Page 56 of Caution to the Wind

I swallowed roughly as Kang bent to press Henning’s hands together, producing a zip tie that barely fit around his big wrists to lock them together.

“What’re you doing?” I asked, my voice weak.

He peered up at me as if questioning my sanity. “He’s agweilowith The Fallen.” His lips puckered before he spat on Henning’s chest. “They’re racist pieces of shit who raided one of our warehouses and killed three of our men two weeks ago.”

“He’s probably not alone,” I hastened to mention as Kang braced himself on his knees and grunted, rolling Henning’s massive body onto his shoulders before he staggered to a stand. “Those biker guys always travel in packs.”

“Luckily, so do we,” he said with a grin that was mostly a grimace, sweat beading on his hairline from the effort of remaining standing under Henning’s weight. Honestly, it was shocking that he could carry the larger man.

I tried to think fast. How the hell could I get Henning out of this situation without putting myself in danger too and condemning us both to a beating, torture, or worse…death. My palms were sweating, a bead of moisture trickling down the deep crease of my destiny line, then down off my middle finger.

It reminded me of the Chinese fortune teller all those years ago at the fair.

You must not be too hard and unyielding, too focused on death and the dark.

If you don’t learn this, the tragedies of your life will overtake you.

Fuck.

I’d entered into this deal with the devil to get justice for Kate, Cleo, and Henning, not to condemn the rest of the Axelsen family that remained standing.

“What about selling the rest of the product?” I asked, trying to keep the panic from my words as I followed Kang into the shadows of the cornfield.

Kang’s laugh was hollow, a cough instead of something from the belly. “Oh, the Vanguard will forgive you that. You caught the white whale, Mei Zhen. Don’t worry, you will be rewarded generously. Not punished.”

A hideously horrified giggle burbled up in my throat, but I forced it down with a painful swallow. If Kang thought abducting Henning was anything but the worst kind of punishment for my thirst for vengeance, he was fatally wrong.

I thoughtfatallybecause I’d killed Kang before I let him do anything to Hen.

I just didn’t know how I’d manage it without putting myself in danger, but then, I didn’t care about the night’s outcome for me.

All that mattered was saving the only hero I’d ever known.

MEI

They were waitingfor us at the heart of the cornfield in a small clearing cut around three rotten and tattered scarecrows fixed to wooden poles.

One of the men, dressed impeccably in a dark grey suit, was in the midst of cutting down the remains of the scarecrow from the middle cross when Kang and I pushed through the cornstalks into the clearing. Four unknown gangsters in a half moon with legs spread and arms crossed in front of their torsos, ramrod straight posture, were at attention.

Waiting, no doubt, for orders from the two most notorious triad members in the province.

Kasper and Jiang Kuan.

I’d never met Kasper before, and I’d never hoped to. As the Dragon Head of the entire operation in Calgary, I’d have to be committed to Seven Song foryearsbefore I was worthy of being called into his presence. Seeing him now, in a dark cornfield lit only by the bright moon and stars overhead and the headlights from a sleek black SUV they’d driven into the cornfield, I was struck by how utterly unimpressive he seemed. Mid-height, carrying extra weight beneath his chin and in his cheeks, discernable even under the well-cut suit, with thinning black hair, he seemed like any other Chinese businessman. The only reason I knew he was the Dragon Head was the deference his position allowed him, and the way he carried himself, as if he expected one of his men to lay across a puddle for him so that he wouldn’t sully his designer shoes.

Next to him, Jiang, tall, strong, and beautiful enough to walk down a runway, seemed God-like.

Something was chilling about Kasper’s normalcy, though. It reminded me of a quote I’d read once about the banality of evil. And there was no doubt, looking at the crime boss in the still dark, that he was a special kind of evil.

Kang took Henning to the now-vacant cross, and together with the other man there, they propped Henning against the wood and fixed him there with grunts and heavily knotted rope. I kept to the shadows at the edge of the circle, unwilling to draw attention to myself until I knew how the hell I was going to help Henning.

“I don’t like this,” Jiang murmured quietly in Cantonese. “I told you there was another way to handle this.”

I had the sense they were waiting for something. Everyone seemed fixed on the path that led out the opposite side of the circle, no doubt leading to a road on the other side of the Turner Farm acreage.

I shivered, hugging myself as I slipped deeper into the cornstalks.

“It was always going to come to this,” Kasper said, his voice oddly rough like he’d smoked a pack a day from his youth. “You must learn,Dai tai, that the only way to deal with someone who opposes you is to put them in the ground.”