The woman in the fur coat turned to the man who had just emerged. “I saw you were here and they’d brought in a young girl for you on the program. I was hoping to see your performance.”
The guard looked her up and down and then back at the girl trying to push up to her hands and knees. “She was delicious.”
Gino took his friend, right there while the other man was basking in the glow of being some kind of star for hurting young girls. He slammed his knife into the base of the skull of the ex-soldier and dragged him back a few feet. Others crowded in to see the teen fall back on the floor. Applause broke out. Gino hauled the dead man to the row of chairs. Eleven down.
He felt grim, drained of all humanity, but he had to have something left because the club and its inhabitants twisted his stomach. More, the thought of Zara in Zhu’s hands made that sick feeling inside him worse. He crept up behind the man responsible for the young girl lying in a pool of her own blood and waited until the man got his fill of laughing at his handiwork. Abruptly Zhu’s soldier spun on his heel and pushed his way through the crowd, spotting his friend sprawled out in a chair.
Gino let him walk almost right up to him, shadowing his every step. When the soldier halted right in front of his friend, he halted as well.
“What are you doing? We have to relieve the others,” the man demanded. He stepped closer when there was no movement.
Gino heard his swift intake of breath, the recognition that his friend was dead, and then Gino killed the man. There were no guns to catch. These men were relaxing in their favorite way. The ex-soldier liked hurting others. Zhu had gathered an army, personal bodyguards, whatever he wanted of them, but the men were sadistic just like their boss.
That’s twelve.There was satisfaction in killing this one.
Thirteen and fourteen down,Draden reported. Sick fucks. I would like to be able to kill them again. Maybe three times.
Gino watched the woman in fur come across the room to the chairs. There was purpose and determination in her step. “We’d like a private demonstration. We can get you another virgin, one even younger if you prefer,” she started and then narrowed her eyes, stepping closer.
Gino slipped up behind her. He didn’t like killing women, but she was every bit as sick as Zhu. She screamed. Loudly. Loud enough to be heard above the pounding music. The club members were used to the sounds of screams, but hers were persistent and without the notes of agony included. She was also screaming from the common area, not the cells. Heads began to turn.
Security came out of the shadows as Gino melted into them. He went up the side of the wall, just as Draden did. They all clung there, high, nearly to the ceiling, blending in like lizards. Gino kept his gaze fixed on the hexagonal cell where Zhu indulged his sadistic nature. The scene in the common areas was chaos as people began discovering the dead bodies positioned throughout the club.
Zhu glanced up, looking impassive as a man wearing a red armband rushed into the brightly lit cell. His gaze never left the window as his man informed him of what was happening. He never once changed expression. He said something, turned back to the man hanging in such agony and shoved a knife into his belly, twisted as the man shrieked, cut up to spill the intestines onto the floor, his expression never changing.
His men, what was left of his army, gathered around the cell waiting for him to come out. He didn’t seem to mind keeping them waiting.
Zhu walked to the first woman, who shook her head and pleaded. He stabbed her repeatedly, making certain that none of the knife wounds were fatal. She would suffer, bleed and be disfigured if she didn’t bleed out. The second woman had stared in horror, and when he turned to her, she begged. Cried. He pulled the ropes to him, licked the tears from her face, and took her mouth in a savage kiss. At the same time, he shoved his knife deep into her body.
The ex-soldier who had come to warn him laughed and shook his head as Zhu calmly went to a basin and washed the blood off. He didn’t look back at the wrecks of human beings he left hanging in ropes. He simply dressed and walked out to join his men. He waited while one helped him into a long coat, listening as they tried to raise the outside guards. Again, it didn’t seem to faze him that not one of the men outside answered their radios. He had to know those men were dead and that left him with eleven out of his twenty-five guards.
