Gina Takes Bangkok (The Femme Vendettas) (2 page)

Taking the girl’s arm, Gina pointed through the wreckage. “Come on! There’s an exit at the back.”

The two of them sprinted through the stockroom, rushing out the back door to the alley. The young woman made to continue running, but Gina pivoted her toward a dumpster. “Get in there and hide!” She boosted the girl, forgetting that Asian females were made of bamboo, and with a squeal and windmilling of arms, the girl fell inside with a crunch of cardboard.

From her bag, Gina pulled out a little piece of insurance she always carried with her. With a flick of her wrist, she extended the pink-handled telescopic truncheon her father had mailed to her three Christmases ago, and positioned herself by the door.

The gunman burst out, and with a samurai cry, Gina swung her baton at his wrist. There was a snap of bone as the titanium tip scored a direct hit, and the man dropped his weapon, howling in pain. Gina didn’t let up. Whacking away at the thug for all she was worth, Gina struck him across the face and head once, twice, three times, until he dropped to the ground, twitching and bleeding.

Panting for breath, Gina snagged the man’s gun from the pavement and was about to make a citizen’s arrest when she heard the roar of a motorcycle. Her attacker had backup, and it was headed right for her. With a yelp, she yanked open the door as the bullets started flying, and slamming it shut behind her, clicked the deadbolt into place. She backed up, keeping her gun aimed and ready. The motorcycle squealed to a halt outside, and, a heartbeat later, someone pulled violently at the door.

Gina fired, putting a bullet hole neatly through the center of it, and waited. Hopefully that ought to be enough of a deterrent. The seconds ticked by and all was silent, then the girl cried out.

“Ah, dammit.” What part of ‘hide’ didn’t she understand? Tiptoeing to the door, Gina peeked out the bullet hole, but could see squat. She snapped back the deadbolt and opened up, gun at the ready.

The girl stood in the dumpster, apparently unharmed. Her two attackers weren’t so lucky. The clubbed one was lying very still, dark blood pooling around his head, and the other was spread-eagled, her shot having pierced the door and struck him straight through the heart.

She’d killed. Again. And well. Like she was meant for the life. Everything tilted and blurred around her. No. She couldn’t lose it. Not this time.

Gina looked at the gun, shaking in her hand, then at the teenager. “Don’t worry, you’re safe. We’ve done nothing wrong. The cops will be here any minute.”

The girl shook her head, her straight black hair whipping about as she climbed out of the dumpster. “No! I need to find Gina Zaffini. Please, do you know her?”

Gina blinked in surprise. “I’m Gina, how did you—?”

“Yes! I’m Tasanee. Your father and mine are friends, and they’re both in big danger! I have to get back to Bangkok.”

“Tasanee?” Alak Montri’s daughter. She hadn’t seen her god-sister in ten years, and given the kind of business their fathers were in, the last thing she could afford to do was get the police involved. She steered the girl over to the motorcycle. “Get on and let’s get out of here. You can fill me in when we get somewhere safe.”

“Oh thank you, Ms. Zaffini! Thank you.”

“Don’t sweat it. Just hold on tight, and call me Gina. We’re sisters after all.”

With Tasanee perched behind her, Gina took off down the alley. They were a mile away when she remembered the god-awful dress. It’d been a narrow escape in more ways than one.

John Wakai resisted racing for the phone the second it rang. There was nothing he wanted more than to return to the serenity of order, to have his inner state reflect his Bangkok penthouse—clean, simple and of unimpeachable quality. This call would determine if the control that had slipped from his grasp was his once again. If his plans, as rushed as they’d been, had worked.

Rolling his wheelchair to the coffee table, he picked up his smartphone. He breathed out, and with the voice of a Zen master, answered, “Is it done?”

“No. We’re in trouble,” his sister squeaked, her tone somewhere between rage and panic.

“How bad?”

She wavered close to hysteria. “The men I had working for me...they weren’t able to finish the job.”

“She got away?”

“Yes. No. I mean they won’t be able to finish the job. Ever.”

This could not be happening. “I thought you said they were right on her tail.”

“They were. I don’t know what happened. One minute they had her, the next they were both dead. I can’t believe they came recommended.”

Wakai bit back a curse. He hadn’t been privy to all of Montri’s secrets; his former boss had kept an ace up his sleeve. Someone to watch over his daughter. Someone dangerous enough to protect her from even his sister’s vicious associates.

“I have no idea where she went to. How do I find her now?”

“You can’t,” he answered with forced calm. “Whatever happened, I’m sure she’ll be back in Bangkok soon enough, and that means we have a challenge. A very serious challenge.”

“So the plan failed?” she asked.

“No,” he assured her. “And I’ll make sure it doesn’t. I’m not going to let anyone harm you.” And of course he wouldn’t, even as disturbed as she was. How could he, with all she meant to him? After everything and everyone he’d sacrificed to protect her. “You did the best you could. Come home, Victoria. Catch the first flight you can, and meanwhile I’ll sort this out.”

He ended the call. As suddenly as the threat to her had developed, he’d masterminded a plan tight with checks, balances and contingencies to keep her safe. Now thanks to the incompetence of a pair of mercenaries, it was unraveling.

Two years ago a man named Erawan Boontan—not an especially smart individual, but a very feared and dangerous one—had attempted a similar power play against Montri. The coup might have succeeded had his boss not retained the legendary assassin, Kannon Takahama, to punish the usurper’s audacity. At first, Erawan hadn’t worried—after all, he had many friends and supporters, and was no stranger to violence. Two months later he, and all who had collaborated with him, were dead. Kannon wasn’t a man. He was a force of nature.

