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“Let me guess.” I’m almost enjoying this. Almost. “While you were there, the triads approached you and offered their assistance. You got talking, and eventually you started doing business with them.”

“Yes,” he says slowly. “Yes, approaches were made. My father cut supply to the triads years before, as you say. But he never told me why.” Anger tightens his face. “There was a lot he never told me.”

Hardly surprising. Juan had led hard men for a long time.

He loved Rodrigo, I know. But he also knew his son’s limitations.

Rodrigo never fought his way up the ranks like his father did.

He was born to be his father’s heir, raised amid wealth and privilege.

He’s filled with a false sense of his own importance—and a gnawing sense of inadequacy.

Unfortunately, the combination makes him more dangerous than he might be otherwise.

He reacts to any perceived insult with more cruelty than is necessary, in a constant effort to exert his authority.

It works, but not, perhaps, in the way Rodrigo might think.

In the time we spent working for him, it was obvious his men feared him.

It was also clear they despised him.

“When my father cut off our supply to Asia,” he’s saying now, “it hit our business hard. I expanded into Miami, tried to make up the shortfall, but we lost a lot of ground. And in those last few years, my father was... distracted. He spent more time here in Asia, on holiday, than he did with the business. I thought he was trying to make new contacts, set up a new supply route.”

Rodrigo is clearly insulted by his father’s lack of disclosure.

Which means I need to tread carefully.

“I think your father was trying to keep you safe.” I speak quietly, deferentially.

“He was out here searching for a man he knew was lethal. He was protecting his business—and you—by keeping you out of it. And now isn’t the time to risk that safety.

You supply a valuable product, and that makes you important to the man who runs this place, and the triads who work for him. ”

He turns his glass, staring at me through narrowed eyes.

It’s now or never.

“They’re trying to use me to manipulate you,” I say, pressing my advantage.

“They think that if they give you the chance to avenge your honor, it will strengthen your trust in them. I’m the gift they’re giving you, to guarantee themselves supply of your product.

” I lean forward in my chair. “Juan would have used that against them. And you are your father’s son, Rodrigo. ”

He stops turning his glass. Now he’s really listening. I can almost feel his internal war between suspicion and ambition.

Don’t fuck it up, Abby.

“Obviously you have no reason to trust my story. Go to your father’s friends, the ones who lost their daughter.

Ask them if what I say is true.” I don’t know if I’m right, but I have to trust that Juan left something behind that will convince Rodrigo I’m telling the truth.

“Find out from your father’s men why he cut off the triads years ago.

Ask questions. But do it discreetly.” I hold his eyes.

“Your father promised me he would kill that man. Instead, he wound up dead. He wouldn’t want that fate for his only son. ”

Rodrigo’s thin lips tighten. He straightens in his chair as if his father were in the room with us.

“If you’re lying,” he says suspiciously, “I will be dead. This could just be your way of getting your own revenge.” His fingers curl around the glass. “I could just kill you now,” he says softly. “Nobody would question me if I did.”

And I know you’re capable of it. Fear crawls over the place Rodrigo once held a cigar to my skin.

Then Jacey’s blank stare crosses my mind, and I shudder.

Rodrigo’s sadism is a pale shadow compared to that darkness.

“And if I’m telling the truth, you have an opportunity to gain the advantage.”

“How?” He frowns.

“The people who brought us both here tonight expect us to be enemies. For you to delight in torturing me. They will understand if you visit me again. I think they’d even let you take me with you, to play with on your own time.”

Rodrigo’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “Why would I do that?”

This is where I win—or I die.

“You’ve never met the man who owns this place.” It isn’t a question, since I already know the answer.

He shakes his head.

“So I am offering you the same thing I gave your father. Something many people would kill to know. This man’s face and a name. The tools you need to kill him and avenge your father. ”

Rodrigo looks unconvinced. “Unless he kills me first, like he did my father.”

“You’re too smart to let that happen.” I mentally cross my fingers. “Your father cut the triads off. He showed his hand. But right now, this man thinks you’re on his side. And he wants your product. That means you hold all the cards.”

I can almost smell his greed. Ambition is starting to win over suspicion in Rodrigo’s internal war. He’s hanging on every word I say.

“You can make the man an offer too good to refuse, then insist you will only deal with him in person,” I say. “He will agree. And when he does, you can kill him.”

It’s time to sell it, Abby.

“Can you imagine,” I say softly, “the power you would hold, when people know you have killed one of the most feared men in the world?”

The silence that follows my words is electric with his barely suppressed excitement.

There are a lot of holes in my plan. Holes that would give a more cautious man pause. But I’ve just offered Rodrigo the only thing he’s ever truly wanted: a reputation.

I’m gambling it will be enough.

Finally he gives me a calculating look.

“I want to check your story first. If it stacks up, I’ll come back.” His glare does nothing to quell my sudden, savage rush of triumph. I keep my eyes carefully averted so he can’t see it. “And you’d better not breathe a fucking word of this, puta .”

Like I have anything to gain by talking. But I don’t say that. I just nod. “Of course.”

Rodrigo stands up.

“There is one other thing,” I say reluctantly.

He gives me an impatient look which says he’s already imagining himself at the head of an empire, with minions kissing the proverbial ring .

Unfortunately, if either of us are ever going to get what we want, we’re going to need to sell our cover story convincingly.

“They’re expecting us to be enemies,” I say.

Rodrigo frowns. “So you said.”

“That means I need to look like your enemy.”

He must really be distracted, because he still looks confused.

Christ. Of all the things I imagined when I saw Rodrigo sitting in this private room, convincing him to hurt me wasn’t one of them.

I take a cigar from the case on the bar and clip the end off. “You’re going to need to knock me around, Rodrigo.”

His eyes widen. Then the familiar sick smile begins to curl his lips.

Yes, there you are, you bastard. I brace myself as he advances on me. Even now, the idea of hurting me turns you on, doesn’t it, you sick fuck?

I light the cigar and hand it to him, swallowing hard on my fear.

Use it, Abby. The more he enjoys this, the more they will believe that you’re beaten.

“I can tear my dress myself,” I say, unable to stop my voice shaking. “I’ll leave the black eyes and burns to you.”