Gino didn’t look at the remains of those hanging or lying in the cells. He couldn’t, not and stay in position. For the first time since Ciro Spagnola had taught him, he couldn’t find that cold place inside that allowed him to disassociate. There was no way to see such suffering, the aftermath of sadistic torture on innocents and not want to embrace a berserker’s rage, so he kept his gaze fixed on Bolan Zhu.
They’re coming out.
All vehicles surrounding the club have been rendered useless.There was satisfaction in Malichai’s voice. He might not have been in the club, but the things Draden and Gino revealed with just their snippets of conversation were enough to tip him that it was ugly inside.
Zhu and his men started wading through the chaos of the crowd. They had no problem using the butts of their weapons to slam into the other patrons’ heads to get them moving away. The very wealthy weren’t used to such treatment. They tried to run for the exits, and that just added to the pandemonium, allowing Gino, Draden, Diego and Rubin to follow unseen, hiding in plain sight in the middle of the panicked crowd.
The hallway leading to the bar was short, but narrow. Zhu’s guards had to go into it two abreast. Draden and Gino came up behind the last two men who were trying to keep the wealthy patrons from knocking them down in order to get out. One swung his semiautomatic toward the ceiling and let loose a burst. The screams amplified and the crowd flung itself forward, a living, breathing wall.
Gino took advantage, pulling the ex-soldier back into him from behind and cutting his throat in one smooth move, dropping him with a shove back into the crowd. He fell, blood spraying toward those coming at him. More panicked screams. More pushing. That’s fifteen.
Zhu’s guards picked up the pace, pushing toward the front, and, knowing they were followed, urging the others to hurry. They kept turning their heads, trying to see an enemy, but the GhostWalkers were too good at blending in.
“Kill them all,” Zhu snapped.
That was distinctive and Gino and the others went up the wall fast to cling to the ceiling just as several guards stopped, turned and fingers on the triggers, swept a hail of bullets across the crowd trying to follow them to get to the exits. They mowed the patrons of the club down so they fell like dominos. Gino didn’t mind in the least. They’d all come to torture others, men, women and children bought from traffickers. They frequented the club to hurt others. He had no problem with seeing their bodies drop and hearing their moans. In the end, the guards left no one standing.
When the sound of the guns died away, the silence in the club was eerie. The two guards at the rear of the line stepped into the pile of the dead and dying, uncaring that they stepped on fingers or chests. They scanned the building carefully. Inside the lit cells was the only movement. A few of the lucky wealthy were pressed tightly against the walls, hoping they would remain unharmed. The guards stalked them and systematically shot each one in the head. As far as Gino was concerned, the men were doing his work for him. He had fully intended to return and take out as many of the foul, vile people he could and then rescue the victims.
Zhu called out another order and they returned. Inside the bar, they stopped for a brief consultation. “Burn it down. Kill anyone you come across,” Zhu ordered.
The GhostWalkers had followed their prey, staying above them, moving slowly so as not to draw attention. There were enough moaning and dying of patrons to keep the attention of the ex-soldiers. Still, they were careful, not tempting fate by moving too fast.
We have to get the victims out.They couldn’t leave them to die.
Already, Zhu’s men had gone into a closet beside an office door and pulled out some kind of flammable cleaner. They began to throw it on the walls. One went behind the bar and broke bottles of top shelf bourbon and poured it over furniture.
We’ll get them out,Diego offered. You and Draden kill these bastards.
Ezekiel swore. He wanted the team to stay together, but they couldn’t leave victims to be burned alive. Hurry and get them out. We can’t leave Gino and Draden without backup.
I’m good alone, Zeke,Draden assured.
I’m better that way,Gino added. He was grateful he had Draden though. The man was a machine when it came to killing or saving lives. Either one.
There was more swearing. Gino ignored and began his move. The bulk of the guards had surrounded Zhu as best they could as they went out of the club onto the street. Three were left behind to burn the club to the ground.
Fuckers are doing our job for us,Draden observed.
