Page 87

Present Day

Rodrigo Cardeñas’ssmile faded after the first few minutes of my story. By the time I finish, he has paled completely. His drink sits untouched beside him.

After a long silence, he clears his throat. “You’re trying to tell me not only that my father might have been murdered, butthat there’s a good chance it was the man who owns this place who killed him?”

“I’m nottryingto tell you anything.” My body is tense and wired, but I’m also oddly calm and completely focused. “I’m telling you what I know, Rodrigo. Your father went after a very dangerous man. Now he’s dead.”

“My father disappeared in the Thai mountains three years ago.” He’s frowning, staring past me to a memory I can’t see. “His car came off a bend on a narrow road. It fell down a steep cliff and exploded in the gully below. No remains were found.”

“A car accident?” I raise my eyebrows skeptically. “Do you really believe that?”

“There was no reason to believe the death was suspicious.” Rodrigo’s eyes flicker to me, then away again. “I went there myself to check.”

“Let me guess.” I’m almost enjoying this.Almost.“While you were there, the triads approached you and offered their assistance. You got talking, and eventually you started doing business with them.”

“Yes,” he says slowly. “Yes, approaches were made. My father cut supply to the triads years before, as you say. But he never told me why.” Anger tightens his face. “There was a lot he never told me.”

Hardly surprising.Juan had led hard men for a long time. He loved Rodrigo, I know. But he also knew his son’s limitations. Rodrigo never fought his way up the ranks like his father did. He was born to be his father’s heir, raised amid wealth and privilege. He’s filled with a false sense of his own importance—and a gnawing sense of inadequacy.

Unfortunately, the combination makes him more dangerous than he might be otherwise. He reacts to any perceived insult with more cruelty than is necessary, in a constant effort to exert his authority. It works, but not,perhaps, in the way Rodrigo might think. In the time we spent working for him, it was obvious his men feared him.

It was also clear they despised him.

“When my father cut off our supply to Asia,” he’s saying now, “it hit our business hard. I expanded into Miami, tried to make up the shortfall, but we lost a lot of ground. And in those last few years, my father was... distracted. He spent more time here in Asia, on holiday, than he did with the business. I thought he was trying to make new contacts, set up a new supply route.”

Rodrigo is clearly insulted by his father’s lack of disclosure.

Which means I need to tread carefully.

“I think your father was trying to keep you safe.” I speak quietly, deferentially. “He was out here searching for a man he knew was lethal. He was protecting his business—and you—by keeping you out of it. And now isn’t the time to risk that safety. You supply a valuable product, and that makes you important to the man who runs this place, and the triads who work for him.”

He turns his glass, staring at me through narrowed eyes.

It’s now or never.

“They’re trying to use me to manipulate you,” I say, pressing my advantage. “They think that if they give you the chance to avenge your honor, it will strengthen your trust in them. I’m the gift they’re giving you, to guarantee themselves supply of your product.” I lean forward in my chair. “Juan would have used that against them. And you are your father’s son, Rodrigo.”

He stops turning his glass. Now he’s really listening. I can almost feel his internal war between suspicion and ambition.

Don’t fuck it up, Abby.

“Obviously you have no reason to trust my story. Go to your father’s friends, the ones who lost their daughter. Ask them if what I say is true.” I don’t know if I’m right, but Ihave to trust that Juan left something behind that will convince Rodrigo I’m telling the truth. “Find out from your father’s men why he cut off the triads years ago. Ask questions. But do it discreetly.” I hold his eyes. “Your father promised me he would kill that man. Instead, he wound up dead. He wouldn’t want that fate for his only son.”

Rodrigo’s thin lips tighten. He straightens in his chair as if his father were in the room with us.

“If you’re lying,” he says suspiciously, “I will be dead. This could just be your way of getting your own revenge.” His fingers curl around the glass. “I could just kill you now,” he says softly. “Nobody would question me if I did.”

And I know you’re capable of it.Fear crawls over the place Rodrigo once held a cigar to my skin.

Then Jacey’s blank stare crosses my mind, and I shudder.

Rodrigo’s sadism is a pale shadow compared to that darkness.

“And if I’m telling the truth, you have an opportunity to gain the advantage.”

“How?” He frowns.

“The people who brought us both here tonight expect us to be enemies. For you to delight in torturing me. They will understand if you visit me again. I think they’d even let you take me with you, to play with on your own time.”