Amore (15 page)

Shae didn’t get the joke but Marietta did. She laughed and chimed in. Shae pretended at listening as she ate her lunch. His name was Carlo or was it Nico? Either way she was determined to find out.

The Dragon

Macau – Asia

Isabella Mancini had ventured into dangerous territory. The stench strangled the last of the breathable air. She lifted the red silk scarf around her neck and pressed it over her mouth and nose. Her eyes watered. Nausea clenched her stomach and dried her throat. Darkness beckoned inside and she found it hard to take the next step. Since the ferry brought her from Hong Kong across the Pearl River Delta, nothing but misery and poverty greeted her. However, in the deepest recesses of hell came something else—the sounds of laughter and celebrating. She had to go inside. The problem persisted. Her legs wouldn’t move.

“Gǎnkuài! Gǎnkuài!”
An Asian man, barely five-foot tall with dark scraggly hair and hard eyes, shouted at her. He wore a stained shirt and cut-off shorts. He smelled as bad as the building he held the door to. Isabella was a risk taker. Her father, Flavio, had taught her that no reward came without a price. But even she knew traveling this far without her men to protect her, and uninvited, could prove to be a fatal mistake.

“Come! Now!” he shouted at her.

She nodded and continued on. The only discernable scent she could put to name varied between that of animal’s blood, rotten meat, and excrement. Isabella stepped over stains in the floorboards and garbage in designer heels. She clutched her Chanel bag to her chest.

The front of the warehouse looked to be some kind of open market that had closed for business. Tarps covered several vendor booths. The few that were left bare had traces of rotting food with large black flies swarming. She swiped a few flies away from her face as they buzzed around her head, attracted to her perfume. She followed her guide through the open space to a musty hall. On the way she had to be cautious of her steps in the dark. She sidestepped buckets positioned to catch the water as it dripped through the cracks of the tin ceiling above. Once they descended a few steps to another passageway she began to understand the destination. Since making an alliance with Kei Hyogo, she’d visited several opium dens in mainland China which were owned by the Triad. This must be one of some other purpose.

The laughter and raised voices in a foreign tongue grew louder.

“You. Wait. Here.” The Asian man pointed at her and then the floor. Isabella nodded that she understood. He pushed open a tall aluminum door bringing forth the musty heat and liquored rank of the celebration beyond. She could only glimpse the men inside. The door closed.

Isabella checked her watch. Two years ago Kei Hyogo saved her life. A bomb planted by her adoptive father’s men nearly claimed it. Before then she had no faith in the Triad bringing Kei to power. His extradition had landed him in one of the most brutal prison camps in China. And for several months he was beaten, starved and tortured. Before all hope was lost he was freed. In just two short years the Wall Street business tycoon had turned into the head of the Dragon. Kei was now the leader of one of the most ruthless and successfully cunning Tongs, a secret Chinese society, on this side of the world. Access to him wasn’t as liberal as she hoped. After the bombing she had to go through his vanguard, what most considered an assistant or counselor, for all communication. And the message was always the same. “In time, in due time.”

Well the time was now. She’d waited long enough.

The door opened. Gone was her scraggly runt of a guide. Before her was a tall Chinese man with a shaven head. He wore a dark business suit and a welcoming smile, the first she’d seen since she left Hong Kong.

“Isabella Mancini?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m Bao Zei.” Isabella recognized the name. They spoke over the phone two months ago. “Kei has been told you are here. Come with me.” The man said in polished Italian. His ease with her native language made her tense. She knew predators, and it was always the polite, cultured ones that proved most deadly. She stepped forward with her head high. Inside gathered a large crowd of men on bench seats, and some standing. At the center were kick boxers fighting each other. Blood and sweat flew from their mingled bodies as they kicked, punched, and tackled one another.

“This way,” the man whispered in her ear.

She turned and followed. Every spectator she passed stopped to stare at her. Most with looks of disapproval. This was a man’s game. There wasn’t a woman anywhere in the arena. That was until she was brought around to a private booth. Three beautiful Asian women scantily dressed in low cut blouses, and very short mini-skirts, sat around one man. Kei Hyogo leaned back on the bench seating that was clear of anyone that wasn’t part of his harem. He wore a long black silk shirt that was unbuttoned to reveal what she thought was a serpent on his chest. But the closer she drew she knew it was something far more sinister. A multi-leg dragon snaked its way up his torso. A dark eye patch covered his left eye, and his hair was longer and tucked behind his ears.

He smiled. He sat forward and watched Isabella approach. The women sitting around him all stood at once and began to walk down the bench steps and away without being told to do so. Soon she stood before Kei with his vanguard to her back.

“I didn’t send for you,” Kei said.

“I know. I apologize if this is inappropriate, but you haven’t returned my calls in months. I’ve written, I’ve called.”

Kei moistened his lips and held her stare. He then looked away from her. She turned her head to see a man pounding his fist into another man’s face until blood squirted from his nose, ears, and mouth. It was gruesome. “Can we please go somewhere private and talk?” she yelled over the jeering.

He said something in Mandarin to the man who stood behind her. Bao Zei offered her his hand. Isabella accepted it and was aided as she stepped up the bench seats to take her place next to Kei. She supposed this was as private as it could get. Now she was forced to look upon the barbaric fight scene with him.

“Santo will be released soon.”

“He has been released,” Kei informed her.

Isabella glanced over at him. She knew it was coming soon but she had no idea of the date. It took her close to three weeks of negotiating and traveling through China to bribe her way into locating Kei Hyogo. She had hoped she would return home before Santo left prison to greet him.

