"I can see you"re very impatient tonight. I shall take you to see Elena," Tsung grinned, displaying his grizzly yellow teeth.
"I"m sure you will."
"Man, you don"t need to jam that thing so hard into my back," Cairo moaned, cursing the other Triad guard.
"The Black Devil cost me a lot of money in the fighting pits," the gangster replied.
"Not my fault you made a dumb bet."
At the end of the kitchen, there was another door.
Nathan was standing in front of it.
"Everything"s going according to plan," he said.
"Who"s plan?" I asked. "And are the guns really necessary?"
Nathan smiled. "Authenticity is important. Otherwise, she may grow suspicious."
"I"m growing suspicious," I pointed out.
"You don"t trust me?"
"No."
Nathan laughed. "I wouldn"t trust me either."
"If you backstab us, I"m going to eat your heart with a spoon," Cairo cursed, which elicited nothing more than a shrug from Nathan.
"Well, there"s only one way to find out now, isn"t there." He opened the door and gestured for us to enter.
It was another room, a private dining room from the looks of it. The walls were adorned with bright red wallpaper, symbolizing wealth for the Chinese.
It reminded me of the pools of blood, flowing out of my parent"s dead bodies.
We were concealed behind an onyx room divider, ivory white storks decorating it. On the other side of the divider, I heard Elena having a one-sided conversation. She was on the phone with someone.
"He"ll be here any second now," she said, in a sweet voice laced with silk.
Was that Calisto on the other end?
"The big dumb mule is with him...No Lincoln and no Golden Virgin from what I can tell...Can I scratch him just a little?...He called me a wh.o.r.e in front of everyone...I am not...b.i.t.c.h, please... Fine, I"ll handle it...Bye."
Silence followed.
"Shall we?" Nathan asked, just as the conversation ended.
Before I could reply, Tsung pushed me forward, revealing us to Elena.
It was only her in the room. None of her men were in sight, which was a good sign.
She sat in front of a large circular table, plates of steaming food laid out before her. My stomach rumbled from the wonderful smells of the barbecued pork, baked fresh fish, crisp duck, and steaming hot pots.
Elena leaned back in her chair and grinned at the sight of me. "Shadow," she said with a smug look on her face. "You look like s.h.i.t."
"And you still look like a wh.o.r.e," I replied. Nathan gestured for me to take a seat at the table, which I did.
"I hope the food is prepared to your liking," Nathan said. "Only the finest dishes were cooked. Tonight is a special night with the old society meeting the new."
"Cut the c.r.a.p Nathan," Elena said.
"I agree," I replied, my eyes remaining fixated on Elena.
Nathan sighed. "Very well. I imagine there"s a lot for the two of you to discuss. I shall be waiting outside with my men, when you are finished."
He motioned for Tsung to head back into the kitchen, and then pointed a gun at Cairo. "Let"s leave these two alone, shall we Black Devil?"
"Suck on a d.i.c.k," he spat, his eyes lit ablaze. He, no doubt, believed that we had been betrayed. I was sitting on the fence on this one. Nathan stood to gain far more financially siding with me than with Elena-unless it wasn"t financial gain he was seeking.
Her p.u.s.s.y was the x-factor in all of this.
"Let"s go," Nathan said.
Cairo continued to mutter profanities all the way out room. Even when the door was closed behind them, I could still hear him.
We sat alone at the table, Elena and I.
"Are you going to eat?" I asked.
"No. Do you actually trust the food?"
I shook my head. "It looks good though."
"It does," she replied, pausing. "So Shadow, did you enjoy your time with the Golden Virgin?"
"It was wonderful. Thanks for asking."
"You know, after Calisto told me about your brainwashing, I understood why you didn"t choose me that night." Elena replied. "But what I don"t understand was why you needed to humiliate me in front of everyone. You took my dad"s name and dragged it in the mud."
I shrugged. "Sorry," I replied.
She looked at me and frowned while her eyes spewed venom. "You always were an a.s.shole."
"Where"s Calisto?" I asked.
She laughed. "You"re kidding, right?"
"Where is she?" I repeated.
"You"re unbelievable, Shadow. You"re my prisoner, and you"re trying to interrogate me?"
I smiled. "How do you know it"s not the other way around?"
"Nathan"s not stupid. He would never place his bet on a losing hand."
"What if the hand I"m holding"s a royal flush."
