Kael took a deep breath, then let it out. “Fine,” she spat. “Your funeral.” Rising from the chair, she pinned a glare on Ming Dao. “Please, continue this conversation without my interference. I know my place now. If it pleases you,” she said, sarcasm dripping from every word, “I’d like to be taken back to my hotel room.”
Kael watched as Ming Dao stared up at her, disgust, lust and a small inkling of respect warring for space in his magnified eyes. “Very well,” he said, finally breaking eye contact and pressing a hidden button on his desk.
In response, the door swung open and two burly guards stepped through, bowing formally at the waist. “Please take Ms. Androstos back to her quarters,” the drug lord ordered imperiously.
Nodding and bowing again, the silent guards fell into step behind the tall American’s shoulders, escorting her from the estate.
Same evening. Hotel Room. Chengdu, China.
Geraldo was seeing red as he almost knocked the flimsy door off its squealing hinges. Stomping into the room and throwing his keys on the battle-scarred table, he strode to the bed where Kael was sitting. Swinging his hand up to his opposite shoulder, the Colombian lashed out at the seated woman, intending to make sharp contact with the high cheekbones of her face.
His blow never landed, caught as it was in a grip of solid steel. Eyes the color of that steel peered murderously into his own, a smile blooming on perfect features instead of the handprint he’d expected there.
“What the hell were you hoping to accomplish back there?” he demanded, jerking his arm free and pacing the length of the tiny room. “You made me look like a total idiot in front of that man!”
Kael laughed dryly. “Didn’t need my help for that,” she said, clapping her hands together in front of her face and sketching a mock bow in her irate lover’s direction.
Snarling in rage, Geraldo whirled, arm up once again. He quickly lost his legs from a sweeping kick and bounced onto and off of the bed, to land hard on the floor, the heel of Kael’s boot firm between his nipples. “You’re pathetic,” she snapped, pushing down on his sternum until he winced in pain.
Released from the grinding pressure of her boot, the drug lord scrambled back up to his feet, leaning against the wall and rubbing his chest. “You don’t understand anything.”
Kael raised one eyebrow. “Oh, I understand plenty alright. I understand that that bastard’s giving you a good screwing and you’re just grabbin’ your ankles and beggin’ for more.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Geraldo retorted. “I’ve got to earn that man’s respect so … .”
“Respect?!” Kael stated, whirling, her long hair fanning out from her shoulders. “Is that what you think you need? He’ll never respect you, Geraldo. To him, you’re nothing more than a common street thug. Look around you, Geraldo!” she shouted, flinging her arms wide to encompass the tiny room they were given. “Look at this place! I wouldn’t make my dog live here!” Dropping her arms, Kael cocked her head, affixing her partner with a genuine look of sympathy. “And you know what the worst part is? The worst part is that tomorrow you’ll go back to that bastard and act like he put us up in the fucking Ritz Carlton!”
“Kael, this isn’t some street war, you know. It’s the fine art of negotiation… .” his words ended in a gasp as long fingers melded themselves to his throat.
“Don’t you presume to tell me anything about negotiations, you bastard,” Kael snarled in his face. Releasing the man, she pushed him hard back onto the bed. “You make me sick.” She stared down at his reclining figure for long moments before her face split into a feral grin. “However, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
Geraldo’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t do this, Kael. Don’t ruin our plans here.”
“Take your ‘plans’ and shove ‘em up your ass, Geraldo. Assuming they’ll fit with Ming’s dick up there already.” Whirling away from him, she picked up her leather jacket and thrust it on.
The drug lord struggled to sit up. “Where are you going?”
“Out,” she snarled. And did just that, the door slamming loudly behind her.
The bathroom mirror rattled, then fell from its brackets, shattering into the sink. “Dios mio,” Geraldo moaned, burying his head into his hands.
*******
Kael picked up a tail as soon as she left the seedy hotel. At first, she left the man alone, enjoying the simple feral pleasure the chase gave her. Leading the guard further and further down into the squalid areas of the city, she ducked in and out of dank alleyways, doubling back and covering her tracks. The man was very good and managed to keep up with her until Kael hid in a narrow alley, deep within the shadows of a towering building. As he took a step past her concealment, she rose an arm to grab him around the neck, changing in mid-stride to instead jab at his unprotected neck with the stiffened fingers of both hands.
Her eyes opened in shock as the man slumped to his knees, gasping. “Well, whadda ya know. It really works.” Squatting down on her haunches, a sneer curling her lips, Kael patted the hapless man’s cheek. “Well Chang, or whatever the fuck your name is, I’ve just cut off the flow of blood to your brain.” She cocked her head, her features assuming a mockingly sympathetic cast. “And to tell ya the truth, I’m not too sure I know how to undo it.” She grinned. “So how ‘bout if we do this. You take a message back to your master for me, and I use the remaining time trying to figure out how to undo this thing before you join your ancestors right here in this alley. Huh? Sound good to you?”
The man’s head bobbed and nodded as if it were on a spring. A thick line of blood flowed slowly from one nostril.
Kael put one finger up to the man’s nose, trailing through the blood and rubbing it between her fingers. Her sneer widened. “Now that’s a pretty sight.” She came in closer to the man, her lips almost touching his ear. “Now, here’s what I want you to do. You tell your master that I don’t need anyone following me around his city. Tell him the next idiot he sends won’t get off near as lucky as you. Got it?”
The man nodded again, gasping and moaning, his eyes pleading with her.
“Good.” Bringing both hands up to her face, Kael extended the first two fingers of each, stared at them, then shrugged. “Well, here goes nothin’.” In a lightning fast move, she jabbed at his pressure points. The hold broke and the man slumped to the concrete pavement, groaning aloud and panting for the breath he’d lost.
Rising to her feet, Kael smiled down at him. “Sleep tight,” she intoned as she delivered a sharp kick to his exposed head. The man’s body flew against the opposite wall and fell limp to the ground. Mouing her lips in mock sympathy, Kael blew on her still extended fingers, twirled them like she was twirling a gun and jammed them down by her sides. “Score one for the bad guys.”
Stepping out of the alley, Kael sauntered deeper into the bowels of the city, led on by the sweet scent of opium as it wafted gently into the still night air. The three months that she spent in horrid withdrawal from cocaine and other drugs she had started taking to distract her mind from the gnawing pain of her shattered legs were among the worst she’d ever known. Geraldo had stuck with her throughout, bathing her sweating body with cool, clean water, changing her fouled clothes, enduring her beatings and raving shouts as she demanded just one hit, just one line, anything to subdue the agony roaring through her body and mind.
If she hadn’t been so ill, the true irony of the situation would have amused Kael no end. That she would be lying on a bed brought with money from the very drugs she was unable now to consume. That she was being comforted by the very man who made his living pulling others into his net of fast highs and faster deaths. The irony escaped her at the time, however, so great was her need.