One less job for us, tonight,Gino said. Let’s get this finished. You boys watch your six,he added to Rubin and Diego.
He waited until the guard finished pouring the alcohol along the bar and had lit a match. As he tossed it, the man turned, and Gino was standing in front of him. Close. The knife bit deep into his throat. His eyes went wide with shock. He tried to speak, but only a gurgle could be heard. Gino withdrew the knife, staring into the man’s eyes as he helped him down to the floor. He watched the life ebb right out of him and then turned and walked slowly after the other two who had both tossed matches into the hive where the victims trapped in the cells were unable to get out.
Sixteen is down.
The guard tossing the match laughed and waved at a naked woman banging on the cell door before he turned to leave. Draden dropped down on him and snapped his neck. The naked woman stopped screaming and stared at him. Tiny flames licked along the bar and ran up the sides of the walls, the light illuminating Draden as he dropped the body to the floor.
The third guard turned back just as the GhostWalker let go of the dead guard. Gino’s knife took him through the throat as he lifted his weapon.
Seventeen and eighteen,Gino said.
Thanks, man,Draden said, glancing over his shoulder. The blaze was fast moving toward all the bottles lined up on shelves behind the bar.
Diego and Rubin were opening cells, pulling people out and sending them toward the back door. Those that couldn’t walk, they carried on their shoulders, running to beat the flames. The fire was picking up speed, accelerating with so much fuel in the silks hanging on the walls and draped over tables. Elegant sheets were on some of the beds, because no matter how much agony their victim was in, the patron had to have all the comforts imaginable.
The sound of the fire was loud now, crackling and popping. Neither man even glanced toward it, rushing the women and children out first and then the injured men.
Gino lost sight of them as he paused just inside the door to the club, scanning the street. Zhu had to have left a guard behind, just in case. By now, he had to know the cars up and down the streets were useless. He would go into the narrow alley and make for the warehouse district located right behind the red-light district.
Gino threw a vase that was sitting on a small table in the foyer through the plate glass window. Outside, near the street, a guard leapt into view, his finger on the trigger of his semiautomatic. Gino threw his second-favorite throwing knife. A knife could fall over that distance, but what he loved about this particular blade was that it just kept going. It buried itself deep. Nineteen.
All clear. To your left, heading into the alley,Trap said. Wish we’d brought my woman along. She’d have nooses all along their way out.
It wasn’t a way out. The GhostWalkers were herding Zhu and his men exactly where they wanted them to go. Zhu hadn’t caught on yet, nor would he. Gino was certain he was too arrogant to ever conceive that a force would be able to outthink him in his own territory. He hadn’t counted on the women’s ability with computers to ferret out his every secret. He hadn’t counted on the fact that Gino was a meticulous planner and had no problem biding his time in order to exact revenge. He had patience, and he’d learned that from Ciro Spagnola.
Mordichai and Trap, get down there and help Rubin and Diego get those victims out. The fire is spreading fast. People are coming out of the other clubs and very soon we’re going to have company. I want us gone before anyone else gets here,Ezekiel ordered.
On it, Mordichai answered for both of them.
Gino ignored the byplay. He ran with Draden, feeling for his surroundings. In the seventeen-plus hours on the plane, he’d run it a hundred times in his mind, finding his way with his footfalls, making certain he could do it fast and yet remain silent. Ezekiel had taken them through every detail of their mission, over and over until every move was automatic. With the detailed information the women had gotten for them, they had put together a good plan of attack.
Draden kept pace, running practically in his footsteps, yet he couldn’t even hear his breathing. Rodents scurried out of the way, but other than that, as they ran down the alley and across the next street toward the warehouses, there was no one to see or hear.
Zhu was left with six men. He’d lost them one by one and no one had seen what chased them. GhostWalkers came out of the night and took their prey. That had to spook Zhu’s elite force just a little. If he was Zhu, he would send one up high to be the eyes for him. Gino had even chosen the spot. There was a long bank of warehouses, rows of them, but the first bank had the ability, on the connecting roof, to hide a man with a weapon. He could wait up there and see if anyone followed them. The entire bank of warehouses was protected by a very high chain-link fence.