Still, nature could be tamed. All he needed to do was find the girl and capture her, as he’d done with her father. With her prisoner, he’d easily control Montri, and even an enemy as relentless as the assassin would be brought to heel.

Resting the phone on the arm of his wheelchair, he closed his eyes. His meditation was short-lived. Though the number was blocked, Wakai knew who it was. His plan would never have worked without so formidable an ally, yet such pacts were a double-edged sword. Displeased friends could be far more dangerous than enemies. Especially friends such as these.

“Get her?” said a deep, cold voice, thick with a rural Cambodian accent.

“No. She had some security I didn’t know about,” replied Wakai, with studied firmness. “Killed the useless gunmen Victoria hired. Apparently they came recommended by some idiot.”

“I recommended them.”

Wakai had insulted him. Worse, he’d made it sound as if Victoria had insulted him, too.

The man was angry now, the kind of anger that got people brutally murdered. Or much, much worse. “We couldn’t have made this any easier for you! With the girl, we could have taken the city in one stroke!”

Arrogant psychopath. How convenient to forget that it had been his knowledge and strategy that had afforded them such a quick and decisive victory, albeit an incomplete one. “I said I’d take care of her and I will. Unfortunately, it’s going to take a little more time.”

“You’re so smart you’re stupid,” came the scathing reply. “Kannon’s tracking you down right now, him and his boss’s friends. He’ll come knocking, and you’ll get tossed off your fancy penthouse, just like Erawan.”

Wakai grimaced. Back then, he’d still had use of his legs. Had been there when the assassin had thrown Erawan to his death—with one hand.

“You have one week to solve this problem. After that, there’s no word for the kind of punishment you’ll receive.”

Punishment? After all he’d done for them? His new partner’s inability to reason made him as volatile as his former boss. He’d have to find some way to muzzle the mad dog. Until then, he gave the only answer he could. “Consider it dealt with.”

The line went dead, and Wakai released a loud curse. No way to zen his way back to peace now. Seven days was all he had to put out the fire his sister’s vices had started. Fail, and it would explode into an inferno.

Kannon was running out of time, but not as fast as Jarun who he had tied to a chair in the stockroom of the man’s own grocery store. Taking the cigarette from his mouth, Kannon stubbed it out on the prisoner’s forehead, eliciting a shrill cry of pain as it hissed against flesh. He re-lit the cigarette and took a puff. “I’m starting to get annoyed with you. Tell me where my boss is.”

“For the last time, I don’t know,” Jarun spat, blood trickling down his sweat-slicked face. “And even if I did, you’d kill me the second I told you.”

There was every reason for his prisoner to believe that. After all, Jarun had never shown any mercy to those who he’d brought to the back of his shop. The man was an enforcer. A fighter. A torturer. One look at his hands, knuckles enlarged and calloused, told that story.

“You helped Wakai kidnap Mr. Montri, murder his lieutenants and hunt his daughter. The question is not whether you’re going to die. It’s how unpleasant I’m going to make that process. Now tell me what I want to know.”

The man gritted his teeth in stubborn determination. “Fuck you.”

Behind Kannon, a door opened to admit his apprentice, Ryota. The tall, wiry man nodded to his boss, his expression a mask of cold indifference. He held up a phone. “I have a few numbers that might be leads, and he has a message on his voicemail. Other than that, the place is empty. No sign of where they’re keeping the boss.”

Kannon removed his cigarette and held the burning tip close to one of his prisoner’s eyes. “Where is he?”

Jarun clamped his mouth shut, as he struggled at his bonds.

Kannon growled. “You think you know how to torture? Compared to me you’re an amateur. By the time I’m done with this cancer stick you’ll curse your father for not pulling out of that ten-baht whore you call a mother. Now. For the last time. Where is—?”

His cell buzzed. Not breaking eye contact with Jarun, he pulled it from his suit jacket. “You better pray this is good news.”

He stepped away to take the call.

“Kannon?”

Tasanee. “Where are you?”

“I’m in Los Angeles. I got away from the apartment like you told me to, then somehow Wakai’s men still found me. They would have had me for sure except Gina saved me. She killed them, and we’re at this workshop, and—”

“Slow down. What did you say? Who killed them?”

He heard the phone being handed to another person. “Hi, Kannon. Remember me?”

Part of what made him such an expert manhunter was that he rarely forgot a face. Or a voice. And though it had been three years since their last run-in, the receptionist he’d completely failed to intimidate was fixed in his memory. “The pink-haired woman.”

Of all the people in the world, she was Vincenzo Zaffini’s daughter?

“Actually, my hair’s black-and-purple now, but it’s awful sweet of you to remember. We’re at the same place you blew up on your last visit,” she rattled on. “I couldn’t believe it when Tasanee told me who she was, and who Alak had hired as muscle. You really should step up your security, y’know? Next time I might not be around to do your job for you.”

Her squirrel chattering grated. “Put Tasanee back on.”

“Fine,” she said, “only don’t expect me to bail you out again with that attitude.” A moment later, Tasanee was back.

“Kannon, I’m at this place called—”

“I know where you are. The people there are...associates of mine.” He looked at his watch and scowled. “I’ll be there tomorrow night. Stay where you are and who you’re with.” He added what he knew the girl needed to hear. “You’re safe now.”

“That’s what Gina keeps saying.”

Gratitude mixed with his irritation, and the two didn’t sit well. “She’s right. Don’t call anyone else.”