The Frenchman's Revenge (70 page)

They heard a
stampede
of footsteps and Liang
yelling
for Bai.

Liang
charged
in the door
,
followed by Manchu.
The stricken look on
his face
stopped their celebration cold.

“They’ve got her, Bai.
Greg got Elena.
We don’t know where he took her.”

Bai stared at him.

“Quitin?”

Liang shook his head and didn’t try to hide his tears.

Bai didn’t
speak
.
He felt t
he
rush of fury
turn
to the
icy cold
he ha
d
depended on all
his life
.
The Frenchman
reached down and
yanked
Peter to his feet.
Ignoring the blubbering man’s pleas
,
he pressed him against the wall and held his arm at a right angle and drew a ten inch blade from his boot.

“I lied, Alex.
I always save this one for emergencies.”

With that
,
he drew back his
knife
and s
mashed
the
cutting edge of the
blade against Peter’s wrist severing his hand in one blow.
Peter screamed
a
hideous agonized scream
as
blood
spurted
from
his
naked
wrist.

Bai
yanked
him up by his other arm
and
held
it hard
against the wall.
Switching the blade to
his left hand
,
he pressed his face inches f
rom
Peter’s
horrified
face.
Ignoring his
screams
of pain, Bai’s voice was
ominously
soft.

“Thirty seconds.
Tell me
where
they are or your other hand goes.
Next is
your prick.
Counting
now.
”

Peter cried out,
“I
don’t know, I don’t know.”

Bai nodded
to
Nianzu.

“
H
is pants.”

Nianzu
grabbed
Peter’s
belt and ripped open his pants.
Peter screamed
,
a terrified sound
echoing
through
the room.

“No, God, no!
He took her to his office.
Second floor in the private quarters. Third door on the left.
Senator Sinclair is there
,
too, dead.”

“Is there more than one entrance?”

The
y could barely understand the bleeding man
’s choked words.

“
His bedroom …is connected.
Door in the back…fourth door on the left.”

Bai nodded and with a quick flick of his wrist
,
slit Peter’s throat and dropped him to the ground.

He took off shouting orders to his men as he raced up the stairs.

Chapter
3
3

Elena and Quitin made their way to the ballroom.
Beautiful sounds and sights greeted them as if the fairy land of gorgeous people, dancing, chatting, eating
,
and drinking w
as
not steps away from murder and mayhem.

Elena slipped her hand in the crook of Quitin’s elbow and gave it a little squeeze.
He smiled down at her and held her close to him
.

“You know he is angry because he loves you so deeply
, don’t you, Elena?
”

She sighed and nodded.

“
And you know he is not angry with you,
Q
uitin
.”

“Yes, I know that, Elena. It is my great honor that he trusts me with the person he loves more than life itself.”

They moved
to
ward
a crowd of people and Elena saw Quitin exchange glances with a man she didn’t know
,
but was sure
he
was one of Bai’s men.
She forced herself to smile and appear relaxed. She chatted briefly with several of the men she knew from the
u
niversity, then saw Dr. Oleong on the edge of the crowd.
She
waved to him and
moved to
join
him when she felt a firm hand grasp her elbow and a hard brace of steel in the middle of her back. Even before she turned to the man holding her, she knew it was Greg.

“That’s right, Elena.
Don’t make a scene.
Not only do I have a gun resting on your spinal cord, but the four people around you will die if you make a sound.”

Elena looked to her left and right and saw hard eyed men standing close to the people
surrounding
her
—all
oblivious
of the danger they faced. She glanced over her shoulder and saw two men holding Quitin’s inert body upright. His glazed eyes staring straight ahead confirmed what she already knew.
He would never let anyone touch her
if he was alive
.

