The Ninja's Oath, page 13
“What’s all this.”
“Cover,” he said. “Or insurance, depending how things play out.”
“You know what? This has been a really long day. Tell me in the morning. Uncle can fill you in on what we learned at Suyin’s old apartment.”
“You don’t want to eat?”
I glanced at the kitchen. “Actually, no.”
Ignoring his dumfounded expression, I returned to the boy’s room, shut the door, and sat on his bed. Nine thirty at night meant six thirty in the morning for Ma. I took out my phone and typed.
Are you awake?
I counted the seconds before she replied.
Yes. Can we talk?
She answered in the kitchen while pouring a cup of tea.
“Hey, Ma. Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner.”
She dismissed my apology with a twitch of her un-penciled brows. “I’m sure you had more pressing things to do.”
I flinched from the barb, but what could I say? That her daughter had been risking her life fighting gangsters and chasing drug traffickers across China? I couldn’t add to Ma’s stress with worry about me.
“How are you holding up?”
She set down the teapot and sighed. “Not well.”
Worry tracked across her lovely skin like spider cracks on a windshield. I hadn’t seen her without makeup since I moved out of her house and into the apartment Baba had built for me over his restaurant. Even so, I was certain the age on her face hadn’t been there before.
“Were you able to sleep?” I asked.
“Fitfully. I saw your message when I woke up. Sorry about your phone. How on Earth did you land it in a river?”
“Fluke accident.”
“Uh-huh. Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
Ma and I walked a thin line between open communication and strategic ignorance.
“How’s Baba’s mood?”
“Cranky.”
She brushed the hair from her eyes. “Who can blame him? His legs cramp and spasm. His vision blurs then clears. He falls asleep while we’re talking then wakes up disoriented. He’s frustrated. And though he won’t admit it, I think he’s afraid.”
That admission alarmed me most of all.
“After my tea, I’ll put myself together and drive back to the hospital. They took him to Cedars when he collapsed in the restaurant, so it’s a bit of a haul. Once I’m there, I’ll camp out for the day.”
“Do you know what they have planned?”
“More tests. And a neurologist, I think. Oh, and an ophthalmologist to check on his eyes. Although poor vision might work in my favor considering how horrid I must look.”
I smiled. “Tired, maybe. Never horrid.”
“If you say so.”
“What about his legs?”
She shook her head in frustration. “Who knows? I’m not even sure they believe he’s in pain.”
My father was stoic beyond belief. If anything, he was downplaying any discomfort he felt.
Ma read my expression. “I know. I told them to add two frowny faces to his pain chart for whatever claimed.”
“Frowny faces?”
She grimaced. “It’s the hospital’s method of measuring pain. They treat the patients like children and show them little faces from happy to sad. As if your father would ever label himself with anything less than a neutral expression. When his legs cramped up like arthritic fingers, they started listening to me. They gave him muscle relaxers to unclamp his muscles and ease the pain he insisted he did not feel. He was resting peacefully when I left last night. Thank God.”
She stopped fidgeting and gazed through her phone straight into my heart. “Have you found Lee’s grandniece? Because it would really help to have you home.” The crack in her voice nearly brought me to tears.
She looked so fragile without her armor of makeup and couture. Although she was only fifty, I glimpsed a future when I would care for her in old age as she had cared for me as a child. I yearned to fold her in my arms and protect her from what lay ahead.
“I love you, Ma.”
“Hmm. I guess that means you’re not coming home.”
My parents needed me, but Uncle and his family needed me more. Even if I raced home to Los Angeles, there wasn’t much I could do besides comfort my mother and help her advocate on Baba’s behalf. In China, my efforts could potentially keep Chyou and Suyin alive, not to mention Uncle and Tran. With only three warriors in the fight, the outcome hung on a silken thread. Each of us needed the others to survive.
“I’ll come home as soon as I can.”
She forced a brave expression and busied herself with something on the counter. “Well, I better hurry if I want to greet your father when he wakes up.”
“Do they allow you to bring in food?”
“Not while they’re running tests.”
“Ooh, he’s gonna be cranky.”
“He certainly is. You know how he is about breakfast.”
I smiled. “Most important meal of the day.”
Baba had grown up on a North Dakota farm where my Norwegian grandmother had fixed massive morning meals for him and his father once they had completed their chores. On one of my visits, Bestefar had bragged about their breakfasts in great detail while bemoaning the strict diet Farmor and his doctors made him follow once he retired. Pancakes, eggs, biscuits, gravy, bacon and sausage, berries in thick clotted cream, hot coffee, and tall glasses of fresh cold milk would be served at one sitting after they had milked the cows, mucked the stalls, fed the chickens, and completed the other chores that needed to be done before Baba went off to school. Although my father had trimmed down his morning meals considerably, hospital cream of wheat and powdered eggs wouldn’t satisfy him at all.
“Too bad you can’t sneak in some jook,” I said.
“Who would fix it?”
“Bayani or Ling.”
“The restaurant is closed, remember? And your father thinks my jook is bland.”
Baba had a point: my mother’s talent for financial affairs did not extend to her kitchen.
“Give him a hug for me?”
