CHAPTER NINETEEN

The pounding in Kira’s head finally penetrated the numbing darkness that had enveloped her, causing her eyes to slowly flutter open. She was greeted by the sight of more darkness. After a few bleary moments, her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she took in her surroundings. Judging by the boxes scattered about, she appeared to be in a storage room of some sort. The only source of light in the room was a dim light bulb that dangled from the ceiling.

Wincing as the pain that her previous state of unconsciousness had shielded her from suddenly hit with a vengeance, she opened her mouth to let out the low moan that rumbled in her dry throat only to find her voice muffled by the gag tied tightly between her lips. As she attempted to reach up and remove the obstruction from her mouth, she discovered that her wrists were tightly bound behind her back. Panic shot through her like a bullet, brutally wrenching her from semi-consciousness and plunging her into full blown terror. The creaky coils of the old, musky mattress she was lying face down on squeaked in protest as she bounced frantically on top of its stained surface, trying in vain to free her hands to no avail. The cloth material jammed into her mouth stifled the scream that rose to her throat, causing her to choke on her own fear as tears began to stream down her face. Quickly exhausted by her futile efforts and the persistent pain that clawed viciously at the back of her eyeballs, Kira collapsed back on to the mattress, her shoulders shaking violently as she sobbed into it.

Get a grip, Kira, she mentally commanded herself. Crying isn’t going to get you out of this.

With a force of will that she didn’t know she possessed, she forced down her terror and tears, and stilled her body even as her heart continued to race. Through the thick fog that clouded her mind, she attempted to put together the fragmented bits of memory that flashed through her mind; Jeremy holding a gun to her head...the sound of gunfire... glass falling…people screaming… the images all collided in her mind in a horrifying kaleidoscope of mayhem ending with the sight of Ethan’s face, fear and helplessness coalescing in his eyes as they had locked with hers in the midst of the chaos.

Jeremy had kidnapped her, she knew that much, but that was pretty much all she remembered. She had no recollection of anything that had happened after he’d dragged her out of The Atrium. Based on the persistent state of grogginess that threatened to plunge her back into unconsciousness at any moment, she realized that he must have drugged her as well.

“Yes, I killed him. And now I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you.”

Kira’s entire body shivered at the memory of Jeremy’s words as she struggled to fight off the lingering effects of the drug, refusing to let it overwhelm her again. She needed to stay alert. She had no idea where Jeremy was, or why he hadn’t followed up on his threat to kill her but she didn’t want to press her luck. She needed to get out of there before he got back.

Pushing through the physical and mental exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm her, Kira forced herself to roll over onto her back. Sitting up on the edge of the narrow, twin sized bed, she placed her two bound feet on the floor and stood up. With slow, careful movements, she hopped over to the only door in the room. Turning her back to the door she grabbed, the doorknob with her bound hands and attempted to turn it. It was locked. No surprise there, she thought glumly, as she slumped against the door.

Now what? she asked herself as she scanned the room, desperately trying to find a way out. Voices outside the door prevented her from answering that question.

“What the hell is Jeremy thinking?” Jade’s voice just barely penetrated the heavy wooden barrier of the door but was instantly recognizable nonetheless. “He knows that the police are looking for him. The last thing he needs to be doing is roaming the streets of Hong Kong right now.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” a male voice answered with a heavy Chinese accent. “He’s not thinking. His taking that St. James woman is proof of that. He’s unraveling and that puts us both in a very bad position.”

With a sudden, terrified start, Kira realized that the sound of the voices was moving towards the door. Pushing away from the door with as much force as she could muster in her current condition, she attempted to hop back to the bed, a combination of adrenalin and raw fear causing her to cross the room more quickly than she had before. Too quickly, as it turned out. Taking a bad hop a couple of feet from the bed, she felt the ankle of her left foot twist beneath her, causing her to topple over to one side and land on the floor with a loud, painful thump.

“Open the door,” she heard Jade demand from right outside the room.

Momentarily stunned by her fall, Kira was sprawled helplessly on the cold, concrete floor when Jade entered the room, followed closely by a handsome young Chinese man dressed in a dark business suit.

“Well, well, well. How the mighty have fallen,” Jade taunted as she stood over Kira.

“Just where do you think you’re going?” The young man asked as he grabbed Kira roughly by the arms.