The first and second row of warehouses belonged to Cheng. The third row was exclusively Bolan Zhu’s. Intel was, he housed his own armory there as well as armored vehicles kept in the best of shape. He was definitely headed there. At the street facing the first long bank of warehouses, where Gino was certain a guard lay up on the roof, Draden and he split. One went to the left, the other to the right, until they were each at a corner. There were no lights back there; Cheng and Zhu didn’t want anyone seeing what they were doing.
Under cover of darkness, both sprinted across the street, again in absolute silence. They had to chance that the guard was watching the alleyway. It would stand to reason that if anyone was following, they would come from there. Draden went up one side of the building, Gino the other. It was Draden’s job to take out the guard on the roof.
Ezekiel and Malichai lay up on the roof across the street, eyes to scopes, waiting just in case. They wanted this operation done in complete silence if possible. Any evidence left behind was evidence damning Zhu and his men. Nothing remained of the GhostWalkers. Every knife had been retrieved, and no fingerprints were left behind. They couldn’t risk an international incident. Major General would never have sanctioned this operation and he wouldn’t be able to get them out of it if they fucked up.
Gino was up and over the chain-link fence in seconds. He heard the running beat of several shoes. His enhanced speed enabled him to fall in line behind the last guard.
Twenty,Draden said. Coming after you, Gino.
Gino took the guard as he ran, matching steps, getting close and driving a knife deep into the base of the skull. He had to swerve around the body, but before it actually toppled to the ground, he was on the next one. The others had rounded a corner, leaving the guard alone for a few steps. It was enough time for Gino to kill him.
Twenty-one and twenty-two.
He paused at the corner. It would be suicide to blindly run around it, but he needed to get inside Zhu’s warehouse with him and the rest of his elite guard. Without the one on the roof, Ezekiel and Malichai made their way to the same rooftop, setting up to take their backs and give them eyes from above.
Gino went up, scaling the side of the wall to the second bank of warehouses. Running across the rooftop in a low crouch, he saw Zhu with the remaining three men surrounding him as he unlocked the door to his warehouse. All looked back, waiting for the other guards.
One swore when no one came. “Who is doing this, Bolan? I haven’t even seen the enemy and he’s taken out just about all of us.”
Zhu shrugged and swung open the double doors. “I suspect I saw him once at the American embassy.” He said no more. He didn’t run. He walked inside.
“It’s only one man? It can’t be one man,” the same guard protested.
Gino was already in the shadows just to the side of the door. Draden had joined him. The two slipped inside just before the doors were pulled closed. Instantly the warehouse went dark. Gino and Draden both could see easily in the dark. Their DNA enhanced by Whitney gave them that advantage.
Zhu leveled a cold gaze on his bodyguard. “Does it matter if it is one man or several? We have to leave this place. We’ll get them another time, Dai.” He snapped on a single dim lightbulb that hung from the center of the very large room. That left a lot of darkness for a GhostWalker to hide in.
Dai shook his head. “We didn’t even hear him. Or them. Did anyone see or hear anything? Feng?” He looked at one of the remaining men, who shook his head.
“I never even saw a single one of our men go down, Dai.”
Dai looked expectantly at the remaining ex-soldier. “Longwei?”
Longwei shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Bolan, seriously, we’ve never come up against anything like this. I don’t like you exposed this way. Call your brother. Have him send reinforcements,” Dai said. “I can’t protect you against something I can’t see.”
“You would have me whine to my brother that we cannot protect ourselves against a single man? Or those with him?”
“There are three of us left to protect you. Every one of us was trained in all special forces under you. You know what we’re capable of. This man or men following us isn’t human.”