“I will.”
I blew her a kiss, which she caught and placed on her cheek. Tears welled in her eyes. She brought her fingers to her lips and blew me a kiss before they fell.
Twenty-Nine
I rolled onto my side and knocked my wrist against the car-bed’s frame. Hours had passed and I still couldn’t sleep. I shifted onto my back and stared at the ceiling. Even without a window, the room wasn’t entirely dark. I could see where the wallpaper had begun to peel at the edge. What colors were hiding behind the checkered flag motif?
I shifted again and conked my head against the spoiler and my toes against the hood. Not only was the bed too small, the mattress had sunken into the contours of a body tinier than mine.
I checked the time on my phone. Three in the morning. The most I could hope for was a few hours of sleep. What difference would it make if I didn’t sleep at all?
My belly growled.
I should have taken the time to eat, but I was so annoyed with Tran’s teasing that I had fled into this room like a kid.
Tran.
Once again, he invaded my thoughts with that smirking, all-knowing grin.
The futon looks quite comfortable.
Yeah? Well, I hope it had lumps.
I swung my legs over the side and struggled to stand as the mattress sank under my weight. How was a kid supposed to get out of this thing? Crawl over the hood? Or was the point of the design to keep the wee ones in bed? Either way, I just wanted to be rid of the dang thing and get something to eat. What I didn’t expect was to find Tran sleeping on the couch.
The moonlight shone through the window and illuminated his face, which looked younger in repose. No animated expressions creased his forehead and mouth. No hard eyes that had seen more bloodshed and trauma than any person should bear. I could almost see the child he might have been if not for the uncomfortably masculine ridges of his cheekbones and jaw.
I crept forward a few feet and stared at the curling black hair on his chin. If he let it grow, it would be as thick and dark as his peaked brows and his long, wavy hair. What ethnic genes had mingled with his Vietnamese mother’s to create his undefinable looks?
Although an enticing puzzle, I couldn’t restrain my gaze to his face.
When I had first seen him in the courthouse in his tailor-fitted suit, he had reminded me of a celebrity quarterback or welterweight boxer. Since then, I had seen his muscularity accentuated by tightly fitted shirts. None of this prepared me to see him naked to the drawstring of his cropped kimono pants.
Although embarrassed by my voyeurism, I couldn’t look away.
The cuts in his pecs were so clearly defined they divided his chest into separate plateaus. The swells and chasms of his shoulders and arms were equally acute, which, combined with his low body fat, sculpted a breathtaking physique.
Tran’s ribs expanded as he breathed, followed by an exhale so deep it sank his stomach into a shallow bowl beneath his pants. My hands opened as I imagined how that smooth slope might feel as I followed the enticing trail of hair.
Walk away, Lily.
My feet wouldn’t move.
I noticed the stiletto resting on the coffee table within his easy reach and reminded myself of the horror I’d seen him inflict with a similar blade. Spell broken, I crept into the kitchen. As I opened a cupboard for something to eat, a familiar sensation electrified my back.
Since I had assumed the men were asleep, I hadn’t bothered donning a sports bra underneath my loose racerback tank or changing into a less revealing top. My sleep tank offered as much protection as a pair of transparent scarves.
Tran’s breath heated my neck while the energy from his hands ran up the sides of my arms.
No touch.
No skin.
Only the electrical heat of his intention and my willing, open nerves.
God help me, I wanted this man.
“No,” he whispered as I tried to turn around. “Close your eyes and feel.”
A shudder passed through me as Tran’s energy played upon my skin, raising goose bumps to intercept his touch. When he moved his hands over my shoulders and down the front of my breasts, I leaned toward his touch. But he maintained his distance and exhaled another quiet yet commanding, “No.”
The heat on my cheek dove down the side of my throat while he circled his hands around my arms to my back. The trail of energy ignited my nerves.
His name burst from my lips in a rush of strangled air.
“Feel, Lily.”
He exhaled down my shoulder blade and into the racerback opening of my tank while the energy from his palms slid between my thighs. Never had I ever received waves of intention as powerful or as intimate as these. My cotton briefs offered not the slightest defense.
Without a single touch exchanged, I gasped, over and over, from the sweet anguish he caused. When I couldn’t bear it any longer, his energy rose up my belly and grabbed my hips in a vice.
I stifled a cry.
It shouldn’t have been possible. But I would have sworn on my life that he thrust up and into me.
His panting groan equaled my own. Although he denied me physical touch, my body didn’t care. It responded to every projected intent in a battle of passion I had never fought harder to win.
Then he broke away, and I collapsed against the counter, shuddering and spent.
When I finally turned around, Tran was back on the couch, hand on his belly, eyes closed, as still as the dead.
Thirty
Tran drove the beat-up sedan out of our residential block and into a meager farmland in various stages of growth. Dense clusters of mid-rise communities like the one we had just left and towering apartment blocks pressed against this patchwork of old rural China.
I stared out the backseat window. Even the slightest glance at Tran flushed my face and neck. A ninja zukin and fukumen would have come in handy today.
Tran, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease.
He pointed to an eroded gray structure on the barren lot up ahead. “The gang converted that barn into their lab.”
