edge. Barely having the strength to fight back, Roman did the only thing he could, he mule-kicked Mako in the crotch as hard as he could twice. He was shocked when the killer let up. So, he did the only other thing he could think of.
Roman grabbed Mako and pulled him forward with him towards the inevitable six-story fall. Mako yelped in surprise, but Roman didn’t. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Willy’s two-foot-long barb was still stuck in the top of the ledge, right where they left it. She had disconnected the cable they used to trolley down when they first entered the building, a mission that seemed like a lifetime ago.
Gripping it hard as he fell, Roman was confident the stuck metal would hold his weight. All he had to do was pray that his bloodied hands wouldn’t slip. Mako went tumbling over next but caught Roman’s belt on the way down. The sudden weight caused Roman’s left hand to slip and his right hand to falter. Any second now, he’d fall with the Gilded Blade leader and die.
“Roman!” The voice came from below.
He looked between his legs and saw Violet and Willy, the latter having to be held up. Both women survived their encounter. The fight wasn’t lost, and Roman needed to survive his own battle and rejoin them.
Keeping his promise to Freddy, Roman reached inside his jacket and unsheathed the injector knife. He depressed the gas release valve and jammed the blade into the meat of Mako’s shoulder. It slipped halfway in and stopped when it hit something solid. Mako screeched in pain, but amazingly, didn’t let go.
But that was before the CO2 kicked in. The wound began to balloon the skin surrounding the joint, destroying, and then freezing, everything it touched. Roman couldn’t ima
gine the kind of pain Mako was in, and he didn’t want to. Regardless of how he felt about it, Mako deserved every bit.
Finally, the shoulder popped and jarred Mako free. He fell sixty feet and landed on the hood of a car. Cringing against the pain, Roman found a foothold and pushed himself back onto the roof, breathing heavily when landed. Flat on his back, he decided to take a minute to catch his breath.
Thirty seconds later, he stumbled his way downstairs.
Violet met him at the front door, having unlocked it from the inside. Willy was sitting on the ground next to the car with a dead shark embedded in its hood. She could only wave as Roman helped her up, softly embracing his friend.
They piled into one of the nearest cars left by Mako's men and headed for the closest ER. Willy was in bad shape. They needed to get her medical attention. Her cover was still intact, and thankfully, the bosses back home had no idea of her involvement in Roman's plans. She could blame her beating on a gang jumping her while Roman and Violet were running the mission on their own.
Posing as just your ordinary couple, they explained to the ER doctor that they were driving by when Willy flagged them down for a ride. Being the stand-up citizens that they were, they agreed to help the distraught woman.
After their story checked out with hospital security, they left and got back on the road. Violet leaned to the side and procured a smooth, black object from her back pocket.
“What’s that?” Roman asked.
“Mako’s phone. I grabbed it after he landed. Didn’t have time to tell you with everything happening.”
He smiled and headed for his apartment. He had all the equipment there to hack the device and access its records. They should be able to track down Madame with no problem now.
They were that much closer to ending this thing.
24
With Mako dead, Violet allowed herself to lower her guard a little. They just drove across the city to a nondescript high-rise and parked in a run-of-the-mill parking structure. Roman’s cover was that of a successful import/export salesman, giving him the ability to be gone for extended periods of time without anyone thinking anything of it.
The company he worked for, the false employer, not the CIA, was legitimate in every way. He explained that the people back in Langley ran numbers and did the actual work he was credited for here. Even his other employers didn’t know he was an agent. His credentials were falsified and his hiring setup to look legitimate. The CIA had a lot of dirt on the hiring manager. They used it to force him to bring Roman and Willy on board.
Roman had no schooling or training in the sales field, but the brass back in the States could manage with it just fine. It was as close to cheating on your homework as Violet had ever seen.
Not that she knew what that was like. She had never attended a traditional high school in her life. Ms. Cho taught her the ways of the outside world while the elder Dragons taught her to kill.
“You still think she made it?”
Roman glanced over his shoulder as he sat at his computer. “What?”
“Ms. Cho… When I saw Willy, I thought of Ms. Cho too. If Willy survived the attack, maybe she did too.”
He plugged Mako’s cell phone into the high-powered laptop and sat back. A progress bar told them it would take a few minutes before they broke through and given access to the device.
“Well, you tell me, Ms. Liu,” Roman replied, spinning his chair around. Violet was seated on his bed, halfway across the room. “Does Ms. Cho have any aliases?”
Violet nodded. “We all do. Don’t you?”
He nodded. “Of course. Eddie Cornell, Chris Vedder, to name a few. I combined two of my favorite singers into two different names. I even have one named after my favorite 90’s action movie character.” He grinned. “So, Lucy Liu?”
Her eyes said to drop it, so he did.
“If she did survive,” Violet continued, “she would’ve gone to a hospital under one of her many false personas. We won’t be able to find her without outing her as a fake.”
