Page 94 of Caution to the Wind

“You look rough, brother,” King pointed out without lookin’ up from his leather-bound notebook. Kid was always writin’ in it, cover folded back, book propped on his knee as he scribbled with a stubby pencil he often wore behind one ear. “Somethin’ stop you from gettin’ a good sleep? ’Cause I’m the one with a baby, and I look a helluva lot better than you.”

“You’re just better lookin’,” I deadpanned.

King flashed me his movie-star smile. “Ain’t that the truth. Still, you gotta take care’a yourself, man. For Cleo’s sake at least.”

“You don’t think I’m tryin’?” I demanded. “Triad comes to town on the heels of that fuckin’ psychopath, and you think I can get a wink of sleep?”

It was that and more. Not that I’d reveal anythin’ to King, but my altercation with Mei the night before had left me feelin’ outta step.

I tried not to let myself think about Mei. If I did, my thoughts splintered along the divide of our past—the girl I’d known before prison and the girl who put me there.

The girl from before had been a fixture in my daily life for years. We’d been bonded by the trauma of losin’ Kate and by the loneliness we both felt bein’ different than the people we tried so hard to fit in with. There’d always been this fundamental, elemental understandin’ between us. Like we had the same language written in our blood and bones.

I loved Cleo more than anythin’ in this world, and I’d loved Kate and Lin, felt that I owed them everythin’. But I’d never felt so understood as I had in those late-night hours sketchin’ and shootin’ the shit with Mei in my little kitchen.

But that was gone.

Now, eight years and a shit ton of wrongdoin’ separated us irrevocably. Mentally, I knew she couldn’t be trusted. I’d gone to fuckin’prisonfor her, done it, if not happily, then righteously, proudly, ’cause I’d valued her and her future more than my own. And she’d just…abandoned us.Me. Without a word.

Then eighteen months later, she’d turned up at the prison as if nothin’ had happened when everythin’ had changed.

I didn’t know this girl. She wasn’t––couldn’t be––my Rocky anymore. She was just some dangerous allusion to a past when I’d been soft and stupid. I couldn’t afford to be those things anymore, especially not for her.

Fool me once, and all that shit.

The problem was the…muscle memory. I couldn’t seem to keep my hands off her. I didn’t have to tussle with her like that, straddlin’ her small but subtly curved and muscled form, pinnin’ her hands and thighs with my body in a way that reminded me I was a man and she was no longer a girl.

She’d always been gorgeous, but now…

I had to remind myself that her loveliness was all deception. Beneath the beauty, she was one of the most dangerous people I’d ever known. She’d even proven it last night by findin’ a way to flip me over her damn back.

It was just my goddam luck that I found that sexy as fuck.

And last night, after lyin’ in bed tossin’ and fuckin’ turnin’ for hours worryin’ about the triad, about Cleo’s mental health, about the club, I’d finally fallen into visceral, carnal dreams about Mei Zhen fuckin’ Marchand.

Even now, in the weak light of a late winter sun, I couldn’t shake the phantom feel of her small breasts in my hands, the texture of her cunt against my tongue, and the noises my subconscious had manufactured for her when she came around my cock.

A full-body shudder of disgust rolled through me and shook me free of the memory.

King was studyin’ me and winced when he saw my shudder, mistakin’ it for somethin’ else. “Yeah, I got you. Still, we can handle these fuckers.”

I raised my brows. “You dealt with the triads before?”

He shook his head. “They can’t be worse than the fuckin’ cartel.”

I snorted. “Not worse, maybe, but just as lethal. Different. The raccoon at Stella’s and Honey Bear Café? They’re playin’ with us, King. Playin’ like a motherfuckin’ tiger with a mouse. We’re just cluin’ in, but they’re already three steps ahead. Guarantee that.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, and then his eyes darted over my shoulder, and he slipped his notebook into his back pocket. “They’re here.”

Jiang was immediately recognizable at the forefront of a group of four. He was taller, leaner, and dressed like one of the K-drama movie stars Cleo loved so much. I shook my head as the gold of his flashy gun sparkled beneath the flap of his trench coat.

“Is he wearin’ a fuckin’ sword?” King muttered.

Wrath, steppin’ up beside me, crossed his arms. “A lotta ’em do. They got a shorter, straight-edged blade called a watermelon chopper, but Jiang’s got a properdaosword.”

“I always forget you worked for them,” I murmured, crossin’ my own arms and bracin’ my legs military-style as the gangsters passed Priest’s and Nova’s scrutiny and were escorted down the ramp toward us.

“The Red Dragon’s youth gang,” he amended. “They were just startin’ out and desperate for muscle, so they made me a bouncer at one of their clubs and had me jumpin’ ashes at the door even though I was a white kid.”