Page 76 of Caution to the Wind

I arched a brow as Nova let out a bark of incredulous laughter behind me.

“And why in the fuck would I set that up?” I asked dryly.

Jiang opened his palms to the sky, gold watch strap flashin’ in the dim light caught between buildings. “There is no call for animosity, Henning. I told you once, and I will tell you again, I had nothing to do with your wife’s death.”

My snort burned my nostrils. “So you said. But you had a fuckuva lot to do with me goin’ down for manslaughter.”

“And for leading your lovely Mei into the dark embrace of the triad?” he continued, a little too sweet, eyes glitterin’ as he set the bait for me.

One, two, three, four.

I counted as I dragged a deep, steadyin’ breath in through my nose, but it did little to tamp down the flames burnin’ in my gut.

“What do you want the meet for?” I was proud of the way my voice sounded: cold, devoid of a single emotion or inflection.

Jiang grinned then, a sharp pull of thin lips over perfectly capped white teeth. With a flourish like somethin’ from one of the k-dramas Cleo liked to watch, he pulled a folded collection of papers from the inside of his jacket and snapped them open before danglin’ them between us.

When I didn’t take them, he sighed. “Really, Henning, the worst they could do is give you a paper cut.”

“Don’t call me that,” I demanded, snappin’ the papers from his grip. “Name’s Axe-Man.”

He snickered. “You bikers and your nicknames, always so on the nose.”

“And Broken Tooth wasn’t?” I asked cruelly, referrin’ to Kang Li.

He made a soft noise of agreement, but I wasn’t listenin’ because my eyes were scannin’ the documents, and what they found was not fuckin’ good.

“No way this goes through,” I growled, shovin’ the papers into Bat’s chest beside me.

He grabbed them, but my focus was on the Chinese gangster.

Jiang didn’t smile, but his eyes were dark with pleasure. He liked the production of this intimidation, liked havin’ violent men on his hook.

Done with his flash, done with this fuckin’ conversation and the Seven Song’s reappearance in my life, I flicked open the holster of the hatchet I always had danglin’ from my belt, and within the span of a blink, the weapon was up in my grip and spinnin’ through the air at Jiang.

He stumbled back, too slow to react as the small axe embedded itself in the wood of the heritage house boutique three inches to the right of his face. Before he could recover, I was on him, hand on the smooth, worn handle of the weapon, body curved over Jiang’s smaller form, teeth snappin’ inches from his blanched face.

“Listen here,” I grumbled low, my free hand comin’ up to fist in his designer shirt. “We aren’t in Calgary anymore, and I’m not the man you once knew with bastards for brothers and the remnants of a moral conscience. I’m a brother of the mother chapter of The motherfuckin’ Fallen MC, and if you come at me, at us, I got no qualms about carvin’ you up like a Christmas ham. You get me?”

Jiang swallowed thickly, but his eyes narrowed into a glare. “I came here to speak as businessmen, not heathens on the edge of battle.”

“Do. You. Get. Me?” I grunted, pullin’ the axe from outta the wood so I could press the sharp edge to the hinge of his jaw.

His sigh feathered over my neck. “I should have known better than to do business with a brute. Yes, I understand. Now, move off and take my words to the president. I want to speak to the man who actually makes the decisions. Not the brawn who protects him.”

I could feel my brothers at my back, vibratin’ with tension, wantin’ to get in on the action, but they held back to let me run the show.

I chuckled into Jiang’s face. “Like I said, Vanguard, I’m not the man you used to know. They called me Axe because I was only a weapon. Now, I’m the Treasurer for The Fallen and ‘the man who actually makes’ the business decisions for the club. So you want a meet, I’ll think about it. And ’til then, you got eight minutes to leave city limits, or I’m comin’ after you with more than a hatchet.”

When I shoved off him, Jiang was slow to peel himself off the wall, doin’ it in a casual way like he’d decided to be pressed there. He adjusted his cuffs, smilin’ slightly as the gold links winked in the light.

“How is your daughter doing after her unfortunate meeting with that murderer?” he asked, smooth as a hiss.

I lunged forward, but he was ready for me this time. A silver revolver like somethin’ from an old Western was suddenly thrust up into my bearded chin.

“Uh, uh, uh,” Jiang cooed. “My words weren’t a threat but an olive branch. I know you haven’t forgotten what happened to your wife all those years ago. You aren’t the kind of man, I think, to let sleeping dogs lie.”

“You want, I’ll blow his damn brains out, Axe-Man,” Bat offered coolly, and I didn’t have to look over my shoulder to know his always present Colt M45A1 was levelled at Jiang’s head.