“Then,” Roman said, “we wait and hope she contacts us instead.”
He got up and moved to her, kneeling in front of her. Then, he gently brushed a hand through her hair. “It’ll be easier once this shit is done. We can go underground for a while and snoop around without anyone lookin’ for us.”
“What about Willy?”
He shrugged. “Her name is Willamina Flores, and she works for the same tradin’ company I do. We did that so it makes it easy for us to move around together. The news of her hospitalization will reach our fake bosses by mornin’, which means it’ll reach Langley too.” He scratched his head. “If everythin’ goes as planned, the Company will contact me and ask what happened. I’d like this to be over with by then.”
“If not?” Violet asked.
“Then we’ll have the entire international division of the CIA breathin’ down our throats, and you’ll be in some serious trouble. I’m sure they’d love to get a hold of you and see what you know. Information is key to the Central Intelligence Agency. It’s not just a clever name, you know.”
“I’ll be a prisoner.”
“Pretty much.”
The laptop dinged, getting their attention. Roman sat back down and pulled up two additional screens. Violet wasn’t sure what either of them was, nor did she honestly care. Roman was doing what he was trained to do, and she trusted him to do it.
“Okay,” he said, speaking as he typed, “looks like Mako only used this phone sparingly—probably only a couple of people had the number.” He quietly typed for a few seconds before speaking again. “We have a few numbers incomin’ and outgoin’ that repeat so we’ll start there.”
“Start the night of the attack,” Violet said.
“Sure, good idea.” He typed. “If Mako orchestrated the assault, then there should be calls goin’ to and from before and after.”
She watched as he entered yesterday’s date.
Was it really only yesterday that my home was destroyed?
It felt like so long ago. It meant that it had only been a little longer than that since her sisters died. Most of their missions were finished the night they started. They specialized in quick hitters, never taking more than a few hours to complete any of them. Going undercover, like they did in the Third Floor, slowed them down for sure but normally only for a few hours at most.
Being on the move for two days now was a new experience for her. Even after they took out their targets, the Dragons could be seen walking the streets of Tokyo the next morning without the worry of being hunted or arrested. Being a fugitive was a different way to exist. She would need to continue to trust in Roman. He was obviously comfortable with everything, which begged the question: How many times has he done something like this?
“Here we go,” he said, pointing at a phone number. “This number called him before we got hit.” Next was the name associated with the number. “Well, shit, I know this guy. Well, I’ve heard of him, anyway. He’s a cop with the TMPD.”
“Not our lady then.”
“No, but it confirms that Mako had help from local PD. It’s why nothing sticks to him when he gets taken in,”
“What about after?” she asked, getting up and leaning over his shoulder.
“Um…” He scrolled down but cursed. “Damn. Nope, not what we’re lookin’ for.”
“Maybe the helicopter?”
“Could be,” he glanced at her, “but it’s kinda hard to call in when you’re dead.”
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a different looking number. It had a strange coding surrounding it, looking very different than the others. Not that she understood the coding, to begin with.
“Huh, I’m not sure.”
Roman tapped the pad of his laptop and brought up the finer details of the caller. Something must’ve registered because he pulled out his phone and smiled.
“That’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“The num
ber, it was a FaceTime call. Who would Mako be FaceTimin’ hours after obliteratin’ a mansion?”
“Madame…” Violet couldn’t think of anyone else a man like Mako would video call while on a job. “She was probably checking in and wanted to see the result.”
“But why?” he asked. “Why would she care what the house looked like afterward. What’s so important to her?”
“No one other than a past Dragon or Keeper even knows where it is,” Violet said. “We take our secrecy seriously. You know that…”
“What is it?” Roman asked.
“Madame and Mako knew where to hit us,” she replied, standing tall. “What if it’s because she already knew where we’d go—a place that no one knew about…” her eyes met his, “unless you were a former Dragon.”
“Wait, seriously, you think Madame was a Beautiful Dragon in the past?” He bit his lip as he thought. “I mean, I guess it’s possible. You said it yourself, they retire and disappear into anonymity. Look at Freddy’s mom. She’s been alive all this time, and you’ve never even met her.”
“Who says I haven’t?” Violet said, laughing a little. “How many middle-aged Asian women walk the streets of Tokyo every day? I’ve spoken face-to-face with countless people over the years. I never would’ve known.” She sat back down on the bed. “It’s what I would do. I’d check up on the girls every once and while, secretly staying in contact with the Keeper. I don’t think I could ever just walk away and get a job or have a family and settle down.”
Roman nodded. “I know how you feel.” His face perked up. “Hang on…you said you’d stay in contact with the Keeper?”
Violet shot to her feet. “Ms. Cho called someone that night!” She was thinking the same as him. “Willy being beaten and taken hostage is proof enough that she wasn’t the traitor.” Her shoulders dipped. “It had to be Ms. Cho.”
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