Zara stood at the window, one hand to her throat, staring out into the night. With the light off in the room, the only illumination was from the moon trying so valiantly to shine through the gathering clouds. Thunder rumbled ominously, and she rubbed her arms in an effort to soothe herself. She didn’t bother to check the tears running down her face. No one was around to see her weakness and she could cry all she wanted.
As soon as they’d returned to the house, a flurry of activity had ensued. The men seemed to be getting ready to take off, presumably to join Gino, wherever he was. Wherever he was going. Chasing Zhu was madness, but no one would listen to her. Zhu was like a wounded animal, lethal and angry, raging at the world around him, but disguised under his handsome features and his civilized clothing.
Rain hit the roof in a long wail. Not soft and light, but a furious pelting, as if the heavens had opened up and the water was pouring over the highest falls. She watched the drops hitting the window, obscuring her view of the thick swamp and the river. What would she do if Gino didn’t return? She touched the glass with her fingertips, a small brush that didn’t remove the heavy wash of raindrops from the other side. It didn’t give her mind any clarity either.
With a sigh, she turned back to the room, looking a little helplessly around her. The women had gone to bed finally and she was alone. In spite of the rain, it was still hot. The fan was going at high speed and not even that seemed to alleviate the relentless heat. It was strange that when Gino was around, the heat felt different. Sultry, yes, but sexy, as if the nights were made for sin and pleasure. Now it was just plain hot.
She paced until she could barely stand the pain in her feet and then she took a long cool soak in the bathtub, hoping she’d just drift off there, but it didn’t happen. She was certain she cried enough to raise the water in the tub an inch, but all she did was give herself a headache to go along with the persistent ache in her feet.
Wrapping herself in a silken robe that felt like heaven against her skin, she gave up and made her way back to the bedroom, where she put her hair up on top of her head to get it off her neck. Tossing the short robe aside, she lay under the fan without a stitch on. She clasped her hands behind her head and stared up at the rotating blades.
Gino. She’d been with him nearly three months and in that time he’d become her everything. Of course Zhu would try to lull them into a false sense of security. He thought they’d dropped their guard down. She was shocked at how the GhostWalkers worked so fast and so perfectly in sync to eliminate the threat to her. She shouldn’t have been. She had been trained as a soldier, and so had Bellisia. Maybe differently, because mostly, once they were adults, they had worked alone, but when they were younger, they ran missions together.
Bellisia had known exactly what to do. The moment Gino had provided the distraction, she was in the water, exactly where she could have done the most good had they needed it. Cayenne had participated, both women blending in seamlessly with the GhostWalkers. She had stayed on the boat, uncertain what to do. She didn’t want to leave Nonny, nor did she want to mess up whatever plan the GhostWalkers had.
She sighed and lifted the pillow next to her, inhaled Gino’s scent and then switched it with her own. She stared at her pillow a few moments and then punched it hard. The pillow went flying across the room. She wanted to get up and kick it.
“Is that a substitute for me?”
Gino’s soft voice set her heart pounding. She closed her eyes tightly, hoping she wasn’t hallucinating. None of the other men had come back. There was a skeleton crew there and they’d called a friend, Donny, to help watch over the house. Two men she recognized from the compound where she’d been trained were there as well. They’d worked for Whitney and had defected with Bellisia to the GhostWalkers. She was still a little afraid of trusting them.
“Yes.” She whispered her answer, but it wasn’t true. “No.” She looked around the room into the darkest corners. She couldn’t find him, not even when she knew the direction of his voice. “I was afraid for you.”
“Princess, you need to be afraid for the other guy, not for me.”
Her eyes strained to see him, bouncing from one wall to the next, shifting to the floor, trying to cover every square inch of the room. She sat up and turned toward the door. “I don’t care about the other guy, whoever he may be, I care about you. You went into that swamp and you didn’t come out.” There was accusation in her voice.
“I had to tail the remaining merc back to Zhu and his plane so I could put a tracker on it and make the necessary arrangements to follow it. I’ve got a plane standing by and we’re leaving in under an hour.”
“No.” She said it sharply. Asserting herself. “Absolutely not. That’s like following a wounded animal into his own territory. He’ll know if some strange plane enters Shanghai. He’ll know it’s you.”
