Page 55 of Caution to the Wind

“It’s not a vendetta,” I spat, insulted by the idea. “It’s justice. Kate never got any for her murder, and the idea of her stuck in purgatory somewhere fucking haunts me. I promised her I’d take care of you and Cleo, but I also made a promise to myself that I’d find answers to what happened to her.”

“You are a seventeen-year-old kid,” he roared in my face, slamming a fist into the wall beside my head. “Operatin’ in the underworld with the likes of me and the fuckin triad isnotan acceptable option for you.”

“You’re not my dad!”

“No,” he shouted, anguished now. “No, I’m not. I don’t wanna be. But whatever I am to you, I thought you respected me more than this. I thought you loved Cleo, your parents, and Old Dragon––me––more than this. Did you even stop to think what we would go through if you were incarcerated for dealin’ drugs? Or, worse, if these motherfuckers found out you were just dealin’ for them so you could spy on them?”

I blinked up at him, shocked by the agony waterlogging his tone and the sight of it in his turquoise eyes.

“God, Mei,” he muttered, the steam suddenly going out of him so his big shoulders sagged and his head dipped low, close enough I could feel his warm breath on my face. “You want somethin’ from me I got no power to give you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t got a magnitude of love for you in my heart. You told me you couldn’t stand losin’ another person you love? Well, don’t make me go through the same.”

A quivering, bruise-tender silence bloomed between us. I didn’t know what to say. His words made my chest ache, but I’d spent years forming my future and my identity around the idea of seeking justice at all costs. I didn’t want to give it up and I didn’t know if I could, not when I’d come this far.

“This is my test, and then I’min,” I tried to explain to him, clutching at the lapels of his cut. “I fought Jiang Kuan and impressed him, Hen. I can do this.”

He screwed his eyes closed so tight it looked like it hurt, and when they opened again, they blazed like the blue on the inside of a flame.

“You hear me, Mei Zhen, you will not get involved with these fuckers.”

“It’s too late for that,” I whispered.

“Have you done their initiation ritual?”

“No…”

“Then it’s not too late. I’m gettin’ you outta here, and when I get home, you better be waitin’ for a serious talkin’-to, kid. This goes way beyond the fuckin’ pale. You are neck deep in so much shit you can’t even look down to see how fucked you are.”

An uncharacteristic wobble gripped my lower lip before I bit it still. It hurt to feel like a helpless, foolish idiot in Hen’s eyes, but it hurt even worse to get why he felt that way.

I was being reckless, sure, but I didn’t know how to sit on my hands and let the world spin on in its fucked-up ways without having some kind ofsay.

Henning shook me gently and my attention snapped back to his aquamarine eyes, bright even in the shadow of his brows. “For once, will you do what I say and get outta here? Please, Rocky.”

It was what he did next that undid me.

His broad forehead tipped down to press to mine, and he closed his eyes, a pained expression on his rough-hewn features.

And I knew he’d never love me the way I loved him.

Like I was the oxygen he needed to breathe.

But at least he loved me like this.

Like losing me would be living with half a lung.

“Okay,” I said, succumbing to authority for one of the first times in my life, but doing it freely because this was Hen, and I knew if I pushed, I’d lose him and maybe even Cleo and Lin. “I didn’t drive here, but I’ll order a ride home.”

A spasm wrenched his expression before it smoothed out in relief. When his eyes opened again, they were dark and fathomless.

“Thank you,” he whispered in Cantonese before pressing a kiss to my forehead where his own had just rested.

Before I could say anything, a shadow shifted away from the opaque darkness, swallowing up the cornfield behind Henning’s head. I opened my mouth to warn him, but I was too late.

Kang appeared out of the blackness on a smooth leap, his body fluid as an arrow. He brought the handle of his chopper blade down on the side of Henning’s temple, and the man I’d always thought of as indestructible crumpled to the ground.

Before I could say anything, frozen with shock and horror, Kang grinned wickedly at me, his teeth glinting like the blade in his hand.

“I knew having a pretty face would work in our favour.” He chuckled hoarsely, nudging Henning’s big body with the toe of his expensive-looking black cowboy boot. “These heathens would have shot you first and asked questions later if it was a man dealing on their territory.”