Burn (42 page)

“I’m good.” Gian shook the officer’s hand. “Thank
you.”

With a tip of his cap, the officer left. Gian scrubbed his hands over his face, through his hair. The day had
started out so well only to end with perhaps thousands of
dollars of damage to Sheng Li. If, in fact, Karl was
responsible for the attack on Eve and the broken win
dows, Gian hoped that he had gotten it all out of his
system before someone was genuinely hurt.

On his way to his office to get a phone directory,
Gian debated whether or not to call the officer and tell
him specifically about Karl. But with no concrete evi
dence, anything he said would be pure speculation. As
a
ngry as he was at Karl, he had no desire to malign the
man any more than necessary.

That wouldn’t stop him from kicking Karl’s ass again,
given the chance.
Or maybe I’ll let Cinder do it.
Gian
amused himself with that thought as he opened a bottom
drawer of his desk and pulled out the AT&T Business
Directory. He sat on the edge of his desk, the phone book
propped against his belly, and leafed through the
WIN
DOWS
section.

“Custom, Supplies, Repair . . .” He read the various
categories. “Here we go. Board-up services.” To his sur
prise, there were dozens, most of them offering twenty-
four hour service. Gian choose the one in Maplewood for
its proximity to Webster Groves.

A very friendly woman answered when he called. Her
friendliness intensified after Gian offered to pay in cash
with a bonus for the repairman if he arrived within the
hour. Gian wanted to finish up and get back to Cinder as soon as possible.

After his call, he replaced the phone book and started
back into the studio, dialing Cinder’s phone number on
his cell as he went.

“Hello, Mr. Piasanti.”

Gian froze.

In the archway between the studio and the back cor
ridor, he looked up to see a man standing near the broken
glass at the far end of the mat.

“Sorry, I’m closed . . .” Gian started. The stranger
looked familiar. He was tall and broad through the chest
and shoulders. He wore a denim jacket with a black
T-shirt underneath it. His black trousers were a size too
big and threadbare at the knees. Straight black hair fell to
his shoulders, and deep-set black eyes glittered above his
long, thin nose. His eyes were distinctly Asian in shape.
Most revealing was the ugly bruise on his left cheekbone, and Gian recalled where he’d seen the stranger’s face.

“Cinder has a standing order of protection against
you,” Gian said. “You aren’t to be within—”

“Five hundred feet, I know,” Sumchai Wyatt said.
“But Cinder’s not here. She lives a quarter of a mile away,
so I’m in no danger of violating the court order. Yet.”

That one detail was more than Sumchai should have
known about Cinder. Gian worried that he’d already
been to her place. “If you’ve hurt her . . .” he warned.

Sumchai laughed lightly. “I’m saving the best for last.
My wife and I have a lot of catching up to do.”

“You’re gonna have to go through me to get to her.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you around town, Mr.
Piasanti.” Sumchai slowly moved farther into the studio.
“You’re an ex-Marine—”

“There’s no such thing as an ex-Marine.”

Exaggerating a bow, Sumchai placed his right hand over his heart. “Forgive me,” he said, overly gracious. “Once a Marine, always a Marine?”

“Something like that.” Cautious, Gian approached
Sumchai.

Stepping onto the mat, Sumchai circled around the
broken glass. “And now you’re a respected business
owner. A regular pillar of the community, give or take a
public brawl here and there.”

“What do you want?” Gian demanded.

“To see the great Giancarlo Piasanti. To meet the man
who’s trying to steal my wife.”

“She’s not your wife.”

The upper left side of Sumchai’s mouth twitched.
“She took a vow. What God has joined, no man, not even
you, can put asunder.”

“She divorced you, or didn’t you get the memo?”

Sumchai kept moving, maintaining his distance from Gian. “One of the women at the market across the street
told me a lot about you. It’s amazing what these back
water bottle-blondes will give up, once you get them yap
ping. She said you were smart.” He shot a look at Gian.
“She doesn’t know you very well, does she? You see, a
smart man would know when to back off and let another
man repair his relationship with his wife.”

“You’d need tweezers and airplane glue to piece your
relationship with Cinder back together.”

Sumchai responded with a sarcastic smile. “Again, I’m
just not seeing this smart side of you.”

“Quit backing away from me and I’ll show it to you.”
Sumchai stopped well out of Gian’s reach. “Have you
laid her yet?”

Gian pushed up his sleeves.

“No answer is an answer, jarhead.” Sumchai grinned. “I can tell you have just by looking at you. You look like
you want to kill me, because you know I had her, too. I
had her
first
. You’re good looking. Resourceful.” He
looked around, nodding in approval at the studio. “I sup
pose you’re successful.” Sumchai shoved his hands into
t
he pockets of his jacket. “But I know one thing you’re
not.”

“What’s that?” Gian challenged.

“Bulletproof.”