Through her haze, Kira recognized him as being one of the men pictured with Jeremy in the surveillance photo that Donovan had given her.

Pulling her to her feet, he tossed her back onto the bed with the carelessness of a child discarding a rag doll. Kira’s twisted ankle throbbed with pain as he grabbed the rope that bound her feet together and began tethering it to the metal frame at the foot of the bed. “This should keep you in place.”

“It would have served her right if you had just left her on the floor,” Jade said as she watched Kira with the disgusted look of someone who had just come upon a nasty looking insect. “Just look at yourself, Kira. All trussed up like a Christmas goose. For a so-called troubleshooter, you sure walked right into this mess easy enough,” Jade pointed out as she sat on the edge of the bed and removed the gag from Kira’s mouth.

Kira bit back the scathing reply on the tip of her tongue, knowing that in her current predicament she was in no position to fight fire with fire.

“I suppose I really shouldn't fault you for that,” Jade continued on. “I imagine that sleeping with the likes of Ethan Chance could lead any woman to all manner of foolishness. Although, with you now out of the picture, I hopefully won't have to imagine for much longer.”

Jade's taunt hit Kira like a smack to the face. “You mean that you and Ethan haven’t…”

Jade smiled sadistically as she saw the realization of the full the extent of Kira’s own foolishness suddenly dawn on the other woman’s pained face. “No, I haven't had the pleasure... yet. But now that you have effectively removed yourself from the picture, I’m sure that will change, sooner rather than later,” Jade announced confidently, giving Kira a condescending pat on the cheek.

The sound of footsteps approaching the open storage room door had her quickly stuffing the gag back into Kira’s mouth.

“Did you bring my money?” Jeremy demanded as he sauntered into the room and flicked a quick, dismissive glance in Kira’s direction.

“There’s been a bit of a glitch,” Jade replied as she rose to her feet, her normally confident demeanor suddenly giving way to a nervous one.

“A glitch?” Jeremy repeated, suddenly turning his icy gaze to Jade. “What kind of a glitch?”

“Gabriel has seized control of all of your corporate and private accounts and changed the passwords.” Jade ended her explanation with an audible gulp as she watched Jeremy warily.

“Did he really?” Jeremy replied blandly as he unbuttoned the jacket of his deep purple suit and reached inside. “Or are you conspiring with my brother to keep my money away from me?”

“I wouldn’t…”

Before Jade could finish her sentence, Jeremy had his hand wrapped tightly around her throat and the sharp tip of The Dragon’s Breath at her jugular. “Don’t lie to me!” he screamed in her face, his own face rendered almost unrecognizable by rage and paranoia. “There isn’t anything that you wouldn’t do if it benefited you! I know that better than anyone! For all I know you could have led the police here!”

Jade attempted to shake her head within the deadly confines of Jeremy’s grip as she clawed at the fingers that kept her voice trapped inside her throat.

“Or maybe it’s the Chance brothers?” Jeremy reconsidered, his voice inexplicably softening to a whisper. “Is that who you’re working with now? Are they about to burst in here commando-style any minute?”

“I’m…not working with anybody…I swear,” Jade managed to squeak out through ragged gasps. “I’m on your side.”

Jeremy studied Jade closely, as if debating whether or not to believe her.

And whether or not to kill her.

With the same speed with which he’d lunged for her throat, he suddenly released her. “Prove it by getting me my money.”

“I told you, Gabriel has control of all if your accounts,” Jade whined in a hoarse whisper as she rubbed her neck.

“And you have control of Gabriel,” Jeremy replied as he idly cleaned his fingernails with the priceless, ancient dagger in his hand. “It should be an easy enough task for you to separate that fool from my money. In fact, I’m willing to bet your life on it.”

Jade’s porcelain skin paled even more. “I’ll get the money.”

“Good girl,” Jeremy replied with a sinister smile. “Now be on your way. You too, Cheng,” he added, directing his words to the young man next to him. “I want some private time with our guest.”

Kira swallowed hard as Jeremy’s crazed eyes landed on her with sadistic glee. From the corner of her eye she saw Jade quickly scurry out of the room to follow Jeremy’s commands with Cheng hot on her heels.

“Alone at last,” Jeremy quipped as he sat down next to Kira on the bed and brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. Kira instinctively jerked her head away. “As uptight as ever, I see,” he noted with a disdainful frown as he removed the gag from her mouth.