“I have businesses all over the world, Zara.” His tone was gentle. He emerged out of the shadows, almost right in front of her. “Including China. What’s the point if I can’t commandeer my own airplane? He won’t know it’s my team following him. He’s arrogant, baby. He’s arrogant and thinks he’s above retribution. He believes he owns Shanghai. He’s gotten away with murder too many times and walks around thinking himself invincible. He’s not. Retribution is coming his way.”
He walked toward her, one hand pulling his T-shirt over his head and tossing it into a corner. He wore no shoes and she had no idea how that had happened. She could see them now, his boots, set neatly in a corner close to the shadow he’d just come out of. Both hands dropped to his belt as he got to the side of the bed.
“He’ll know,” she argued. Breathless. All that muscle. He looked invincible himself.
He kicked his trousers away and put one knee on the bed, right between her legs. “No, he won’t.” He took her mouth with exquisite gentleness.
Her heart fluttered and her sex clenched hard. Her arms crept around his neck and she gave herself to him. To that kiss. His mouth was fire. But so much more. Tears burned behind her eyes. The way he touched her was as gentle as his mouth, one arm curling around her back and locking there, sliding her beneath him, so she lay looking up at his beloved face, those eyes that burned over her body and then rested on her mouth.
“Did I remember to tell you that I’m crazy in love with you, woman? I should have told you that before I let you out for your girls’ night out.” He punctuated each word with soft kisses over her eyes and down her face. “Because I am. So in love. I didn’t know it was possible to love this much.”
He wasn’t a man to say such things, and it meant all the more to her that he did. He kissed her again, stealing her breath. He’d taken her heart some time earlier when she wasn’t paying attention. Now he owned her soul. She lifted a palm to his face. Those lines cut deep with desire. With hunger. For her. Those eyes, so dark and compelling, alive with love for her.
“I love you so much, Gino. I don’t care about Zhu. I’d rather live with a few bad moments of worry than to ever have you put yourself in danger.”
He caught her hand and pressed it to his mouth, making her heart skip a beat. He kissed the center of her palm and then nipped at the end of her finger, sucking the sting away. He stroked a caress down her body, his mouth following. Her breath caught in her throat. He could make her come alive with a look, let alone the way he touched her. Everywhere his hands and mouth went, he left flames licking at and over her skin. In her belly. Deep in her core. Between her legs. Everywhere until she couldn’t think, only feel.
Then he was moving in her. His fingers threaded through hers, stretching her arms above her head, eyes staring down into hers, intense, loving, possessive, connecting them on such an intimate level she could barely breathe. He never once looked away from her, his body moving slow, a burn that spread through her, growing hotter and hotter with each stroke.
She slid her foot up his leg to his thigh and then wrapped her leg around him. She did the same with the other foot. Still, he moved with the same slow intensity that was earth-shattering. She couldn’t look away from his gaze. She was mesmerized, caught by him. Held spellbound. Love was overwhelming. She shifted under him, writhing as the need crawled up her spine and heat coiled tighter and tighter in her.
He kept moving at the same pace, and it was beginning to drive her crazy. It was too much and not enough. And then suddenly, just that fast, her breath was hitching. Her lungs felt raw. He never looked away. Never let her look away. Her body came apart and she saw herself in his eyes, saw the wide, shocked look, the dazed pleasure that only he could bring her and then her body clamped down like a vise on his, taking him with her. It was heat and fire, a blaze she didn’t anticipate, consuming her. Consuming him.
He lay over top of her, still staring into her eyes. A slow smile lit the dark intensity of his eyes. “I forgot the condom.”
She didn’t look away. “You don’t forget things like that. I do. You don’t.”
His smile widened into a grin. “That’s true.”
“Gino, you haven’t even lived with me yet.”
“What do you think we’ve been doing, princess?” He brushed kisses over each eye. “We’ve been living together. I’m sure. Aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I want to be with you for a little while before we bring someone else in. I need time to do research on parenting and homemaking. I need time with Nonny.”
“No, baby, you don’t need any of that. Nonny’s wonderful, but she isn’t you. I want you exactly as you are. If you like to research those things, just for fun, go ahead, but you don’t need to do it for me. Our home is about us. You. Me. Eventually our children. What you learn online isn’t how it has to be. It’s how you feel.”
She loved him even more for that. “I don’t want to do something wrong, Gino. Not for you.” But really, she was beginning to have much more confidence in them. They fit. They could do anything together. She wasn’t as weak a link as she had first thought. That knowledge was growing stronger in her every day with him and the others. “You can’t go.” Just thinking it, let alone saying it, sent panic skittering through her.