“I suspect they aren’t. Not fully,” Zhu said. “It would be a great thing to kill one and bring his body back to my brother so we could have these same kinds of advantages. I will not go crying to my brother. He would forever look down on us. Right now, he fears us. He would think he could make a move against us.”
That was news. Zhu and Cheng weren’t completely in sync with each other. Zhu’s bodyguards were in a tight cluster, but they would have to fan out at some point.
Clear,Diego reported in. We got everyone alive out. Some of them were in very bad condition. Found the owner of the club hiding in one of the cells. Chained him to a pole with enough evidence for the cops to prove that he was dealing in human trafficking and using them for sadists to torture and kill. Found a small group of women being held below the club. Name’s Moffat of all things. He’s good friends with Cheng and Zhu. I know this because he told me multiple times.
He see your faces?Ezekiel asked sharply.
We weren’t born yesterday, Zeke.
Just making sure you’re in the clear. Gino, report in.
Just standing around here sucking my thumb, boss-man,Gino said.
He never took his eyes off his prey. Zhu stood there, his features as impassive as ever. Looking at him, no one would ever think he could have done the sadistic things he had to the three victims. Gino couldn’t help but notice that the woman he kissed and then cut so badly had red hair. She hadn’t looked exactly like Zara, but she was probably a substitute for her. The other woman—the one he’d stabbed repeatedly and disfigured—had blue eyes and skin like Zara’s.
If Zhu didn’t die tonight, he would make another try for Zara. Gino knew that with absolute certainty.
“Bolan.” Dai was obviously the head of Zhu’s security team. “It doesn’t matter what your brother thinks. I can hire another crew. I can find the right ones, men who like the same things as us. We allow them to make life or death decisions for their sexual partners and the power will be addicting. It won’t take that long to build another force and then we can go after this man.”
Zhu shook his head.
Dai persisted. “Cheng would learn to fear you very quickly again. We visited his bedroom more than once when he got out of hand and we can easily do it again. Remember his face when he woke up to find the dead women sprawled all over him? Sheets coated in blood? He will fear us again. Better he has one moment of false triumph than something happening to you.”
“The car is armored.” Zhu had made up his mind.
Dai shook his head and shrugged. “Let’s go then, before all hell breaks loose. Our men are strewn all over that club and probably down the street as well. They’re known by everyone. We have to move before we are found and questioned.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. No one would dare to question me.”
“That was before the Razor’s Edge burned down and everyone inside it was shot. That was before the club was exposed for the things going on inside. This might not be so easy to sweep under the carpet.” Dai was reluctant to leave what he thought was the safety of the warehouse.
“Get more weapons,” Zhu ordered and then ignored his head of security.
He stalked over to the side of a large black SUV with tinted windows and special armor plating. The windows were bulletproof. He leaned against the door while Dai, Feng and Longwei hurried over to the large crates sitting to the back of the warehouse.
“Need a crowbar,” Dai muttered and pointed toward the far corner of the room.
Longwei immediately rushed to get it. None of them wanted to stay, but they didn’t want to leave either. They didn’t know where safety was. Gino dropped in behind Longwei, a silent shadow, following him right into the corner where a long table held a variety of tools. Longwei took out his cell phone and shone a light along the table. Gino handed him the crowbar with one hand. Longwei took it, murmuring a polite “thank you.” He stiffened, his head swiveling around, eyes going wide with shock.
Gino was on him, one hand over his mouth, muffling any sound as he shoved the knife into the guard’s throat. He stared down at the man. Eyes to eyes. Nose to nose. Gino breathing, Longwei unable to breathe. Gino took him to the floor, removing the crowbar from his spasming fingers and pulling the blade from him. Very carefully he wiped it on the guard’s shirt.
Twenty-three.
“Hurry up, Longwei,” Dai snapped. “We have to get these open.”
