Penumbra (The Midnight Society #2) (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Shadow

“You know what one of the highlights of Hong Kong is?” Cairo asked as he grabbed a Chinese pork bun and walked over to the cash register of the 7-11.

“What?” I replied, only half-paying attention to him. I took a deep breath and shoved my cellphone back into my pocket.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were walking into a trap. There was a strong possibility that this was going to be my last night on earth.

If that was true, then my final wish was to hear Aria’s voice one last time; her voice that was as sweet as music.

It’s funny how the prospect of dying changed your views on everything—including being an insensitive prick.

I wanted to make amends.

I wanted tell her that I was sorry for pushing her away—that I just couldn’t trust myself around her. I wouldn’t have been able to protect her.

I couldn’t be the man she wanted.

However she didn’t want to speak to me, which was fair. I had been a dick.

I was also worried about how deep she had gone into the seedy underbelly of the Midnight Society.

Aria will be making the final play for it,
Lincoln had said. I feared what dangers that potentially involved. I wanted to tell her to be careful, that I wanted to see her unharmed when we all returned. That we should have a talk between us, the one that she deserved. That I still cared for her and loved her.

But we didn’t talk.

Perhaps it was best this way.

“
Are you still listening to me?” Cairo asked. I shifted my focus to the entrance of the Bamboo Lily restaurant across the street. We were waiting for Elena and her men to arrive. Nathan was already inside with his crew.

“What do you like best about Hong Kong?” I asked, feigning interest just to please Cairo.

“It’s the fact that they allow you to drink on the streets,” he said. “I remember one night, after a fight, I stopped by a 7-11 and decided that I needed a beer. I picked up a Heinnekin, wandered out into the street and drank it just like that. I kept walking until I found another 7-11, grabbed another beer and went back outside. I almost made it a game, trying to find 7-11s on my way home, grabbing beers and chugging them.”

I looked at Cairo and raised a brow. “Do you know how pathetic that sounds?”

“Why is that pathetic?”

“I’m not going to bother telling you,” I said, shaking my head. “But maybe if you laid off the post-fight convenience store beer crawls, you would have won our fight.”

“Asshole,” Cairo snarled, as he popped the entire pork bun in his mouth and devoured it in five chews. He shifted the conversation to more pressing matters. “Elena arrived yet?”

I peered out the glass window and shook my head.

What I did see was a white man, with the cylindrical physique of a barrel, crossing the street while holding the hand of a little girl who I pegged to be around five years old.

He was an odd looking guy who stuck out like a middle finger. His hair was greasy and matted to his head, and he had on the thickest pair of square glasses I’d ever seen. He wore a collared plaid shirt
, button all the way up to his neck, and baggy track pants. His face displayed a permanent scowl.

The little girl, on the other hand, was very cute, with round chubby cheeks and a wide smile. She wore her strawberry blonde hair in pigtails.

If this guy was the father, the girl must have definitely taken on her mother’s looks.

The man entered into the 7-11 with the girl, who was clinging onto his arm and jumping up and down.

“Twizzlers?” she asked, all excited. The man with glasses looked at me with tiny eyes through thick lenses, and then nodded. I had no idea if the nod was directed at me or in response to the little girl’s question.

Suddenly a silver Mercedes Benz SUV pulled up in front of the restaurant. The driver and two thick men in suits exited the car. One of them opened the right side door of the back seat and out stepped Elena, wearing a modest black dress that hugged her curvy body tightly. I had to admit, she looked stunning, especially with her delicate Asian features.

“Shit man, that’s her?” Cairo asked. “That’s Elena?”

I nodded.

“Wow.”

“You know that stupid ritual where they forced me to choose a bride?”

Cairo nodded.

“She was there. I turned her down.”

“Holy shit. I can only imagine how stunning the girl you chose must have been if you turned down that fine piece over there.”

I imagined Aria, sitting in front of the piano, absorbed in her music. God, she was so beautiful.

I shrugged off the image. I needed to focus.

“Ready to go?” I asked.

Cairo shrugged. “Are you still confident that Nathan won’t stab you in the back and then hand you over to Elena?”

“No,” I replied, truthfully.

“Great,” Cairo muttered. “Do you have a plan B?”

“No.”

“Fuck. Are you going to get me killed?”

“Stop being a pansy,” I replied. “Come on.”

I was worried though. As we crossed the street to the Bamboo Lily, the only thought in my mind was “
Nathan, if you double cross me, I’ll rip your throat out.”

We walked around the back of the restaurant, through the alleyways, where two of Nathan’s men waited for us, by the door of the back entrance. One of them was Tsung.

“Everything should be in place now,” he said.

“Good,” I replied, but just as I was about to open the door, Tsung extended his hand out, blocking the way.

“We’ll need this to look realistic,” he said, drawing a gun out from his jacket. “We don’t want her thinking that something was amiss.”

I looked at Tsung skeptically. “No, we wouldn’t want that,” I said sarcastically. He pressed the gun behind my back while the other guard pointed his semi-automatic in Cairo’s direction.

This was beginning to look like the set up I was expecting.

I wondered what kind of offer Nathan could have received from Elena that could have matched mine. Maybe she was giving him something extra on the side—something
I definitely couldn’t give him: Her body.

That fucking dog.

“Inside,” Tsung said.

I did as instructed, opening the door and entering into the large kitchen of the restaurant. There were cooks inside, scrubbing pots and pans, and from the looks of the steaming plates of rich foods on the steel countertops, they had
just
finished cooking.

