Page 107 of Caution to the Wind

For one heart-stopping, breath-halting moment, I felt hope.

And then he plucked my used panties off the end of my foot, wiped his hands off on them like he couldn’t stand the stain of me on his skin, and stalked right back out the door. It closed with a resounding clamour, loose in the frame from his break-in and our vigorous bout of sex.

I lay there, cooling, breaking apart as the last of my hope dissolved in the vinegar of his malice. One single tear trickled out my eye and into my hairline, but it was all I allowed myself.

After all, a part of me deserved that.

A part of me longed for it. The sex and the punishment for what I’d done and how I’d failed him.

But enough was still enough.

I wasn’t going to make myself into Axe-Man’s punching bag as some kind of act of forgiveness. I was going to do exactly as he’d ask and avoid him like the plague.

That didn’t mean I’d abandon Cleo.

Or my journey of vengeance for Kate, especially when my motives had become so much more complicated than that.

But I was officially done pining after Henning Axelsen.

He was dead and buried inside a man I didn’t know and didn’t love named Axe-Man.

MEI

I wasasleep when my next guests came to visit. The ferocity of my orgasms and the emotional roller coaster of my interaction with Jiang, compounded by the euphoria and heartbreak of finally having sex with Axe-Man, only to be deserted by him, led me into a deep and troubled sleep. I was dreaming of a Chinese dragon undulating through the sky in a graceful dance until suddenly, a parliament of owls appeared on the horizon and started chasing the dragon through a dark forest. Owls were bad omens, harbingers of death, and I knew the moment they caught up with the gorgeous serpent in the sky, it would die. In the end, I was the dragon, and the sharp beaks and claws of the night-hunting owls had descended on me, chipping off scales to sink deep into flesh.

I woke up with a painful cry, snapping into a seated position only to be shoved back down on the bed. Panic, already awoken by the dream, surged through me like lava flowing through the mouth of a volcano. A horrifying scream tore from my throat before a fleshy hand clamped over my lips, pressing me hard into the pillow.

The face above me was familiar. The Red Pole for the Seven Song in Vancouver grinned and yipped at me the way a fox did, manic, giddy in the way of a predator with trapped prey. Behind him, I counted three other shadowy figures, and I knew I stood no chance of getting out of this situation without harm.

“Hello, Mei Zhen,” Ashes Li said in Cantonese, showing me the Chinesegunstaff in his free hand before lifting it for a strike. “Kasper sends his regards to you and your friends at The Fallen MC.”

I reared up, sharp nails aimed for his face, connecting with soft flesh as I raked them down his cheeks. Before I could attack further, one of the other men was collecting my hands and pining them to the pillow.

Ashes grinned at me, leaning down to whisper hotly in my ear, “Hold still. This should only hurt a little.”

Like most triad gangsters, Ashes Li was a liar.

It hurt so fucking much that before long, I passed out into cool, black oblivion.

AXE-MAN

I drovethrough the night-dark streets of Entrance and up into the mountains for hours. Cleo was safe at the house with Loulou, Lila, and Harleigh Rose and probably all snuggled up in the California king-sized bed I’d spoiled my girl with. Nova and Lion were shootin’ the shit waitin’ for me to get home.

But I couldn’t make myself turn the bike toward Lake Mead.

My demons were chasin’ me through the dark, and the only way I knew to outrun them was on the back of my Harley-Davidson Softail Deluxe FLDE. It was a custom beauty Bat and the boys had spent weeks on in at Hephaestus Auto to turn it into my dream stone-washed pearl and chrome steed. The thrum of the purrin’ engine was the only thing loud enough to mute the thoughts roarin’ between my ears.

How had the night turned to such shit?

It’d been easy enough for Priest and Nova to slip the trackin’ devices into the weapons’ sheaths they’d confiscated when the Seven Song triad members had met up with us on the boat, and even easier to track them once they left us. Jiang’s lackeys had travelled back down the mountain to Vancouver, where they belonged, but Jiang’d stayed north, goin’ up to Whistler for the afternoon to meet with dealers in the area before headin’ back down to Entrance.

I knew ’cause I’d been the one to tail him.

It was a prospect’s job, really, and Carson, Ransom, or Pigeon could’ve used the practice stalkin’ outta sight, but I felt responsible for the triad’s interest in Entrance and our club, so I took it on. Our receptionist, Sara, at Street Ink rescheduled my appointments, and the girls headed over to the house to keep Cleo company.

What had started off as a borin’ kinda self-imposed punishment took a fierce turn when I followed Jiang down the twistin’ Sea to Sky Highway all the way to the turn-off for Purgatory Motel.

The same pink monstrosity housin’ one Mei Zhen Marchand.