Silence met his demand. The crowbar hit the floor with a loud metallic sound. The tip was in the light. Dai, Zhu and Feng turned toward the sound. Zhu tried the door, frowned when it was locked and then walked around the armored car to the other side, putting it between the clattering sound and his body.
The crowbar was lifted from the floor, but Longwei didn’t step out of the shadows to hurry back to Dai. He just stood there. Unseen. In the dark. The three remaining men couldn’t see his body, they could barely make out that it was a man standing there.
“Stop playing around,” Dai demanded. “You always make jokes and play pranks at inappropriate times.”
Gino had gone up the wall, moving sideways until he was so close to Feng he was afraid the man would lean back into him. Feng had taken refuge between the row of large crates and the wall, hoping by keeping his back to the wall, no one could sneak up on him. He was sweating, and Gino could smell fear.
Draden stood where Longwei had been, the crowbar held loosely in his hand, keeping the attention of Zhu and Dai. Gino moved down the wall like a spider, until he was directly behind Feng. He reached out with both hands, one clamping tightly over the man’s mouth while the other slit his throat. He held up him upright, waited until the guard began to slump and then slowly lowered him to the floor behind the crate.
Twenty-four.
Dai glanced over his shoulder toward Feng but the area was empty. When he looked back at Longwei no one was there. Instantly he moved toward the armored car, his eyes bouncing around the warehouse. “Bolan, we have to get the hell out of here. Get into the car.”
“The locks are jammed. I tried all of them,” Zhu said. “We can’t use the car.”
“We have three others,” Dai pointed out, making his way warily toward his boss.
“It stands to reason the locks are all jammed on them as well.”
“Send for more men. Make it clear to your brother that we need them now.”
“I’ve done so and told him I uncovered a conspiracy to kill him. In doing so, I set myself up as a target and am now in danger. If he believes the threat is to him, he will want us to live to help protect him,” Zhu said.
“At the word ‘conspiracy,’ he’ll kill an entire floor worth of employees,” Dai pointed out.
Zhu nodded with a slow, cold smile. “I believe he will. He’s descending into madness, just as our father did.”
“Is Cheng sending help?”
“He answered immediately that they’re on the way. Relax, Dai. We are fine right here if we stay together and under this light. Even if this man is in this warehouse with us, he will make a mistake.”
“He hasn’t so far.”
Zhu looked around the cavernous room with a cold smile. “But he is close to his goal and eager to get to me. He stole something of mine and he doesn’t want me taking it back.”
“The woman.”
Zhu nodded. “I searched years for her. The perfect one. She would grace every public event I went to, especially after my brother meets an untimely death. She dislikes pain to the point that it terrifies her. She’s intelligent, and her brain will be very useful. More than anything, she’s American, like my mother, and I will have her complete obedience.”
He looked around the warehouse and tried taunting the man who had come for him. “I have so many plans for her. She’ll crawl under tables and blow my guests if I demand it right in front of everyone.” He smiled as looked around the warehouse again. “Think about that, GhostWalker. Think what I’ll do to her. Those women suffering at my hands were mere substitutes for her. That was mild torture, mild compared to what I plan to do to that woman. She’ll suffer for going with you. She’ll be in agony for days, weeks, months. She’ll beg my forgiveness.”
Gino shut out that snide voice. Zhu wanted to shake him up, have him make a mistake. The mistake was Zhu’s. He paced while he mocked and jeered at Gino. In pacing, hands behind his back, looking nonchalant, he had separated himself from his private bodyguard, the head of his security.
Dai made the mistake of watching Zhu, of keeping his eyes glued to his boss while occasionally looking around the warehouse, but not behind him. The armored car was behind him and he thought himself safe. Gino went right over the top of it, lay for a moment on the roof and then slithered down the other side. Dai didn’t want to take his eyes off Zhu, afraid of someone coming out of the night and killing him.
Gino hooked him around the throat, cut off his airway by clamping a hand over his mouth and nose while he rolled with him under the car and out the other side. It took all of one and a half seconds to get into the dark and break Dai’s neck. Twenty-five. Draden. You need to leave.