He kissed her again. Long. Hot. Wet. Taking away the anxiety. He kissed her until she forgot to be afraid of anything and there was only the two of them, locked together in the privacy of his room. When he lifted his head, she chased him, one arm hooking around his neck to pull him back down to her. She kissed him, teasing with her tongue, stroking along his until he was growing in her again, stretching her until she felt tight and he felt hot and hard. He rocked in her, sending little tremors spreading through her body like a building wave of pure heat.
“You make us a home, Zara,” he said, “however you want that home to be. I want to come home to you. If you’re there, it’s going to be perfect.”
“I don’t know things,” she reminded.
“Then we’ll have fun doing them together. Furniture hunting, decorating. I want our home to be yours, baby, and whatever that is, it will be perfection.”
He suddenly pulled out of her, flipped her over and brought her hips back to him so he could surge deep. The contrast between his gentle and his rough sent her careening right over the edge. That didn’t stop him. He pistoned into her, pulling her hips back into him with every stroke. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Only feel. Over and over, until she was lost in him and everything was gone from her mind. Every worry. Every silly detail that had been looping there, making her fear she would disappoint him.
There was only Gino and the way he made her feel. Beautiful. Perfect. His. Made for him. Then there was only their bodies, soaring together, his hoarse cry mixed with hers. He collapsed over her, pinning her to the sheets, both of them trying desperately to catch their breath.
The love she had for him was stronger than anything she’d ever known. She was better for being with him. She knew that. And she knew he would be better for being with her. There was that cold, dark place in him he could disappear into. It was dangerous there. The more he went, the easier it was to get lost. He would be in that place when he hunted Zhu. She knew it just as she knew he slipped in and out of it more easily than any human being should.
She closed her eyes and took long, deep breaths, trying to find a way to make him understand it wasn’t worth risking his going after Zhu. Gino had gotten too comfortable with that side of himself. It had probably saved his sanity. Trauma had pushed him there when he was a child, and Ciro Spagnola had deliberately grown that coldness so Gino could better protect his son, his business and himself.
Very slowly he rolled over and then slid up to the headboard. She rolled over as well and lay looking at the fan.
“I don’t want you to go, Gino.”
“He’s a loose cannon, princess, and he hurt you, neither of which I am willing to tolerate.”
“He’s sick. Demented. He likes hurting people, and he wants you to follow him. He’s probably waiting for it.”
Gino shrugged and reached down to stroke a caress over her breast, his fingers lingering, and then his palm covered her in a claiming hold. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does though.” She sat up slowly and crawled up the bed to him. “Gino, you don’t have to mete out vengeance because he hurt me. I’ll admit that in the beginning, I wanted to be with you because I knew you were probably the only man capable of going up against him and coming out alive …”
“That’s not true. I might be the only one who won’t kill him fast, but any member of this team, or one of the others, is capable of killing Bolan Zhu. Don’t for one moment think they aren’t.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” she said. “They would kill him fast implies you wouldn’t. Sit up on a roof with a rifle. Shoot him from a distance. Does it matter how he dies?”
“It matters to me. He took something from you.”
She knew what he meant. Her feeling of safety, but she’d never really had that, not even with Whitney. She knew Whitney terminated some women. He put others into a breeding program. He sent them out on dangerous missions. “You gave it back to me.” He had. Gino had made her feel safe almost from the first moment he had come to rescue her.
“I’ll be home soon.”
She shook her head. “Just tell me you’ll kill him from a distance.”
“I can’t give you a promise like that, baby. I don’t even want to kill him from a distance. That bastard hurt you. He tried to permanently damage your feet. He’ll never stop.”
“So shoot him if you have to, but don’t get close. He’s dangerous. I know you’re good at what you do, but you’re underestimating him, and that could get you killed.” Worse, if he went to that cold, dark, dangerous place, he might not come back from it. She couldn’t say that, because she didn’t know how to put it to him.
“It’s going to be all right, Zara,” he murmured, gathering her to him.