“Strange location.” I kept my voice steady and my eyes on the barn. “Do they even have water or power?”
“The farms have wells. They wouldn’t need electricity. Kerosene or propane would do. Isolation matters more for this kind of work.”
“What about security? The property isn’t even fenced.”
Tran pointed toward the rundown community beyond the next field. “The gang operates from a house over there. According to my contact, they are well armed, respected, and feared. Since they sit at the top of Hefei’s criminal food chain, even law enforcement and other black societies leave them alone.”
“Did your contact say where they were keeping Chyou?” The normal conversation dissolved my discomfort and focused me on our mission.
“No. They hadn’t heard anything about a kidnapped girl.”
“They would keep her in the house,” Uncle said.
“Agreed.” Tran caught my gaze in the rearview mirror. “Which is why we’re dropping you off to find her while Lee and I draw them to the lab.”
“By doing what? Paint their ugly barn pink?”
Both Tran and Uncle wore paint-speckled coveralls and caps. Neither had bothered to explain why.
“Don’t worry about how,” Tran said. “When you see the gang rush out of the house, go in and find Chyou. We’ll keep them busy. Take her to the commercial zone two blocks to the west and hide out in a shop. We’ll pick you up when we’re done.”
I thought of the Sig Sauers and Glock, then leaned forward between their seats. “No collateral damage.”
Tran nodded. “That’s the plan.”
I tapped Uncle’s arm. “And no bloodbath. We don’t know that they’ve hurt Chyou.”
Before I could demand assurances, Tran turned onto a road with dilapidated houses that made Shanghai’s Old City look pristine. The largest property hid behind stone pillars and a padlocked wrought-iron gate through which I glimpsed a courtyard with an old two-story house directly behind. The roofs of smaller structures peeked above the pillars on both sides.
Tran drove past the gang’s compound and parked two houses down. “When they rush out the gate, find the girl, and text me where you land.”
“Will do.” I squeezed Uncle’s shoulder. “I’ll get her out safely. I promise.”
He patted my hand. “I know.”
I hid behind a farm truck while they left and watched the woman across the road pick a few weeds before she carried a basket of eggs into her house.
What would Uncle and Tran do to make the gang leave?
When my patience had almost run out, a percussive boom shook the ground. Two more explosions followed. Neighbors ran into the road, spinning in all directions searching for the cause. Men shouted from inside the gang’s compound and engines roared to life. The gate flung open toward the street. Dust kicked up as a four-door compact and a white minivan whipped out of the compound and sped down the road. As the neighbors turned toward the departing vehicles, I slipped through the open gate.
Two stubby buildings ran along the sides of the gang’s courtyard, a utility shed on the far side, a bunk house closest to me. A plume of black smoke appeared beyond the roof of the main house.
I hurried past sleep quarters, stinking of unwashed clothes, to the side walkway of the two-story house. When I reached a screen door, I broke the flimsy latch and squeezed between racks of drying laundry on my way to the kitchen. Nine plates of unfinished breakfast sat on the table and counters. Several more sat in the sink. The plates would have served more people than could fit in a minivan and a compact car.
I looked through the window as I crossed the living area and saw black smoke rising in the field beyond the wall. On the other side of the communal space, a corridor led to more bunk-bed rooms like the ones I had seen before. The door at the end opened, and a man armed with a bolo machete emerged.
I spotted him seconds before he spotted me.
Knuckles to his throat shut down his voice.
A chop from my bladed hand loosened his grip.
A strike to his neck knocked him into the wall.
When the man grabbed for my hair, I slid my arm between us like a wedge, guided him into a headlock, and kneed him in the groin. Before he could recover from my multiple assaults, I relieved him of the deadly agricultural tool and put him out of commission with a machete slice up his armpit and a handle butt to the head. He slid, bleeding to the floor, severely disabled but with a decent chance to survive.
I listened for sounds of alarm and heard none.
How many guards remained in the house?
I raced to the stairs, machete dangling from my hand. It was a death trap, but with sirens in the distance, I was running out of time. When I had almost reached the top, a gunman appeared. With no time or space to wield the machete, I powered up the final steps and lunged into his knees.
The gun fired beside my ear.
Deaf and unbalanced, I spiraled onto my back as he aimed his next shot between my eyes. I kicked my foot into his face as he fired, grabbed his gun wrist, and brought up my other leg to scissor his arm. When he leaned forward to attack, I rocked my body forward and launched him down the stairs.
The man cartwheeled into the walls and broke his neck on a step.
I picked up the fallen machete. Two shots had been fired. Despite the noisy aftermath of the explosion, someone must have heard and recognized the sound. I had to find and rescue Chyou before the Hefei gang returned.
This time, I held the machete ready to swing.
A door opened at the end of the hall. When an armed man rushed out of the room, I took aim and let the heavy blade fly. The gunman teetered backward with the machete cleaved between his brows.
I jumped over the body and found Chyou strapped to the bed, mouth opened in screams I still couldn’t hear. I held out my weaponless hands and told her in Mandarin that I was a friend. The tones must have sounded correct because she asked me something in return.