I’m on you.
Not for this. It isn’t going to be clean or pretty. Get the hell out of here.
Gino wasn’t going to shoot the bastard. He wasn’t even going to cut his throat, at least not right away. He’d been good to the others, killing them fast, almost before they were aware. They didn’t have time to suffer as they deserved.
Not going to happen.
Zhu became aware of the silence. He turned and realized Dai was no longer behind him. He crouched low and took a long look around the warehouse. “You’re good. I’ll give you that. Every one of these men were specially trained. The senator assured us the GhostWalker program was worth whatever she asked for, and clearly she was right.”
He stood slowly and walked to where Dai had last been, inspecting the area, looking for Dai’s weapon. All the guns were gone. Zhu had been too arrogant to carry one himself. He had surrounded himself with men with weapons and didn’t believe he needed one, not in the club he frequented. He could go in looking every inch the gentleman. He liked dressing in his suits, the ones custom-made, the shoes the same. He liked buying men and women and knowing he had the power of life and death over them. That didn’t mean he was without weapons and clearly the GhostWalker preferred silence to guns.
You aren’t going to have the stomach for this,Gino tried again. It doesn’t bother me to have you see what I do to him, but you’re never going to look at me the same.
Just get on with it.
Gino walked out of the shadows into the open to face Bolan Zhu.
Zhu smiled at him. “You didn’t like me sending a few stupid mercenaries after Zara and you came all this way just to tell me. They weren’t nearly as good as I was led to believe.”
“I was always going to come for you,” Gino said. “Did you think I’d let you do that to her and get away with it?” He glided closer, watching Zhu, getting a feel for his energy, how he moved, the slightest hint that the man would attack.
“Ah yes, little Zara and the whip. It was beautiful to see those stripes across her breasts. It was all I could do not to take her right then, with her blood dripping everywhere and her little body shuddering in pain. Her tears were beautiful. You have to admit, you get off just looking at those tears. Didn’t you fall just a little bit for her, looking at her bruised face and those gorgeous stripes? A woman is so beautiful with her face contorted in pain.”
For one moment, another woman’s face rose up, his mother, lying in her own blood, pain making her almost unrecognizable. Gino slammed the door hard on the memory. He couldn’t allow Zhu to shake him in any way.
“It’s delicious to have a woman at your mercy. Don’t tell me, with all your strengths, you never even tried it? Not once? I am not certain I believe you.”
Gino remained silent, watching him. Zhu kept his expressions blank, but he couldn’t stop the movements of his body. Tiny. Subtle. His fingers twitched.
“Society tells you not to give in to your nature, but you’re like me. A woman belongs to you and she should follow your every command. Your every desire. That’s your right as a man.”
Gino smiled at him. “Everything about Zara is beautiful. She does belong to me, and yes, I want her to follow my every command, my every desire. I don’t think it’s my right as a man, but it is my right to protect her, to see to her care, her pleasure and happiness. That’s what I’ll be doing while you’re long dead.”
He knew Zhu thought of himself as a fighter, but he didn’t have a prayer. Gino was in that distant, cold place. It didn’t matter what Zhu said. He couldn’t make him lose his temper or make a mistake. He could taunt him all he wanted, but Gino wouldn’t break. He’d learned in a hard school.
He remembered that moment when Joe pulled him out from under his dead grandparents and his father. His dead mother stared at him, her face contorted with pain, the flames of the fire the murderers had started to cover up their crime drawing closer.
Gino had tried, over the years, to forget how much he loved her, the way she’d looked him, that soft glow on her face whenever he came into a room. Whenever his father had. She’d loved them both, and in spite of how he tried to stomp it out of himself, the moment he’d laid eyes on Zara, he knew he was capable of that deep, abiding love.
