Page 160 of Caution to the Wind

Just as we were about to move farther into the room, I noticed a flash of black near the stairs to the room and saw Mei slink up the metal treads to the room filled with upper level triad members.

“Fuck,” I cursed, drawin’ Z’s attention. “To Mei,” I said with a jerk of my chin.

His brow lowered on a fierce scowl and hemoved.

I was reminded that even though Zeus had never been to war, he knew how to move like a fuckin’ ghost, big body fluid and light as he swept low between the tables on his way to the patrolman on the left side of the room.

I went the other way round, creepin’ up on a 49er flirtin’ with a girl in a sweat-damp undershirt. I held my finger to my mouth as I stood to my full height behind him, bettin’ she wouldn’t breathe a word, and then I snapped his neck.

I helped him to the floor so he didn’t make a noise.

“Thank you,” the girl, not more than fifteen at most, whispered to me.

I nodded and moved along.

Zeus had already taken out the other man in this section without drawin’ notice, but across the room, Wrath had engaged in a fistfight with someone, knockin’ him into one of the tables. Cash went flyin’, and the workers screamed, fleein’ the brutality of the fight.

Nova was there in a second to help, but Zeus and I kept movin’ forward, runnin’ straight out to the room above the vault, when a gunshot rang out through the space. I looked up to see a body hit the glass, smearin’ blood across the pane as it fell to the ground.

Fear rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down.

A young woman threw herself at me, cryin’ out for help in Cantonese. I gently wrenched her off me, assurin’ her we’d help.

But first I had to get to Rocky.

She’d gone up the opposite staircase, and I hadn’t seen her, or Cedar, since.

I took the steps two at a time, already swingin’ my axe at the door before I’d even hit the landin’. Zeus was at my back as I yanked it open by the handle, firin’ over my shoulder at a 49er who leveled his gun at me. He fell to the ground with a yelp, shot through the shoulder, his gun dropped uselessly to the ground.

We stepped into the room, and I took out the man I recognized as the old White Paper Fan from Calgary. The bullet to the belly didn’t stop him from firin’ at me, but I dropped to my knees and took out one of his with another bullet. He collapsed to the ground with a shriek, gun skitterin’ across the floor. I picked it up and shoved it into my waistband before whirlin’ around to face the rest of the room.

Zeus was breakin’ the arm of a man who’d tried to stab him, and at the other entrance, Priest burst through the door, usin’ a dead body as a shield.

Mei was movin’ in a flurry at the front of the room, but before I could go to her, someone rushed me in my periphery. I lunged outta the way, the blade aimed at my gut, glancin’ off my flak vest and thinly slicin’ my forearm.

I spun around to face Ashes Li and grinned, my teeth bared. “I was hopin’ you’d be here. Remember me? I killed your brother ’cause he murdered my wife.”

He cursed at me in Cantonese as he came at me in a flurry of martial art moves, swift and fierce. I was too big for that kinda movement, but I used the long handle of my axe to block his strikes until he exhausted himself. He got few hits in, but the flak vest blocked the worst of the impact.

“I was there, too,” he taunted me. “I delivered the final blow and watched as the blood left her body.”

He was hopin’ I’d make a mistake in my rage. But I was forty years old and a vet, not some wet-behind-the-ears prospect who could be goaded into gettin’ himself killed.

I waited until Ashes pulled back to make another cut with hisdaosword and then lifted my gun in my non-dominant hand. He tried to dodge the implied bullet just like I thought he would. His feint to the left cost him his life. ’Cause in an instant, I dropped my gun and fisted my left hand around the axe in my right, swingin’ it with all my might at Ashes.

The thud of connection vibrated down my arms almost painfully.

The blade had connected in that tender junction between neck and shoulder where I most loved to bite my mark in to Mei. Ashes swayed, caught by the momentum of the strike, in shock and uncomprehendin’ of the life-endin’ blow I’d dealt him.

If I’d been a different kinda man––a better one––I would’ve wrenched the axe out and let him bleed out all over the floor. A slow but relatively painless death.

He didn’t deserve that.

Not after Kate.

Not after he’d taken his hands to Mei.

So I stalked forward, kicked out his legs so he sank to the floor, and then I caught him by the handle of the axe so he stayed upright on his knees. Then, I planted a foot in his sternum, pried the blade from his neck with a bloody, squelchin’suck, and brought it down again on the same spot.