“You should have been there. Instead you come here to see me.” Kei sat forward. He leaned in on his knee, riveted by the kill scene.

Isabella forced an obedient smile. Obedience was never a good trait of hers. “It’s been close to two years. I’ve given you everything on the Battaglias. Years of research, planning, information no one has, I handed it all over to you on a silver platter. I’ve visited the prisons and buttered Santo up for you. Still Giovanni and his…” Isabella bit her tongue. Strange enough Kei was a very dangerous enemy to the Battaglias, but Isabella had once made the mistake of speaking ill against that black bastard whore Mirabella. The man put a knife to her throat. “Ah… his wife and he are living life as if they have no care in the world.”

“Mirabella likes her men broken,” Kei said.

Isabella frowned. “Broken? I don’t get your meaning?”

“Do you know why I left China fifteen years ago?” Kei asked. It was the first time he spoke to her directly without his riddled questions and answers. She was rendered speechless. He glanced over to her and had to turn his head to see her fully with his good eye. “Do you?”

“No,” she answered. “Of course not.”

“But you’re the woman to do all of the research, planning.” He cast his good eye to her. “Are you to tell me that the day you visited me in the American prison you had no idea of who I once was, and would become if I returned to China?”

“I only know a little of your history, Kei. I knew more about Mirabella’s betrayal than… this,” she turned her gaze to the fight arena.

“My uncle Dao raised me after my mother’s throat was slit by his brother, my father. He was what these men out there would call the Mountain Master, dedicated to the purpose of serving Guan Yu. More powerful than the Yacazza, or the
Mafiosi
. A very disciplined and righteous leader.”

Isabella didn’t understand where the conversation was going. The death cry of the poor man in the center of the ring before his neck was broken, shattered her nerves. She fidgeted in her seat. Kei stared at her with a sly smile. “Uncle Dao made sure I was educated. He spared no expense on my education in Europe and then America. All for a single purpose.” Kei glanced back to the ring. The man at the center faced Kei and bowed. He too was badly beaten and bloodied. The room fell silent as all others looked to her and Kei in expectation. After a brief pause Kei nodded his head and the men cheered. The man was declared the winner.

“I was to never return here, to become Dao. When I did my uncle was very disappointed.” Kei removed his hand from the side of him and held it out. Isabella had always seen it in a glove. It was now harnessed in a steel glove-like contraption that gave him very sharp, pointed steel nails. He worked it with mechanical ease. “I say Mirabella likes her men broken because Giovanni and I have a lot more in common than either of us knew. Our only blind spot is our love for her. And your quest for revenge,” he glanced to her. “You knew this when you visited my uncle and told him of my crimes in America. When you handed me back over to the Triad.”

“I—”

“Shut your fucking mouth.” Kei seethed. “I’m not someone to toy with. Giovanni is weak, so you play shadow games with him. You cause little fires for him to put out. Games!” he shouted at her. “When I strike it will be a decisive blow, and I will have my woman and child returned to me after I snap the necks of his sons.” He grabbed her chin with his iron hand. The sharpened nails cut into her cheek and she feared he’d broken skin. She double blinked away tears of pain. “Go home. Fuck the Sicilian Santo, and get him ready for me. I will be coming to Italy in my time,” he said.

“I thought you should know that Mirabella is having her fashion event in a few days, and a private birthday party in Bellagio. She’s finally leaving that compound. She’ll be more accessible now.”

Kei let go of her face and Isabella recoiled from his touch. He pressed his lips together as if hesitant at first to speak. Then he spoke with a graveled voice and he did so in Mandarin. Whatever he said sounded like a threat. Bao Zei nodded to him understanding his order. Kei stood and shouted something to the men gathered in their language. They all cheered. A pair of men raced out to pick up the dead, or near dead fighter, left broken on the dirt floor. As they carried him off, other men dragged in three others who were weeping visibly and bound at the wrist.

Kei looked down at her with his good eye. His dark hair fell over the side of his face. “I know everything about Mirabella and Little Rabbit that I need to know. Go home, Isabella, and never come here looking for me again.”

Three men dressed in long sleeved black jumpers with red sashes and their faces covered except for their eyes, carried sharp swords with them into the ring. They greeted the weeping prisoners with a bow akin to a Japanese Ninja instead of a Chinese assassin. Isabella’s stomach clenched. Before she could say more Kei walked down the steps of the bench and was immediately flanked by six men who trailed him as he left. She sighed. The slaughter was hard to watch, but all she could do was wait for an escort out. If Kei Hyogo didn’t deliver on his promise to help her exact revenge she’d find another way to get it. She was done with the waiting game.

Milan, Italy –

“Who was it?” Catalina asked. She turned over under the sheets and ran her hand across his chest. Dominic hung up the phone and dropped back on the pillows.

“The family will be landing soon.”

“Oh?” Catalina kissed his chest. Something weighed heavy on Dominic’s heart. She could tell. He was still semi erect. He didn’t release when they made love earlier. And that was never like him.

“The place is ready for them. I made sure of it.”

Dominic sat up and threw back the sheet. Concerned, Catalina lifted on her elbow. He sat on the edge of the bed with his face in his hands. She waited a minute and then spoke softly to him. “Talk to me, Domi. What’s wrong now?”

“Nothing. Everything!” he threw his hands up in the air. “Giovanni! He… he listens to Lorenzo now.”