Ciro had known what Gino was trying to do and had taught him how to compartmentalize. There was no room for rage, he’d always said. There was no room for personal emotions. You did a job and you did it thoroughly so no one ever fucked with you or your family. Not. Ever. Family was sacred and any threat to them had to be eliminated.
Bolan Zhu was a threat to Zara and he always would be. More, he was a threat to every decent man, woman and child he came across.
“Every one of my men experienced what it was like to have a woman or a man at their mercy. What it was like to have sex any way they demanded. To be treated like a king. You have so much and yet you refuse to give in to your true nature. I see it in you. I see what you would like to be.”
Gino knew better now. He had thought himself like this monster, because he could take apart a human being. But he wasn’t like this man. Not even halfway. He could never do the sadistic things Zhu enjoyed. He had never looked at the marks on Zara and thought her pain was sexually stimulating. He wanted to take care of her. He wanted to provide for her and see to her every need. He wanted to give her the things in life that would make her happy, and if that meant her freedom to work outside their home, although it would be difficult, he would do it for her. He was many ugly things, but he was not a Bolan Zhu.
“You think you have what it takes to best me?” Zhu asked softly. “I cut my own father to pieces. Cheng was the golden boy, his favorite, the one he was so proud of. He wouldn’t even claim me. My mother allowed him to treat me that way. She didn’t deserve to live either. I whispered that to her all the time. That someday, I would end her life.” He laughed. “Do you have those kinds of balls? Maybe I’ll find out. I like to fuck with men who think they’re macho. It’s all the sweeter when I cut off their cock and balls. You were in there today. You didn’t get to see the grand finale because Dai insisted I leave before I was finished.”
As he talked, he edged closer, within striking distance. There was no way for Zhu to know how fast a GhostWalker could be. He exploded into action, flying at Gino with his front foot. Gino knocked it sideways and slammed his fist into Zhu’s throat. Hard. He had always been strong and the enhancements added even more strength. Zhu fell to the floor choking.
Gino methodically beat him. He used the hardened edge of his hand, his fists, he stomped him, kicked him, making certain there wasn’t a place on his body that hadn’t been touched, that wasn’t hurt and painful. Zhu tried to roll over, and Gino knelt down and stripped him, cutting off his clothes to leave his body naked and vulnerable like so many of his victims’.
Zhu began to laugh insanely, spitting blood, trying to look defiant, but there was no way to hide terror. There was a smell to it. There was a look in the eyes. Zhu did his best to act unafraid, but he winced when Gino came at him again. Gino walked away and Zhu tried to stand, crawling to the car and trying to pull himself up by the door handle.
Gino returned with several of the tools that had been laid out on the table, tools Zhu hadn’t put there but recognized as his own. Last chance, Draden. Get out of here.
Get on with it. That fucker deserves whatever you’re going to give him. I saw what he did to those women and that man. I saw what he did to Zara. Just do it and let’s get the hell out of this place.
An hour later, the screams died down, the babbling started and there was nothing left of arrogant Bolan Zhu. There was only a shell of a man. Gino was tempted to let him live, to have to be cared for by nurses, but he didn’t want to take the chance that a man that evil might have even a small part of his brain left to harm anyone. He cut his throat and left him on the floor.
Let’s get the hell out of here, Gino, and go home,Draden said.
They left the warehouse, locked it and moved into the shadows where their team waited. There were police and ambulances as well as the fire department the street over, so they went up to the rooftops, making good time out of the area.
“Cheng’s men never came,” Gino said, as he pulled open the door to their vehicle.
“I noticed that,” Draden answered.
“We watched for them,” Ezekiel said. “We were prepared for a shoot-out, but he never so much as sent a man to see what was going on.”
“I guess there wasn’t much love lost between them,” Gino said. He closed his eyes. All he wanted was a thousand hot showers to wash the stink of Zhu’s blood off of him and remove the images from the Razor’s Edge from his mind for the rest of his life. And then he’d go home to his woman.