She crawled onto his lap, feeling as small as Bellisia, wanting to melt into him, to share his skin, to keep him with her. “I’m so scared, Gino.” She lifted her gaze to his face. “Really, really scared. I don’t want to have to live without you. In my entire life, I never thought I’d have a man for myself, let alone a man like you. I really didn’t. You seem like such a rare gift. You’ve somehow made me feel it’s okay to be me, that there’s nothing wrong with me. You make me feel beautiful and extraordinary and loved. You’re all those things to me and more.”
“Zara, you’re not living without me, but you are living without the threat of Zhu hanging over your head. If I don’t go after him now, when we have children, you’re going to be worried sick.”
That was true. But … “I’m not trading having children for you. I’d rather spend all my days with you alone, Gino, then have you go after him because we’re worried about what he might do when we have children. I want them, but I want you more.”
He kissed her. She loved when he kissed her. He had stolen her soul with kisses. She snuggled her head under his chin, breathing him in. She loved his scent. There was something wild and undefined she could never put her finger on. Gino might have companies that belonged to the modern world. He might have all the money in the world, but there was something very feral and predatory about him.
“Zara, you need to hear me. Really hear me. Nothing is going to happen to me. We’re the last soldiers Whitney experimented on. We don’t get brain bleeds. We don’t need anchors. We don’t have any of the problems some of the other GhostWalkers have experienced. He gave us all the enhancements as well as enhancing our psychic abilities. Zhu has no idea what’s coming for him. It’s like taking a lamb and dropping it alone in the middle of a wolf’s territory.”
She liked that image—the team a pack of wolves hunting Zhu. She chewed on the end of her finger. “How can you catch him alone? He’s probably locked up in Cheng’s fortress right now.”
He took her hand and turned her finger up to his mouth for kisses. “Leave that to me, baby. I have a plan. I’ll take care of Zhu and come straight home to you.”
“Cheng …”
“Is a vengeful asshole. I know that. But he’ll check to see where I was, where you were. The plane we’re flying in on is a regularly scheduled flight to Shanghai. I have never once been on it, nor will I be on it this time. He won’t know who killed his brother. Most likely it will cross his mind and he’ll check, but we’ll look as if we never left Louisiana. He’ll think it has something to do with the club Zhu likes to visit.”
“Club?”
“It’s a vile place, baby, not a real BDSM club, but a place where sick fucks can get off hurting or even killing others. It appeals to very wealthy men and women who fly in from all over to visit. They pay big money to participate and the club provides men, women and children of all ages for their clients to hurt.”
“That’s truly horrible.”
“Very demented.” He tipped her chin up and kissed her again. “I’m going to have to go. I’m on a timetable here, baby. I have to make that plane before it leaves.”
There was no winning this battle. She drew a long, deep breath and pressed closer to him. “How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know.” He kept her face tipped up to his, forcing her gaze to meet his. “Know I am coming back. Nothing will keep me away. I’ll get back to you, Zara, even if I have to break out of hell to do it.”
She wanted more than that reassurance. She wanted to know he’d come home still Gino, not some dark, twisted version of him. “All right, honey,” she whispered. “Just know I’m right here waiting for you.”
“Lie down for me. I’ve got seven minutes and I’m out of here.”
“How are you getting to the airstrip?”
“Helicopter. Trap has a couple of them. I can see we’re going to have to have our own plane and at least one chopper.”
He lifted her off his lap and back on the bed, his hands on her shoulders urging her to lie down. She did, but only because she knew nothing she said or did was going to stop him from getting on that chopper and she wasn’t going to send him off with her being a sobbing baby. She could wait until he was gone to do that.
• • •
The club Razor’s Edge was located in the red-light district of Shanghai. The GhostWalkers stayed away from the streets and alleys, moving instead on the rooftops. They used signs and fluttering wires to stay above the garish lights. The deeper they went into the streets lined with strip bars and clubs, the seedier the establishments.
They could have easily followed the dark-tinted windowed vehicles bringing elite clientele to the club. Too many, as far as Gino was concerned. They’d discussed going in as rich patrons, an easy enough thing to change faces and fingerprints, but they didn’t bother. They were there as hunters, and they didn’t need to blend in with their prey.
Flame, Wyatt’s sister-in-law, had sent them quite a file on Bolan Zhu. Between Jaimie, Lily, and Flame, they had gathered a tremendous amount of intelligence on him. All three were very good at hacking and they seemed to know where to get information. Bolan Zhu was born Bolan Allen Cheng. He was Cheng’s younger brother by nearly twelve years. He had been a sickly child and his father had hidden him away, embarrassed at having a son he didn’t deem good enough to share his blood.