Only then did Elena allow herself to look up at Greg.
Elena shuddered a deep hard shudder.
He was
glowing.
An unholy light gleamed in his
eyes; his lips were curled in a
victorious
smile.
He looked like a madman.
A triumphant madman.

~~~

Elena looked around the room
,
trying to understand where they were.
She knew it was Greg’s office
,
but it was in another building.
He blindfolded her outside of the ballroom and the men with him dragged her across a pebbly path and up a flight
of stairs
.
She felt
a momentary rush of fear
,
wondering how Bai would ever know where to look. But then she quieted.
Bai would find her.
If he had to tear the mansion apart, he would find her. She knew that in her soul. She just had to keep Greg from killing her before Bai came.
Or, she thought
,
facing the more likely and more hideous truth
,
she had to keep him from raping her before Bai got there.

The office was spacious, floor to ceiling windows looked down on the verdant grounds below.
A fire burned low in the fireplace and small electric sconces cast a pleasing glow across the room. The door to the adjoining bedroom was open
,
a large four poster bed was visible from the doorway. The rooms were pleasant, appealing.

Elena had recovered from her horror at the incongruous sight of Senator Sinclair’s body lying on the floor beside the desk; the puddle of blood around his head dark, dry, crispy.
She didn’t ask Greg what happened.
She didn’t have to.

Elena willed her voice to be calm
,
but couldn’t control the stammer.

“Is…is Alex…safe?’

Greg
laughed a mirthless cruel sound.

“Oh
,
Elena, are you still so foolish? You still believe that someone is going to save you?
The Frenchman? Your father? Even that insipid brother of yours?”

Greg towered over her, his face as
d
eranged
as it had been in the ballroom.
Elena drew
back
,
desperate
to hide her fear. She knew she had to keep him talking.
She had to give Bai, her father
,
and
Nianzu time
,
time to find her and save her.
And they needed time to find Alex.

Blessedly
,
he hadn’t tied her up which meant that she had a chance, a very good
chance
,
to take him down. She watched him striding
back and forth
across the room
, his pent up energy visible in
his
tight neck muscles, straining thighs
.
She hadn’t appreciated how
big he was
.
He always seemed insignificant, smaller, weaker.
But that was in comparison to Bai. Now he looked different.
His rage made him appear larger.
The insane glow in his eyes
added stature
. How had she missed this? Bai didn’t.
He saw beneath the
obsequious
surface
, sensed the danger,
but she had chided him, teased him about being jealous of Greg. Now
,
because of her
naïveté
,
t
hey were all in danger.

“My
poor
darling, you look surprised.
Like you barely know me? Is that how you feel, my lovely Elena?
Like you are seeing me for the first time?
Wondering where the sensitive, cowering, subservient Greg is?
”

Pushing her against the wall, his fingers circled the jewels around her neck. “And
you wore the necklace didn’t you, Elena?
”
He ripped the glowing jewels from her neck and shoved them against her face. “You
joined with him to taunt me
? T
o rub my nose in his victory
?
Who is the victor now, Elena? I will ask you that every time I fuck you
. And
Elena; every time I shove my prick in one hole or another of your tender body, you will wear th
is
necklace
in memory of that arrogant yellow bastard who thought he could take out the Chamel
e
on
.
”

Greg’s eyes were bright.
Spittle shot out of his mouth with every
gloating
statement.

“You see
,
my
ignorant little bitch
, that is why they call me the Chameleon
.
Did you think only that yellow dog you married had a moniker everyone feared? No, Elena, in many circles and soon to be more, the Chameleon is as feared as
t
he Frenchman.

“Ask the little cunts your husband stole from us. Ask them what the
C
hameleon does to Chink virgins. To any virgins, although I do prefer Chinks.
They are smaller, tighter
,
”
H
e added with a hideous chuckle, “
Of course, i
t helps if they are only ten or eleven years old.”

Elena
couldn’t
hide her horror.
She stared at the
fiend
in front of her and tried to
understand
why she had been fooled.

“You took the girls…took them to
M
adam Torrento’s?”

“That
is
but one
pleasurable
aspect
s
of our organization I overs
ee
.
My forte is managing crooked politicians and
,
fortunately
,
they are as plentiful
and lucrative
as Chink cunts.
Do you know how easy it is to control a dirty politician, Elena? All you need is a record of the daughter he fucked, the bribe he took, the whore he killed, the hush money he paid. That’s all, Elena.
That’s all it takes. That and the wisdom to record each and every bribe, each and every hush payment and the money rolls in month after month
,
year after year
,
and
soon you are as powerful as
t
he Frenchman
.”

Elena planned her moves.
She
ripped
the slit in the front of her dress
to give her striking room
when she was ready.
For some reason Greg had shooed his men out the door.
But she knew they were outside and would
be back
at the first sound of a struggle.
She fingered the knife sheat
hed in her garter.
She thanked
God Bai
insisted on hours of practice
. She could
h
it a target at twenty paces. But she needed a gun.
It was the only way she could stop the five or six men she knew were outside the door. Her attention snapped back to Greg
when he stepped up to her and dragged her to her feet.