The blast of the gun concealed in Sumchai’s jacket
pocket threw him back a step, revealing his inexperience with such a weapon.
But he knows enough,
Gian thought, clumsily falling to his knees. His right hand went to the
bright, hot pain just above the crest of his right hip.
Without looking, he knew the wetness quickly filling his
hand was blood. He struggled to his feet, staggering
toward Sumchai.
If I can reach him, I can disarm him.

Gian’s effort was met by a second shot, this one
striking his right shoulder to spin him before dropping
him to his knees. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he
panted, curses flying from his lips. His legs worked but his feet could gain no purchase on the bloody mat. He
fell forward, his entire right side ignoring the desperate
orders issued from his brain. Forcing his forehead into
the mat, Gian tried to roll himself over.

Sumchai’s worn and dirty sneakers came into view,
and with them, another shot that sent Gian’s body into
spasms of agony that nearly rendered him unconscious.

Jesus,
he cried in his mind, refusing to give Sumchai
the pleasure of seeing his pain.
Sweet Jesus
,
help me get
him,
he pleaded. He threw out his left hand, hoping to
snag Sumchai’s ankle or the cuff of his trousers.

Sumchai neatly stepped out of reach.

Gian writhed, digging his elbows into the mat to drag
his bleeding body after Sumchai. Pain, jagged and hot,
r
ocketed through his body, and it was so intense, he
couldn’t tell where the third shot had hit him.

He was too familiar with the sound of gunfire, and he
hoped that someone on the street had recognized it, too.
With each passing second, Gian’s limbs grew heavier, his
clothing heavier with his blood. He had been through
two wars, dozens of dangerous missions behind enemy
lines, and had emerged with little more than a few minor
injuries.

Gian refused to die in his own dojo.

Keeping out of Gian’s reach, Sumchai backed toward
the lobby. “Cinder won’t mourn you for long,” he
taunted. “I’ll make sure of it. But before I put her out of her misery, I’m going to make sure she pays for the hell
she put me through. Two years in prison, another ten on
probation . . . I’m a felon because of her.”

Grunting, Gian took a swipe at Sumchai’s ankle.
Sumchai stepped into the lobby.

“I never thought she would hook up with anyone
else, not after what I did to her,” Sumchai continued, stealing peeks over his shoulder to check the street. “I
made her mine. I took her skin, her tears, her hair, her
blood. I’m sure you can understand my dislike for you,
Mr. Piasanti. You tried to take my wife. I deserve satisfac
tion, and I’ll have it, the second I tell Cinder that you
bled to death at my feet.”

Gian coughed. Thick clots of blood sputtered from
his mouth, the salty, metallic taste of it sickening him.
His lungs, hard and heavy as concrete, fought to drag in one more breath, and another, then another.

“
You should have seen her the last time I was with
her,” Sumchai said. “She was all bloody and twitchy, kind
of like you are right now. She pissed herself once I started
cutting. Smells like you pissed yourself, too,
sensai
.”

Gian could pull himself no further. Shaking his head
to clear the fog from it, he grabbed the brick lying on the
floor.

“You bring a brick to a gunfight,” Sumchai laughed.
“Big dumb Marine.”

Gian drew his arm back, and with the last of his
strength, he sent it hurtling forward.

The brick whistled past Sumchai, missing him by
more than a foot. Sumchai laughed, but the sound of it
was abruptly drowned out by the violent crash of the
front door breaking as the brick sailed through it.

Gian’s thoughts grew filmy, and everything around him darkened.

He heard Sumchai utter a profanity, then flee. An
eternity after, a man’s voice called his name. But he
couldn’t answer, not when something within pulled him
farther into darkness, the weight of it pressing on him
from every direction. The sound of his heartbeat in his
ears, he was aware of movement around him, but he
couldn’t feel it.

Is this dying,
he wondered.
No, it can’t be . . .

Gian traveled the in between places, the corridor
between warm and cold, life and death, love and empti
ness, and he found Cinder. He thought life was supposed
to flash before your eyes at a time like this, but all Gian
saw was the woman he loved.

Cinder asleep in her pale white shift, the shadowy
outline of her body a thing of beauty in the moonlight.
Cinder, her skin glistening with perspiration, twirling a
bo with the grace and power of a samurai. Cinder’s lazy
half smile of good morning on a pillow they shared.
Cinder’s lips parted in sensual surrender in that moment
when their bodies and souls fused, that brief infinity
when they were truly one.

He forced his eyelids open and fixed his gaze on the
hazy silhouette of the man looming over him. “Cinder,”
he sputtered through blood. “W-Warn her . . . Wyatt is
coming for her . . .”

The call had come from Gian’s cell phone, but the
voice on the other line wasn’t his. The words the caller
spoke replayed in her head as she frantically dragged a
small suitcase from the back of her bedroom closet.

Wyatt is coming for you. He has a gun.

The suitcase contained clothing, toiletries, cash,
copies of her insurance, and medical records—everything
she needed to make a quick getaway. The suitcase had
been packed and ready from the day she moved into the
apartment. She had hoped that she’d never have to use it.