To toughen his son up, he turned him over to sadistic teachers, men who taught him to fight. To condition his body. To use weapons. To become a weapon. He trained night and day, frequently yanked from his bed to go work. He was caned when he didn’t take down his opponents or if he made a sound when being punished. He grew strong enough for his father to claim him, but by that time, having a son he could use as an executioner that no one knew of was too good to pass up.
Zhu excelled in his service to his country, interrogating prisoners and keeping his men in top shape. They were the elite sent on impossible missions. He had his own army now, a private army of men loyal only to him, pulled from the ranks of the soldiers who had followed him. They traveled with him as a rule, and many of them were frequent visitors of the same club Zhu preferred. Like him, none were married. It was whispered even Cheng feared him and his army.
The GhostWalkers spread out, Ezekiel and Malichai taking the roof of the building to the left of the club. Mordichai and Trap took the roof to the right of their target. Gino, Rubin, Diego and Draden waited in the shadows, just outside the back entrance where bodies were brought out. Three bored guards smoked and paced, occasionally exchanging words. Clearly, they’d seen it all and weren’t in the least caring about what went on inside the building or how many were killed in a night.
Twice the largest of the three men nearly stepped on Gino’s hand where he lay in the ditch at the side of the building. Diego stood upright, pressed into the corner, blending in with the tawdry colors splashed on the siding. Rubin was above the door, lying prone on the roof, his eyes the only thing in sight. Draden, even Gino couldn’t spot. That was Draden, the male model who had graced so many elite magazines, a dangerous predator there in the darkness.
Two men on the roof. Both armed. They mean business. They aren’t like the guards you’re facing. These have to be two of Zhu’s men. Ezekiel reported in.
I’m looking at two roaming to the front of the building, Mordichai said.
Two roaming to the back, Trap said.
Zhu’s guards number twenty-five when he comes to this club. He likes his show of force and he gives some the privilege of participating in club activities, Ezekiel said. Count it down so we don’t miss any of them.
Cover us, Gino said.
Like a lizard, Rubin moved over the roof until he was looking down at the two guards in the front. The men paced back and forth, meeting briefly in the middle of the street, but not acknowledging each other. They continued walking part way down the road, turned and walked back, their pace unhurried, their semiautomatics very much in evidence and their eyes moving restlessly, scanning the entire block, roof to ground.
The problem was, it was too big of an area to cover for two men. They were good, but they had established a pattern and that allowed for movement. Rubin signaled to Diego, the soft moan of the wind, and Diego waited until the three guards had their backs to him and then he was gone, sliding into the night to get into position.
Gino had to take out the two men on the roof of the club without being seen or heard. Rubin and Diego would take care of the roving guards in the front of the club, and Draden and he would take out those to the rear. No one could move without the snipers on the roof gone first.
He rolled back to the darker shadows that took him to the side of the building between the club and the bar beside it. A man had a woman pinned against the building not more than five steps away from Gino when he entered that three-foot space. The two were going at it so hard, neither saw him as he climbed to the roof without a sound.
He was strong, unusually so, and he used only his hands, pulling himself up fast, not taking a chance his foot might scrape too loudly or push debris loose to fall on the couple doing their thing. He pulled his body up high enough to allow him to see the roof above the club. It was long and flat. The two guards went from one side to the other, and they were very systematic. He stayed still as the guard walked away from him. Had Gino wanted, he could have shot him, but this had to be silent work. He pulled himself all the way onto the roof.
He froze right over the thick railing, remaining very still. The other guard walked toward him in the same cross pattern the guards on the street maintained. Gino had to time it perfectly. He needed the first guard to keep his eyes forward, scanning the rooftops of the other building, while the one he stalked, coming at him, examined the left side. As the guard passed him, missing his prone figure by no more than two inches, Gino rose up, slammed his knife through the base of his skull, his hand over his mouth to muffle any sound. He caught the heavy weapon and lowered both man and gun to the roof.
He moved to his right, already having picked the darkest parts of the roof. He didn’t crawl, but walked fast, coming up behind the second guard. Something must have alerted the man because he began to turn his head to look over his shoulder. It was already far too late for him. Gino repeated the same kill, slamming his knife home, lowering man and weapon to the rooftop.
