Gina Takes Bangkok (The Femme Vendettas) (30 page)

The captain rose to her feet, battered and bruised, and Gina helped her into the powerboat. She glanced at Wakai, and realized what a dangerous combination it would be to have the captain anywhere close to the man partly responsible for the death of her daughter. “Here, captain. Could you hold onto Darae? Keep her as warm as possible.”

Gina turned to John Wakai, all trussed up. “We’re going to back to the shore, and when we get there you’re going to release Mr. Montri. We spared your sister, and now you’re going to keep your end of the deal.”

“I will,” he replied.

“Good. As soon as we have him we’ll let you go. Are you comfortable enough in the meantime?”

Wakai gave her an uncertain look. “Let me go?”

“Your friend Jarun cut a deal with me. When you see him you can tell him I keep to my agreements. Every single part of them.”

He looked up at her, his expression at once relieved and confused.

“You have a question?” she asked.

“Given the circumstances. You don’t seem...”

Gina stared at him, unmoving. “I don’t seem what?”

“As upset as I thought you’d be.”

“Oh, I’m way beyond upset, Wakai. I’m now in charge of something I never wanted thanks to you and your sister. Then again, at least I’m not flopping around in the bottom of a boat.”

Kannon appeared at the top of the stairs with her father’s body, and minutes later, they were heading back to Bangkok. The light of dawn illuminated the towering column of smoke and flame that engulfed
The Pink Pussycat
. The magnificent ship listed farther and farther, then sank beneath the waves, down into the inky depths below.

Gina didn’t see it happen. Her eyes were to the shore, her thoughts on what to do once Alak Montri was free. She turned to Kannon on the seat beside her, to ask him what their next step after Montri should be, when she realized that she and Kannon were done. Once Montri was released, he had no reason to be with her. She was on her own. She had Darae and the rest of the Pink Stilettos, and that was it.
Tell me what to do and I’ll do it, Gina
. Well, that was short-lived. Whatever she decided, she’d have to do it alone because Kannon would no longer be hers to command. Not that he’d ever been.

Spray splattered on her face, and wiping it from her eyes, she turned to him and said above the engines and slap of the water. “I guess there’ll be no third date.”

He twisted to her. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and the early light burnished his cheek. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ll be Montri’s again.”

“How is that a problem?”

Didn’t he get it? She leaned so her lips were against his ear. Wakai was at the back of the boat, and couldn’t hear them. Still she wasn’t taking chances. “Because I’ve got friends, Lwin and Dr. Chai, who are kinda peeved with your boss. So you in the company of me might not look so good.”

“We could work around it,” he said into her ear.

They could, too. Meet up somewhere, have a night of it. One night where they could have a few hours of good, hot sex, and in the morning say their proper goodbyes. And then what? They couldn’t have a relationship, and an affair was risky, too. No, it would be too frustrating, too—heartbreaking.

She said something that had never fallen from her lips before, that up to this night she’d never considered. “Let’s not. It wouldn’t be worth it.”

She expected him to go neutral, the way he always did when pushed. Instead, his face clouded with sadness, and the smile he gave her was small and bitter. She’d hurt him. And there was nothing she could say or do to make it better.

She set her gaze once again to the shore. She could make out the solid extension of the dock now. Soon there’d be the wooden thumping of footsteps down its length. Soon there’d be orders and directions, and Montri’s release. There’d be all those things and not what she could now see from the corner of her eye—Kannon bent over, elbows on his knees, rubbing at his swollen, beaten knuckles as if they were a drawing he could erase.

Gina pressed her hands together, bowing to the hundredth or so guest who entered the grand hotel ballroom where her father’s eulogy service was about to take place. A couple of hours earlier the crowd had filled the Assumption Cathedral, the main church of the Archdiocese of Bangkok, and now that the somber Catholic rites had been completed, it was time to gather together once more—but not in remembrance.

The people who had gathered were the who’s who of Bangkok’s underworld. The city’s top smugglers and madams, counterfeiters and hackers, conmen and killers. Many were genuine friends and associates of her father. All had come to hear what Alak Montri had to say. After all, if Bangkok had a Godfather, it would be him.

The elevator at the end of the hall opened, and the man of the hour appeared, flanked by Kannon and Ryota. Gina braced and forced herself to keep her eyes on the man in the middle and away from the more imposing Kannon. She’d not seen him since they’d docked on the shore six days ago. She’d gone to the hospital with Darae and the captain, and he and Ryota with Wakai to retrieve their boss. No contact whatsoever in six days. No matter how often she’d stared at her phone, it was never him who called. And she was left to scroll through the few pictures she had of him. Dancing. And one of him, glasses off, his expression saying, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Well, what had she expected? She’d broken up with him. She didn’t know much about dating but she figured if you told someone being with them wasn’t worth it, then they were through. At least with a guy like Kannon, you would be.

Although Alak Montri still sported a few bandages, the remnants of his mistreatment at the hands of Victoria, his dress was impeccable, his stride full of purpose. He headed straight to her, and they exchanged bows of respect.

“I know this is a bad time, Gina, but I wanted a word with you before the ceremony begins,” he said in Thai. “Ryota can greet the guests if you can spare a moment.”

She’d half-expected this. She gestured to a smaller adjoining room she’d already set aside. “Of course.”

She would’ve walked right in but Kannon cut in front and inspected the room first before giving a nod to the waiting Alak Montri. The head boss was cautious and justifiably so.

As soon as she and Montri were inside, Kannon closed the door and stood next to it. He crossed his hands in front of him, immaculate in his suit. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, though she could’ve wagered they were in his front pocket.

Not that she was thinking of him. Not at all. She focused on her father’s dear friend.