"That"s a laugh," Elena said. "You"ve got nothing left to your name. Calisto took it all away from you. The Midnight Society is dead."
I smiled. "If that"s what you think."
I could spot the lines of doubt, drawn on Elena"s face. If Nathan did betray me, this was the only opportunity I had in extracting the information out of Elena before s.h.i.t hit the fan and I needed to bolt.
"It"s what I know," Elena said. "You"ve got nothing."
"I found Reiko," I said. "She"s helping me."
Cairo was probably going to be p.i.s.sed that I brought Reiko into the limelight, but it was the only play I had. Her name alone gave me instant credibility.
"You"re lying," Elena said. "The last thing Reiko would do is get herself involved with the Midnight Society again. Besides, she"s disappeared for over five years. She"s probably six feet in the ground somewhere."
She was trying to convince herself while seeking out confirmation from me. I deduced this from the quiver in her voice and her refusal to look me in the eye as she spoke. It was time to completely unravel her.
"You always treated the Triad"s like s.h.i.t," I stated. "It"s well known that you look down on their business. You make your disdain for their entire organization transparent."
She stayed silent.
"For years, the Midnight Society and the Triads always had a good working relationship," I continued. "Do you know why that is?"
Silence.
"We respected them," I said. "We allowed the Triads to fill their coffers first, before we collected our take. I bet Nathan remembers those days, after all it was only a few weeks ago."
Her eyebrows furrowed and her lips pursed tightly together. She was getting worried.
There was one more piece of information I needed to draw out of her.
"Your p.u.s.s.y"s not that good," I said flatly. "Nathan told me so."
She looked up, her eyes squinted, her mouth slightly agape. She was puzzled.
That was the "tell" I needed. She wasn"t sleeping with him.
"Tell me where Calisto is," I said once again, rising from my seat.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
I walked over to her and smiled, not a menacing smile, but a genuine one. I took the seat right next to her and leaned in, slightly, enough not to completely intimidate her.
"Calisto played you, Elena," I whispered, doing my best to display sympathy. "She played me as well."
"You didn"t deserve to be the leader of the Midnight Society," Elena stated. "Calisto took what was rightfully hers."
"Calisto murdered my parents-her own parents," I said. "She slit my dad"s throat, and then stabbed my mom to death. She was ten years old at the time."
I allowed my words to seep into her thoughts for a moment, before I continued speaking again.
"She played me for over thirteen years," I said, "and now, she"s playing you as well."
"Your parents..." she gasped. "You"re lying."
I shook my head, and leaned in even more. I looked her in the eyes, and allowed my face to soften. "It"s no secret that my parent"s death was a sensitive issue for me," I said. "Do you think I"d disrespect their memory by making up such a story-spreading rumors that their own daughter killed them, unless it was the absolute truth?"
"I..." Elena began. Her mouth remained open but no words came out. She was trembling.
At the end of the day, Elena Zhao was nothing more than a helpless sheep trying to play the part of a wolf. Calisto made a big mistake in choosing her as her right hand.
"When this meeting is finished, Nathan wants to kill you," I said.
She looked at me with glossy eyes. "My men are outside."
"Your men are probably dead," I bluffed. "But Nathan will do as I say. I"ll keep you safe. I promise you."
She looked at me and shook her head.
"Why would you protect me?"
"Because I want you, Elena," I replied.
She looked at me, skepticism reflecting in her eyes. "The Golden Virgin..." she began.
"It"s over between us. It was a mistake, one that Calisto forced me to make."
Was it?
The answer would have to wait. For now, the only important thing was Elena, and getting what I needed from her.
"Calis...o...b..ainwashed me, remember?" I said. "Once I found out and I regained control of my mind, I kicked the Golden Virgin aside. If Calisto hadn"t manipulated me, I would have chosen you that night. I mean...G.o.d, look at you. You"re like an Asian G.o.ddess."
"You"re just playing me," Elena said. "You called me a wh.o.r.e again, the second you saw me."
I nodded. "I did," I replied. "But I want you to be a wh.o.r.e. I want you to be my wh.o.r.e, and mine alone."
I leaned in until our lips were almost touching.
"I"m going to be the King again," I said, confidently. "The question is who"s going to be with me when I reclaim my throne?"
I allowed my eyes to wander across her body while I took her hands and placed them on my chest.