Eyes on roof taken out. That’s one and two, Gino reported.
It’s a go, Ezekiel gave the order.
Gino moved fast to get off the roof and down where he could do the most good. They had to take out all guards in seconds and then get inside to find Zhu and the rest of his men before someone inside tried to contact one of the dead guards.
The moment Gino gave the all clear, Rubin and Diego went to work. Gino slipped back into the alley, noting the man and the woman were walking back. He was just a little ahead of her, walking quickly, making it plain he didn’t consider her anything but a whore he paid for her services. She didn’t seem to mind or notice, she chattered away, trailing after him. The moment they rounded the corner to the front street, he ran down the alley in the opposite direction.
I’m in position, Gino, Draden said. I’ll take the one facing north. He’s within a few steps of me.
I’m in position, Gino echoed. I’ve got the one facing south.
Rubin and Diego had chosen their respective kills and said so.
All four men waited.
It’s a go, Ezekiel gave the order.
Gino moved out of the shadows to walk silently into the street where Zhu’s soldier paced away from him. He fell into step behind him, just as Draden, Rubin, and Diego did the same with the prey they stalked. Two more steps and Gino had him, taking him in their classic kill method, driving the knife deep into the base of the neck, severing the spinal column. He kept his hand over the mouth while he caught the gun. Quickly, he dragged the dead weight to the side of the building, pushing him into the darkest corner and wiping his knife on the man’s shirt.
One down, that’s three.
One down here, that’s four, Draden said.
One down, that’s five, Rubin reported.
Down here, so six altogether, Diego added.
Gino was already on the move, heading to the back of Razor’s Edge where the three bored club guards were still lounging. One flipped his cigarette onto the ground, looked furtively around without seeing the four GhostWalkers surrounding them, and pulled out a flask to drink. He was a civilian guard, one the club had hired, and he was probably more interested in whatever perks the club gave him then doing his job. Another guard sniffed cocaine up his nose.
Gino took the one closest to him, walking right up to him in plain sight, as if to ask a question. He just kept walking, and as he passed the guard, he slit his throat. He never even paused or slowed down. Rubin and Draden did the same with the two other club guards and Diego pulled each body to one side and dropped them in the darkness.
Club guards dead, going in, Gino reported.
He yanked open the door and entered the club. The music was pounding and loud, spilling out from various rooms. Screams, moans and laughter could be heard over the music. He glanced back at Rubin and Diego and then at Draden. Draden knew what to expect, but he didn’t know about the two brothers from the Appalachian Mountains. He hoped they’d keep it together.
He walked down a narrow hallway that opened almost immediately to a large common room where a bar curved along one side and tables stretched across the floor, giving ample seating to the patrons. Naked waitresses and waiters, all wearing collars, served the men and women at the tables. Two waitresses dropped to their knees at one of the larger tables after handing out the drinks, to crawl under and open trousers. A waiter was doing something very similar at another table.
Gino signaled and Diego and Rubin split up, each going up the side of the wall, clinging like two lizards, nearly impossible to see with their blurred images. They would be the eyes in the room. Each of Zhu’s men wore a red armband sewn into the sleeve of his shirt, making them easily to identify. Zhu wanted those armbands to strike fear into anyone who crossed them—and they usually did. The men liked to wear them because no one ever opposed them.
Small table to your left, Gino. Three sitting together. One just got up to go into another room. Rubin gave the report.
I’ll go after the one leaving, Gino said.
No worries, I’ve got the two at the table, Draden said.
Gino fell into step behind the tall man with the red armband. The club was like a giant beehive. All around were rooms, the walls glass so anyone could see in. Many visitors stood and watched as a woman was being whipped, the skin flayed from her back. Two men had their cocks out, stroking excitedly to the sight. Zhu’s man stopped to watch, grinning as the woman begged and pleaded for her tormentor to stop.
Gino took him right there, while the others stood staring, fascinated at the window. He killed Zhu’s soldier and dragged him over to a chair where he positioned him with his legs sprawled out before walking in a circle, looking into each of the windows.
Another down, that’s seven. Keeping track of their enemy was a common thing when spread out and they were certain of the numbers. That way, no one would accidentally be left to come back at them.
The common area was dimly lit so the hexagonal cells could be blazing with bright lights. He simply walked around, looking into each cell, noting the ones that held men with red armbands. There were three. On the fourth cell in, he located Bolan Zhu.