Kira drew a sharp breath into her nostrils as she watched Jeremy lower the tip of The Dragon’s Breath to the side of her face.

“I must say, I really would have thought that you were too level-headed to involve yourself in that silliness at The Atrium,” Jeremy continued as he slid the blade of the dagger lightly down her cheek in a slow, leisurely manner, causing her entire body to visibly stiffen. “Clearly, you're a bigger fool for love than I thought.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kira rasped through the dryness of her throat a she felt the tip of The Dragon's Breath gently scrape along the delicate skin stretched tightly around the slender column of her throat.

“Oh, come now. I know you saw Ethan and Jade together at Gau Lung the other day. One doesn’t have to be a psychologist to figure out that’s what sent you on the uncharacteristically reckless path that led you here. The Kira I know would never have gone along with Donovan Chance’s harebrained scheme.”

How did he find out about Donovan’s plan? Kira wondered silently.

“It really was surprisingly easy to manipulate you,” Jeremy gloated.

“So you arranged for me to see Ethan and Jade together.”

Jeremy smiled proudly down at Kira. “That’s right.”

“I don’t understand. Why go to all that trouble to set me up?”

“Technically, it was Ethan that I was setting up,” Jeremy explain, clearly relishing in what he perceived to be his own cleverness. “You see, I already had plans for the sub-concession and his pursuit of it was becoming an inconvenience. Not to mention his annoying habit of constantly popping up where he didn’t belong and sticking his nose in matters that didn’t concern him, such as the theft of The Dragon’s Breath. So I decided that he needed a distraction.”

“Jade,” Kira concluded.

“Yes, our dear, eager Jade. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem all that interested in her oh, so delectable natural offerings, but he was certainly interested enough in the bait she dangled. I figured the false hope of obtaining the sub-concession through her would have him spinning his wheels long enough to get him out of my hair for a while. Using Jade as a wedge between you and Ethan was just a bit of improvisation. I figured that seeing him in the arms of another woman would put an end to the Sherlock Holmes and Watson routine the two of you had going on. I had no idea that it would push you into that bit of madness with Donovan.”

Kira held a long painful breath as she felt the tip of The Dragon’s Breath pause threateningly over her jugular vein. For one long, terrifying moment, she felt the knife linger over the rapidly pulsating ridge with nothing but a thin layer of skin separating her from certain death.

“Oh, well. Such is love,” Jeremy said with a shrug, as he removed the blade from her throat. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out The Dragon’s Breath’s scabbard and carefully re-sheathed the dagger before slipping the weapon back into his jacket. After placing the gag back into Kira’s mouth, he strode out of the room without another word.

Kira shut her eyes tightly as she heard the door slam behind him and its lock slide back into place, trying in vain to keep the hot tears that threatened to spill out of them at bay. Even in the midst of her overwhelming sense of relief at simply still being alive, the truth of Jeremy’s mocking words rang painfully in her ears.

Although she had denied the truth when Ethan had confronted her with it, the fact was she really had agreed to go along with Donovan’s plan as a way of getting back at Ethan. She had lashed out at him out of pure, and apparently unfounded, jealousy. If she had just trusted him enough to believe him when he told her that nothing was going on between him and Jade, she wouldn't be in her current predicament. But her wounded pride wouldn’t let her believe him. She was so worried about the prospect of being made a fool of again that she threw common sense out of the window and now her life was on the line because of it.

Once again, the image of Ethan’s face the last time she saw him flashed through her mind. But this time she saw something more than fear and helplessness there.

This time she also saw love there as well.

It had been there all along, she realized. If only she'd had the courage to trust it...to believe in it. If only...

The tears she had been trying to hold back seeped from between her closed eyelids and slid down her cheeks as she lay alone in the darkened storage room, tormented by the fear that her realization had come too late.

***

“Where are they?” Ethan screamed as he slammed the tall, rangy young man face first against the brick wall of the alley and held him there.

“I don’t know!” the kid wailed, seeming more like a punk kid than a hardened gang member now that he didn’t have his fellow triad members around for back up.

Using intel provided by one of Donovan’s sources, the Chance brothers, along with Kyle, had been rampaging through Yellow Tiger hangouts for hours in pairs, pulling gang bangers from casinos, sleazy strip clubs…sometimes even right off the street… in an attempt to shake the location where Jeremy had taken Kira out of them, all to no avail. The longer they went without getting the answers they needed the more desperate and crazed Ethan became.

