Page 93 of Caution to the Wind

“What I want is for you to stay outta this,” he demanded, cracking his knuckles. It drew my attention to his left hand, where his pinky used to be, before Kang severed it with hisdaosword.

Noticing the direction of my gaze, Axe-Man snapped his fingers to get my attention. “Yeah, Mei. I lost a finger and three years of my life last time you got involved in shit that was beyond your pay grade. Maybe this time I can trust you’ve learned enough to fuckin’listento me for once and keep your nose outta this.”

I canted my chin up but didn’t resist the urge to tug a pillow into my lap, hugging it reflexively. “I could help. I’m not the same seventeen-year-old girl I was back then.”

“No? Then prove it by doin’ what you’re told.”

“I’ve never been much good at that,” I admitted, biting into my torn bottom lip again. “Especially not when people I care about are at risk.”

“No one is at risk,” he snarled, his knuckles white as he clenched his fists. “You think I’m gonna let a damn thing hurt Cleo ever again? You think I’m gonna let some fuckin’ triad close in on my town after we were just ravaged by a fuckin’ religious lunatic who carved up women for fun? I’m the one who’s got a stake in this, not you. You might’ve moved here for Cleo, but don’t think for one second this place will ever be your home.”

His words were embedded in my skin like needles in a pin cushion until pain radiated from every pore. I ducked my head because I deserved his anger and malice. But I couldn’t bear for him to see the tears surging to the backs of my eyes.

“Right,” I murmured, fiddling with the edge of the pillow. “Okay. I’ll stay out of it.”

“Is that a promise?” he demanded, and when I didn’t meet his gaze, he surged forward again to grasp my chin between his knuckles and tip my face up. The movement dislodged a tear, and he tracked its movement down my cheek, fingers spasming slightly on my face, before he fixed his angry eyes on mine. “And, Mei, you don’t want to fuckin’ lie to me ever again. I’m not the soft man you once knew.”

And I’m not the helpless girl you once knew, either,I wanted to say but didn’t.

Instead, I sucked in a little breath, twisted my fingers together in my lap under the pillow so he couldn’t see them, and once again, I lied to Henning Axelsen. “Sure, I promise I won’t get involved.”

He searched my face for a long moment, and even though he hated me and that hate was evident in every inch of his expression, I drank in the sight of his gorgeous face. My throat was clogged with such a tangled mess of sorrow and desire, I could barely breathe.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he swore, and there was a cracking in those lake water eyes like ice before the thaw. “It’s for your own good, too, ya know.”

“Sure.” I nodded, but this time, he was wrong.

Being here with him and Cleo in Entrance was for my own good. Taking care of them was theonlygood I’d ever done or attempted to do in my life. It gave purpose to my existence.

Axe-Man nodded curtly, dropping his grip on my chin like I’d burned him. He subtly shook out his hand at his side as he moved toward the door and opened it.

Before he left, because I’d never been a cautious girl, I added, “Oh, Axe-Man?”

He paused, so big in the doorway he made it look like a hobbit’s house.

“Have you considered why they wrote the note in Chinese when both Stella and Lauren are white?” I watched thoughts cross his face like storm clouds. “It’s not because I’m in town. I think it’s becauseyouare. It’s been a long time since shit went down in Calgary, but the Kuan brothers are the kind of men who never forget. They’re powerful enough, so they rarely have to.”

“You think the note was for me.”

“I think there are questions we never answered back then that are still relevant.”

“It’s not a bad point,” he conceded reluctantly, knocking his silver rings against the doorframe. “But I’ll be the one to answer them, not you.”

“Aye aye, captain,” I said with a mock salute so that when he closed the door, he did it with a glower.

I flopped to the bed the second he left and blew hair out of my face with a loud raspberry.

“Well,” I said to the popcorn ceiling. “How long will it be before he finds out I’m dating Jiang Kuan?”

AXE-MAN

Entrance Bay Marinaoccupied the entire right side of the bay and was filled year-round with an assortment of fishin’ boats, small and large sailin’ vessels, and big to enormous yachts. It was a hodgepodge like Entrance was a hodgepodge, different social-economic groups co-existin’ but rarely minglin’. It made the marina quaint, and the shingled, faded red and navy-blue buildings clustered at its mouth added to the aesthetic. Eugene, Z’s cousin, had a huge fishin’ boat docked in the shadowy pier near the sheer cliffside overlookin’ the ocean.

It was the perfect place to meet Jiang and his lot. Public enough to discourage violence, but private enough to discourage noisy passersby from stickin’ their noses in.

Zeus, Bat, King, and Wrath were with me on the boat while Priest and Nova waited at the top of the rampway to pat down our guests when they arrived.

Curtains was hidden in the captain’s hold on the ship with his computer, ready to start trackin’ the bastards as soon as one of us could slip a trackin’ device on them.