Back in New York, Brooklyn was bustling beneath Shin Lu’s window, but all was as quiet as usual in her studio apartment. She sat by the window, a rat running across a power line strung over the alley, chuckling hipsters paying it no mind.

Shin Lu couldn’t help but think about Tia and Marcus, on a spontaneous vacation in South America. She lives like royalty, Shin Lu had to admit to herself, and leaves me to sit in this squalor. I’m running her company from a hovel!

A sip of hot tea brought her no solace.

She’s become corrupt, Shin Lu had to conclude, carried away with her jet-set lifestyle, all her sexual carrying on. She claims to have a responsibility to audition these men…and women…personally, but I know she enjoys it. She does not even go through the proper ritual of denying it. She uses the company as her own private sex farm, and that is not what serves the company best; that is not what’s best for the State.

And it’s taken its toll on her, on her soul and her spirit; I can see it. She’s been making mistakes, losing service providers to wanton clients, costing the company money while she’s out on her yacht taking men two at a time. Now this man, this competitor, Tia’s already fallen for him; there can’t be much doubt. She’s already been kidnapped, Tia McBride herself, and it’s likely to happen again. At the top of her game he never would have gotten close to her the way he did. And now he’s gotten even closer. Unless she’s outsmarting us all, she’s probably fantasizing about marrying the guy. And unless he’s outsmarting us all and luring her into a death trap, he’s probably ready to join forces with her too.

Either way, Tia McBride is selling out: selling out the company, selling out her soul, throwing it all away for some man from her past, a man with dubious and devious intentions.

No, I can’t let that happen. In times of crisis, when the State is threatened, a new leader must rise up and take control. It’s what the citizens crave, what they require. It’s what’s best for the State.

Shin Lu took another sip of her tea and leaned back in her wooden chair, the night’s view suddenly a bit more pleasant with the rush of mischief in her blood. She glanced at the framed photo on the end table, she and Li in happier times.

That DuBois woman is right, Shin Lu had to silently admit, another sip of tea—one of the last in the cup, cooling fast. But to gamble on imprisoning them is too dangerous. When you stalk the tiger, you must not grab it by its tail, lest it turn on you.

You have to kill the tiger.

And a quick and painless death for the both of them would be preferable to make sure they are gone and out of the picture forever.

Shin Lu picked up the framed photo and looked at it more closely. There’d been a reason she’d never let go of that picture, or of her feelings for Li. Their paths had parted in years past, but she suddenly saw a conjoining, and much sooner than she’d ever thought.

* * *

“Really? Your ex-boyfriend?” Denise ducked her head down a bit as they walked across Central Park the next day, each wearing sunglasses. Denise’s long, black hair was tucked under a wide-brimmed hat, Shin Lu’s wrapped in a long silk scarf.

“I have not been in contact in some time. I cannot even say if he’ll still talk to me.”

“He’s still back in the old country, huh?”

“It’s why we broke up,” Shin Lu explained, careful to look around the park and not at Denise, walking beside her. “We grew up together, trained together, in a variety of the martial arts. But he fell in with the Dragon’s Wing, and I just could not be a part of that life. That was the Korea I wanted to get away from.”

“Dragon’s Wing? That’s like a gang or something?”

Shin Lu nodded. “Part of the Asian mafia. Not Yakuza, but close.”

Denise sighed. “Wow, that’s…that’s heavy. But it sounds like just what we need. Fast and quick, no doubts and no suffering, right?”

“Shshshshsh, yes of course. Keep your voice down. You’re sure you want to do this?”

“I tried so many times to win him over, seduce him, make him mine, but he never took the bait. He never truly loved me in the way I wanted him to. And that bitch slut pig…” But Denise was quick to recover her decorum, a casual tone returning. “Yeah, I’m sure. You?”

Shin Lu looked away again. “It’s what’s best for the company.”

“For both companies.”

They strolled on in silence, Shin Lu unable to deny a pang of concern, new questions popping up in the back of her brain.

What’s going to happen once this woman and I ascend to lead each company? Will we work together, or will it be a matter of living and then dying by the sword? She’d kill her boss and former lover; she wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to me, or worse.

But Shin Lu found it wiser to simply repeat, “Yes, for both companies.” After a few more moments, Shin Lu said, “I’ll place the call then?”

Denise nodded, pulling the hat down over her face. “Do it. And let me know when the job is finished.”