Eight and nine are down, Draden reported in. I left them sitting at their table, drinks at hand.
Gino should have known Zhu would draw a large crowd, and he had, the onlookers two feet deep around the window. They smelled of alcohol, drugs, sex and excitement as they regarded the man they’d come to expect a huge show from. He knew it too, and he played to his audience.
Zhu was angry that Zara had escaped him once more and he was taking it out on the two women and one man he had chained and hanging from the ceiling. The two women were bound in extremely painful positions, their bodies contorted, the ropes so tight the bonds cut into the skin. The ropes had tiny hooks woven into the strands, so they ripped at skin each time the women moved, or even took a breath. Weighted balls hung from their nipples, adding to their agony, but it was the man Zhu heaped humiliation and punishment on.
Zhu was naked, his body rippling powerfully with muscles. He beat the man unmercifully, every part of his body, then tied him in a pose that left him contorted but exposed his cock and ass to his tormenter. Zhu left him hanging and went to work on the women, clearly getting aroused at seeing them suffer.
Gino was shocked to feel sick to his stomach. He had seen torture, but not like this, not for pure pleasure. One shouldn’t get aroused by hurting others. There was no doubt that Zhu was getting off on what he was doing, and a good portion of those watching were as well.
Find the others. They have to be in this club. I want someone to start finding dead bodies and start a panic. I can’t get to Zhu in the blinding light. Nor did Gino want to. He wanted to kill his men one by one and then have a little time alone with Zhu. Gino had always thought of himself as a demon—a man belonging in hell—but the things Zhu was doing to his three prisoners was evil. Vile. The man was sick and twisted.
Red armband in crowd at fifth window, just passed Zhu. That was Diego.
Gino hated that Diego was inside the area where the well-lit cells were. Each scene was something out of a horror movie. He hadn’t realized he felt so protective toward Rubin and Diego. It wasn’t that they were that young, or that naïve, but they were both good men.
Gino walked in plain sight to the next cell and stood next to the man with the red armband, just back two steps. The man actually glanced at him and then looked away. Gino waited for recognition to happen, but none did, not face recognition. It was more the fact that he was a man to look out for. A predator, just like Zhu. Zhu’s soldier swung toward him, but Gino wrapped an arm around his neck, and wrenched hard. The crack might have been audible if the music wasn’t so loud. Keeping his arm around the man’s neck he dragged him to the middle of the room to the rows of chairs placed back to back to view the scenes in the cells.
That’s ten. Fifteen to go. Anyone spot those outside? Gino walked back to see Zhu raping one of the women, his hands around her throat, squeezing the life out of her while he took his pleasure. He wanted to kill the man more than he wanted to breathe. He might have used a gun at that moment, but there was no guarantee he could shoot through the glass.
At your six, Gino. And again, another coming out of a room and heading toward the one at your six. He’s covered in blood. The girl he left barely alive looks to be about fifteen if that. That was Diego. His voice was steady, but there was something there that had Gino wanting to order the brothers from the room.
Two just came out of cell at the end of the hall, right side. They’re laughing and looking back into the cell. Both men have blood on them. Looks like arterial spray, Rubin reported. Moving closer.
Don’t. Gino couldn’t help himself. He was beginning to feel a little desperate. This club was one of the sickest places he’d ever been in. He needed to kill Zhu, but he didn’t like exposing Diego and Rubin to the kinds of things happening. He had a feeling he knew what went on in that cell. There’s no need to see what they did.
I’ve got them, Draden said. Hang back, kid. You’re our eyes. We have to know the minute someone spots one of our kills.
Gino walked casually with a man and a woman, the woman dressed in a luxurious fur, her ears dripping with diamonds. Her eyes were bright, and she was clearly as high as her man as they wandered over to the cell where the two men with red armbands talked just outside the lit room. The woman giggled when she saw the young girl, naked and barely moving, her body covered in blood.
“We’re too late,” she whispered, excitement in her voice. “I wanted to see this one. So many ideas to bring home with us to our own little darling.”
Fur coat, black suit. They come out, kill them, he ordered Ezekiel and his brother. He wanted to burn the club down with everyone in it.
You can’t kill them all, Ezekiel’s voice steadied him. We’re here to take out Zhu. Keep your heads in the game, all of you.
Maybe not, but these people don’t deserve to live.