Page 51 of Caution to the Wind

I didn’t let so much as a twitch give away the pain in my fuckin’ hand and the anger riotin’ beneath my skin.

The part of me that had never made a great soldier wouldn’t let it lie without another little push. “You think it’s safe? We haven’t heard word from Seven Song since we looted their warehouse. Thought we’d lie low ’til the other shoe dropped. Heard it straight from your mouth just the other fuckin’ day.”

Hazard shifted in his chair. Just a little creak of wood and rustle of cloth against stiff leather, but it was enough to draw my eye. He avoided mine, starin’ at the table like it was playin’ porn.

Somethin’ was goin’ on here. I knew it in the way the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end in the electric air before a storm. A warnin’ written in the response of my body to a threat I couldn’t see yet.

It could have been that Rooster’d had me followed, but I didn’t think. If he knew about my meeting with Jiang, I’d be dead already.

No, this reeked of somethin’ like guilt.

Rooster puffed on his cigar and blew the smoke straight into my face. “I did. And today I’m sayin’ I want you, Whitey, Dunkirk, and Cedar to go to this fuckin’ party and deal shit. I’m givin’ you a pound’a grass, thirty-five grams of coke, and whatever heroin you can carry.”

That was a fuck ton of product for some college party. Enough, if we were caught by the cops, that we’d go away for more than simple possession. At least the fucker was sendin’ me with Cedar, the only member of the club I actually considered a brother and would trust to have my back.

“Why so much?”

Rooster scowled at me. “’Cause I fuckin’ said so.”

I lifted a brow, but didn’t say anythin’ else ’cause I didn’t want another fuckin’ burn, and I’d pushed enough for now even though the plan didn’t sit well in my gut.

“What does tonight have to do with Kate?” I dared to ask ’cause fuck Rooster. He knew damn well the only reason I’d patched into this club was to get information on her killers, and he’d been none too forth fuckin’ comin’ about the info, yet now he finally had some.

He kept me waitin’ while he discarded his ruined cigar, opened and cut off the tip of a new one and then lit it. After takin’ a nice puff, he blew the smoke directly into my face.

Anger rolled through me, bangin’ hard against the walls I’d built around it over the years. My father had been an angry motherfucker, and mostly, I refused to let myself be the same. It had been too long, I realized then, drummin’ my fingers fast and hard to calm myself, since I’d had a really good fight. Since I’d felt skin split under my fists and blood hot against my skin.

Tonight, I thought, would change that.

“We got reason to believe the Song, including the man you’ve been lookin’ for, will be at this party tonight. You see ’em, you tag at least one and bring him back to the clubhouse for Shrap to interrogate. You get me? After we get what we need about their operation, you’re free to do whatever the fuck to the motherfucker who had a part in killin’ your wife.”

I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth, battlin’ for control. How long had Rooster been sittin’ on this information about Kate? I knew in my fuckin’ bones it wasn’t a coincidence that they’d found out the name of someone involved with her murder at the same time he and Seven Song triad were movin’ in on Rooster’s territory and threatenin’ his own dream of eclipsin’ the Entrance chapter’s income and power.

What was that sayin’ about lookin’ a gift horse in the mouth?

“What’s his name?” I asked, already standin’ up to leave.

Rooster was annoyed, with Hazard, probably, for sharin’ too much with me, and with me for bein’ too independent of his authority. I’d never make a lieutenant in his club ’cause he was too damn threatened by me to put me to any good use.

I was his weapon, and tonight, it was obvious he wanted to put me to good use.

“Kang,” he said. “Kang Li.”

MEI

Turner Farm wascreepy as hell.

Even lit up by the string lights and bonfire raging in the empty field beside the barn and log house, the entire setting was eerie, an obvious choice for a horror flick where the pretty girls die first. Bodies writhed to the thumping music in the blown-out windows of the dilapidated farmhouse, shadowed outlines against the red lights someone had plugged into a generator thrumming loudly away outside. Huge sections of wood planks were missing in the walls of the barn where some kind of drinking game tournament was taking place, and even though I couldn’t see them, I could hear people fucking in the long grass behind the house.

I’d never been out this way before, but I’d heard of the place. It was a popular choice for underage parties because it was outside of Calgary in the middle of nowhere. The closest town was Fort Normandeau, an abandoned fort that got the odd tourist or two but had next to no permanent residents.

It was the perfect place for my first errand for Seven Song triad.

“The key is not to look nervous,” Kang told me dryly as we divvied up the drugs between us.

He was the one to pick me up after prom in a sleek black BMW, the window rolled down, a cigarette hanging between his lips and a Rolex flashing on his wrist. I had to give it to Chinese gangsters. They had flash and style in spades.

He’d also told me that he went by the name Broken Tooth. When I’d asked him why the hell he’d want to be called that, he’d only shrugged and explained most of the men in the triad had monikers like it.