“Hungry?” Tsung asked, noticing my eyes glancing over the plates of steamed fish, roasted duck, sweet and sour pork, and shark finned soup.

“No,” I replied.

“Too bad. The cooks spent a lot of time preparing this food.”

I shrugged. “They can eat it then.”

“I can see you’re very impatient tonight. I shall take you to see Elena,” Tsung grinned, displaying his grizzly yellow teeth.

“I’m sure you will.”

“Man, you don’t need to jam that thing so hard into my back,” Cairo moaned, cursing the other Triad guard.

“The Black Devil cost me a lot of money in the fighting pits,” the gangster replied.

“Not my fault you made a dumb bet.”

At the end of the kitchen, there was another door.

Nathan was standing in front of it.

“Everything’s going according to plan,” he said.

“Who’s plan?” I asked. “And are the guns really necessary?”

Nathan smiled. “Authenticity is important. Otherwise, she may grow suspicious.”

“
I’m
growing suspicious,” I pointed out.

“You don’t trust me?”

“No.”

Nathan laughed. “I wouldn’t trust me either.”

“If you backstab us, I’m going to eat your heart with a spoon,” Cairo cursed, which elicited nothing more than a shrug from Nathan.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out now, isn’t there.” He opened the door and gestured for us to enter.

It was another room, a private dining room from the looks of it. The walls were adorned with bright red wallpaper, symbolizing wealth for the Chinese.

It reminded me of the pools of blood, flowing out of my parent’s dead bodies.

We were concealed behind an onyx room divider, ivory white storks decorating it. On the other side of the divider, I heard Elena having a one-sided conversation. She was on the phone with someone.

“He’ll be here any second now,” she said, in a sweet voice laced with silk.

Was that Calisto on the other end?

“The big dumb mule is with him…No Lincoln and no Golden Virgin from what I can tell…Can I scratch him just a little?...He called me a whore in front of everyone…I am not…Bitch, please.
.. Fine, I’ll handle it…Bye.”

Silence followed.

“Shall we?” Nathan asked, just as the conversation ended.

Before I could reply, Tsung pushed me forward, revealing us to Elena.

It was only her in the room. None of her men were in sight, which was a good sign.

She sat in front of a large circular table, plates of steaming food laid out before her. My stomach rumbled from the wonderful smells of the barbecued pork, baked fresh fish, crisp duck, and steaming hot pots.

Elena leaned back in her chair and grinned at the sight of me. “Shadow,” she said with a smug look on her face. “You look like shit.”

“And you still look like a whore,” I replied. Nathan gestured for me to take a seat at the table, which I did.

“I hope the food is prepared to your liking,” Nathan said. “Only the finest dishes were cooked. Tonight is a special night with the old society meeting the new.”

“Cut the crap
Nathan,” Elena said.

“I agree,” I replied, my eyes remaining fixated on Elena.

Nathan sighed. “Very well. I imagine there’s a lot for the two of you to discuss. I shall be waiting outside with my men, when you are finished.”

He motioned for Tsung to head back into the kitchen, and then pointed a gun at Cairo. “Let’s leave these two alone, shall we Black Devil?”

“Suck on a dick,” he spat, his eyes lit ablaze. He, no doubt, believed that we had been betrayed. I was sitting on the fence on this one. Nathan stood to gain far more financially siding with me than with Elena—unless it wasn’t financial gain he was seeking.

Her pussy was the x-factor in all of this.

“Let’s go,” Nathan said.

Cairo continued to mutter profanities all the way out room. Even when the door was closed behind them, I could still hear him.

We sat alone at the table, Elena and I.

“
Are you going to eat?” I asked.

“No. Do you actually trust the food?”

I shook my head. “It looks good though.”

“It does,” she replied, pausing. “So Shadow, did you enjoy your time with the Golden Virgin?”

“It was wonderful. Thanks for asking.”

“You know, after Calisto told me about your brainwashing, I understood why you didn’t choose me that night.” Elena replied. “But what I don’t understand was why you needed to humiliate me in front of everyone. You took my dad’s name and dragged it in the mud.”

I shrugged. “Sorry,” I replied.

She looked at me and frowned while her eyes spewed venom. “You always were an asshole.”

“Where’s Calisto?” I asked.

She laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Where is she?” I repeated.

“You’re unbelievable, Shadow. Y
ou’re my prisoner, and you’re trying to interrogate me?”

I smiled. “How do you know it’s not the other way around?”

“Nathan’s not stupid. He would never place his bet on a losing hand.”

“What if the hand I’m holding’s a royal flush.”

“That’s a laugh,” Elena said. “You’ve got nothing left to your name. Calisto took it all away from you. The Midnight Society is
dead.
”

I smiled. “If that’s what you think.”

I could spot the lines of doubt, drawn on Elena’s face. If Nathan did betray me, this was the only opportunity I had in extracting the information out of Elena before shit hit the fan and I needed to bolt.

“It’s what I know
,” Elena said. “You’ve got nothing.”

“I found Reiko,” I said. “She’s helping me.”

Cairo was probably going to be pissed that I brought Reiko into the limelight, but it was the only play I had. Her name alone gave me instant credibility.

“You’re lying
,” Elena said. “The last thing Reiko would do is get herself involved with the Midnight Society again. Besides, she’s disappeared for over five years. She’s probably six feet in the ground somewhere.”