Free Gina Takes Bangkok (The Femme Vendettas) by S. M. Stelmack Page B

you hear me, Alak?” He reeked of sweat and vomit and blood, the stench of resistance.
    At first there was no response, then slowly their prisoner lifted his head, looking at Wakai with one eye, the other having swelled shut. Wakai worked at showing no reaction to the damage his sister had inflicted.
    “I never intended for you to suffer so much,” Wakai offered. “In fact I never had any desire to harm you. Despite everything, I’ve always admired you.”
    Montri’s mirthless smile revealed bloody gaps. “You’re a pretty shitty admirer.”
    So much for the olive branch. “It was you that betrayed me, Alak. You’ve always had the courage and charisma, but we both know that I’ve been the brains of our organization. I helped you take this city. Took a bullet for you that left me in this chair. After all that, you couldn’t look the other way? You forced my hand. All this is your fault, not mine.”
    “You expect me to turn a blind eye to that?” Montri spat blood and phlegm toward Victoria.
    He had, but Montri’s face was twisted in disgust—the same look as when his boss had first confronted him with pictures of Victoria’s gross sadism. There’d be no forgiveness, no negotiation. “What’s done is done. What matters now is that I’m the one in charge of Bangkok. You need to recognize that power has shifted to avoid further bloodshed. Yours included.”
    Alak sat back on his haunches. “Power hasn’t shifted. If it had you’d just kill me. You’re hoping to use me to run things, to get the city to fall in line for your new friends. You lack the means to make me, and sooner or later the gangs of Bangkok are going to organize and crush you.”
    Victoria darted forward to kick her prisoner but Wakai raised his hand. Several breaths passed before she retreated. “I’ll be honest with you, Alak. I’ve turned Bangkok upside-down looking for your daughter, and so far I don’t have a clue where she’s hiding. Eventually I’m going to find her, and if we’re at war when I do, then whoever was protecting her is going to die. Is that really how you want to repay their loyalty?”
    “Even if I wanted to help you, how should I know where she is?”
    “Because you know her, and who’d protect her. You know which of your allies she’d run to, and where they’d keep her. We can cut a deal. She can live like a princess, and we can run this city together again. Surely that’s preferable to all the carnage you’ll unleash otherwise.”
    Montri didn’t even blink. “Fuck you.”
    Alak Montri really was a heartless bastard. He’d given up everything to protect his sister, and the overlord of Bangkok crime didn’t seem to give a damn about anybody. Not even himself, in the end. Only his almighty principles. Never in his life had Wakai felt morally superior to anyone until now. “No, huh? After all Victoria’s done to you, and all that she could do to you, your answer is that simple, is it?”
    “Of course, it is,” Alak Montri said. “If you get hold of her, you’ll only use me to set up your own order. Soon as that’s done we’d be dead. Tell you anything and I might as well cut my daughter’s throat.”
    Montri’s declaration sparked an idea in Wakai. A most excellent one. “Help me or not, Alak, you’re still a pawn in this game. A pawn to capture the queen.”
     

 

     
     
    KANNON LOOKED UP, way up, at the towering skyscraper to which Gina had brought him and Ryota. The sight of a fifty-story luxury apartment building in the heart of the city wouldn’t have been unusual, except that this one appeared completely abandoned. Through the rusty chain-link fence, Kannon viewed the tangle of trees and vines entwining the Romanesque archways and columns along its front.
    Gina smoothed her neon pink micro-dress as she stepped up to a padlocked gate, and producing a key from her matching purse, unlocked it. “Welcome to the Banyan Unique.”
    “What is this place?” Kannon asked as he and