“First of all, I wanted to extend my condolences. Your family made the ultimate sacrifice for me, and I’m not about to forget it.”

Gina nodded. “You and Tasanee are as close as blood to us, Alak. We’d never abandon you.”

“And you’ve more than demonstrated your loyalty,” he replied. “This is why I want to offer you a position at my side, Gina. Kannon has told me how instrumental you were in freeing me. How you risked your own life several times for my daughter and me. I’ll need people like you if I’m to wage war on Wakai.”

It took everything she had not to look at Kannon. He…admired her. Later, when she was alone with her phone pictures, she feel the pleasure of that but not while Alak Montri stood in front of her, ready to announce his move. “You have a plan on how to rescue Tasanee?”

Montri’s expression tightened. “For twenty years I’ve fought to keep this city. I’ve taken on all comers. Enemies from every corner of the earth it seems, and I’ve beaten them all. However, victory requires courage, Gina. It requires bloodshed. And more than anything, it requires sacrifices.”

Gina blinked. She wasn’t understanding him. She couldn’t be. “You’re not suggesting that you’d leave Tasanee to—”

“I’m saying,” interrupted Montri, “that your father gave his life so I could take back Bangkok from these monsters. How can I sacrifice any less and still be a man of honor?”

“But she’s your daughter,” Gina replied. She might’ve felt sick if the shock of Montri’s words hadn’t left her numb.

“And it’s because she’s my daughter that she must now play her part. Today I am going to call for war on Wakai. I’m going to unite the gangs and crush these Cambodian vermin. They think they can control me. Today they’re going to learn just how badly they miscalculated. Will you fight with me?”

Gina couldn’t help it. Her gaze flew to Kannon. He didn’t move, continued to observe them as if cut from stone. His expression was neutral. More neutral than humanly possible. It would take a tremendous effort to look that unmoved. She switched back to Montri. “I’ll fight to drive the rakshasas out of this city, Mr. Montri. I swear I’ll fight them with everything I’ve got. But I won’t fight for a man who’d leave his own daughter to die, especially at the hands of monsters like those.”

There was a long, dangerous pause. When he spoke his tone was all cold politeness. “Thank you for your honesty, Gina. I’m disappointed, but there are other allies. Perhaps you’ll reconsider your position later.”

He gave a curt nod, and strode for the hall, no doubt ready to make his speech to the gangs. Kannon fell in behind his boss, not sparing her a glance.

She was sure he didn’t approve of his boss’s abandonment of his daughter. She also knew that to defy his boss meant endangering his own daughter. He said he’d kill anyone to protect the ones he loved. She understood what he had to do. She expected no less of him. And she hated the man who had turned her and Kannon against each other.

“Bastard,” she muttered, fuming at the heartlessness of her so-called ally. If he gave that speech, Tasanee was as good as dead, and soon enough the streets of Bangkok would be bloodied by yet another turf war. Dr. Chaiboonma had been right all along, only she’d been too naive to listen. Still, as Montri himself had said, she’d risked her life for her god-sister several times already, and she wasn’t about to give up on protecting her now.

Only, what to do? She tugged at her black dress in an effort to make it more modest. When the urge to shop had overtaken her after completing arrangements at the church earlier that week, she’d expected the universe to send a replica of the black dress from her favorite store in L. A.. Instead, it had delivered a knee-length, body-molding cocktail dress with a single strap across one shoulder. Gina thought it entirely inappropriate. She’d cringed when she put it on that morning, her bare shoulder revealing the curves of her crocodile tat. Every time she tried to put on something else the tingles crackled through her so bad that in the end she’d given in. She’d styled her hair so that it fell over her twisting blue ink but even now, she felt it burn through, clawing for her attention and everyone else’s.

Attention.

She had it. She never asked for it. It was like the dogs who trailed her around. Kannon had pointed out how she seemed connected to everyone, and she’d dismissed that as something she couldn’t control. Yet, here she was. The universe or God or some god had made her the center of attention, and this time she’d take full advantage. She flipped back her purple-streaked hair, exposing Timmy for the world to see, spun on her four-inch pink stilettos and strode through a second entrance that opened onto the front of the hall.

She crossed to the podium before the sea of guests, and surveyed their faces. There was Montri and his lackeys, expressions already impatient, waiting for her to finish saying her piece so that they could declare war. There were other people, too. Darae and her father’s girls, their sheer number a good indication that there was scarcely a brothel or massage parlor open in Bangkok that day. She saw Pensri and Lwin. Dr. Chaiboonma and Kittyjack. They too were listening, as were numerous gangsters who must be weary of the endless conflicts that had bloodied them over the years.

She flattened her hands on the podium, ignoring the neat stack of cards that was her father’s eulogy.

“Today, my friends, we have a traitor in our midst.”

Shock rippled through the crowd. Whatever they’d been expecting, it wasn’t this.

“And like all traitors,” she continued, “this person presents a face of loyalty. He claims that he is our friend. Our mentor. Our protector. But whose interests is he really looking after? His own.”

Montri’s face was rapidly growing bright red, and without flinching, she turned to address him directly. “Alak Montri. Bangkok is once again under siege by ruthless foreigners. Once more you, your families, and your businesses are going to be ground under someone’s heel. Tell me, whose judgment was it that resulted in this situation? Whose incompetence allowed John Wakai to seize power? Who was it that now wants that power back, no matter what the cost to those who have demonstrated true loyalty to this city?”

She paused, turning her gaze back to those assembled. “Bangkok is not one man. This city is our shared territory, and all of us should have a say on how to deal with the threat we now face. My father was smart, brave, rich, and well-prepared, yet we all know what his fate was. Rush to fight now, and how many more funerals are we going to have to endure? That is the lesson my father died to teach us.”