“Wrong answer,” Ethan seethed into the triad member’s ear as he pulled his Glock from inside his jacket and pressed the barrel to the young man's head. “You’ve got till the count of five to come up with a better one or else I’m going to put a bullet right between your beady little eyes. One. Two. Three …”

“I told you, I don’t know!” the kid yelled, looking like he was about to wet his pants as he stared into Ethan’s cold, merciless eyes and saw the unmistakable glint of madness gathering within their emerald depths.

From his position a couple of feet away, Donovan saw it too. Having been within a hair’s breadth of pulling the trigger on Jared not to long ago, he immediately recognized the fact that Ethan wasn’t bluffing. He really was seconds away from blowing this guy’s head off.

“That’s enough,” Donovan said as he grabbed the barrel of Ethan’s gun and moved it away from the guy’s temple.

“Stay out of this, Donovan,” Ethan growled as he snatched the gun out of Donovan’s grip.

Donovan grabbed hold of the barrel once again. “Look at him. He’s scared to death. If he knew where Jeremy has taken Kira, he would have told you already.”

Yanking his gun from Donovan’s grip once again, Ethan this time pointed its barrel in his brother's direction. “I said stay out of this!”

Donovan paused just long enough to cock an incredulous eyebrow at the gun pointing at him before locking his long, powerful fingers tightly around Ethan’s wrist and wrenching the gun from his hand with the cool, quick efficiency of a man well experienced with having guns pointed in his face.

“Get out of here, kid,” Donovan growled at Ethan’s hapless would-be victim. The kid was halfway down the alley before he even got the whole sentence out.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” Ethan asked as he watched his quarry scamper away.

“I could ask you the same question,” Donovan replied as he slipped Ethan’s gun into the back waistband of his black slacks. “I don’t respond well to having a gun pointed at my head, even when it’s my brother on the other end of the barrel.”

Ethan’s eyes were cold and unapologetic, even as a pinprick of guilt jabbed at his gut. “Then you shouldn’t have interfered with my interrogation.”

“That wasn’t an interrogation. It was an assault. And a pointless one at that. If I hadn’t stopped you, you would have killed him.”

“So what?”

“So, I’ve already disposed of one dead triad member for you. Two is pushing it.”

“You're the one who's pushing it,” Ethan said, his green eyes cutting towards Donovan with the abrasive intensity of flying glass. “This whole mess is your fault. Kira wouldn’t be in danger if it weren’t for you. ”

The look in Donovan’s eyes suddenly shifted, matching Ethan’s in both color and intensity. “Kira made her own decision, without bothering to consult you, I might add. Don’t blame me because you can’t keep track of your woman.”

Ethan’s fist connected hard and fast with Donovan’s face the second the words came out of his mouth. The fist that came flying back at him was even faster and harder, knocking him off balance and sending him to the ground. Before he’d even had a chance to register the blow, Donovan had him on his feet and was slamming him into the brick wall, pinning him there the same way Ethan had pinned the triad member there moments earlier.

“Get it together, Ethan!” Donovan demanded. “You’re melting down isn’t going to get Kira back!”

The truth of Donovan’s word’s penetrated through Ethan’s anger and frustration like a hot knife through butter, causing his body to slump against the wall.

“I have to find her, Donovan,” Ethan’s said plaintively, shutting his eyes in response to the desperation that he heard in his own voice.

Donovan released Ethan from his restraining hold and turned him around so that they were face to face. “We will find her. I promise you that,” he said, his voice as firm as his reassuring grip on Ethan’s shoulders.

“Can you promise me that she’ll still be alive when we do?” Ethan asked, his voice roughened with fear.

Donovan’s cell phone rang, preventing him from answering Ethan’s question. Averting his gaze from the pain on his brother’s face, Donovan released his grip on Ethan and answered the phone. “You got anything?”

Ethan’s body tensed with expectation as he watched Donovan, desperately searching for any signs of hope on his face. As was typical, his brother's expression gave nothing away.

“That was Dylan,” Donovan explained after he ended the call. “He and Kyle just got through checking the recordings from the bugs you planted in Jade’s apartment. There’s something on them that you need to hear.”