him as Eddie attempted to emerge, rising with a yell of rage. She throat-punched him.
A lethal move.
While he clawed at his crushed larynx, she focused on Chen. He’d finally fumbled for the knife he kept tucked in his pocket. Still with the switchblade. She recollected the adept way he used to wield it, an extension of himself that he liked to use to carve people into strips. Toying with them. She could only assume he killed them since she never saw those folks again.
He enjoyed hurting. How would he feel having the roles reversed? She would have loved to show him how that felt. He’d been one of those to hurt her. But that smacked more of revenge rather than protection. The safety of the twins came first and foremost. Now that she was compromised, every second counted. She had to deal with the situation and then get the girls out of here.
Hand to hand with Chen when he had a knife? Time to even the odds and risk attention.
The gun emerged, and she placed the first bullet in Chen’s head. Then another for good measure—this had been done before, after all. Just like a zombie, he wouldn’t rise again. He fell face-first into the trunk on top of a frantic-eyed Eddie, who would have hurt her badly if given a chance. Another person who didn’t deserve to live.
She felt nothing as she fired again. She’d just finished tipping Chen into the trunk and closing it when Ted came looking.
He should have stayed inside his dojo.
Now he drooled on the pavement.
She rubbed her forehead and paced. “This is not good,” she muttered. She glanced at the windows and didn’t see any faces pressed against the glass, but that didn’t mean no one watched—or recorded. Even now, video might be uploaded to the internet.
What a mess. She pulled her phone and made her first call to Aunt Joanna.
“Hey, Auntie, how are the girls?” Code for: Is it safe to talk?
“Sleeping like bears in winter,” the reply for: Go ahead.
Portia slumped against the car. “You might have been right about me staying away from this part of town.”
“What happened?”
“Let’s just say I am going to need a cleanup crew for at least a double.”
“Shit. That bad? What happened?”
“I ran into Ronin’s ex-right-hand man.”
No need to say who, Joanna was well aware of Portia’s history. “Oh, fuck. Chen is in town?”
“Was.” She eyed the trunk. “He won’t pose a threat anymore.”
“Good.”
“Not really. He wasn’t alone.” Which made her wonder about the third guy. Still inside the dojo? Eyeing Ted on the ground, she had to wonder since he’d emerged into the alley alone.
“Have you neutralized all the threats.”
“Two permanently, one…kind of. The fourth is pending.”
“Four? I thought you said it was a double.”
“So far for cleanup.” She eyed Ted. “That number could go up.”
“Geezus, girl. I warned you about that neighborhood,” Joanna barked. “I’m coming.”
“You will do no such thing,” Portia huffed. “You need to stay at the house and guard the girls. Get ready to leave.”
“I thought you stopped the threat.”
“I did. I don’t think Chen had a chance to say anything to anyone, but I can’t take the chance that he might find out.” There was only one he.
“Given you’ve only neutralized two of the problems, maybe instead of yapping at me, you should be handling the other two,” Joanna chided, but Portia knew it came from a place of love, the brusque kind that was frightened and frustrated because Joanna couldn’t be there to help.
“I’m going. wanted you to be aware of what happened before I went hunting for Chen’s other man.”
“And the fourth one?”
She eyed Ted on the ground. The right answer would be to get rid of all the witnesses to her sudden return to the living. Meaning Ted should die. And yet, she couldn’t do it. He’d done nothing wrong. She’d given him the serum, meaning he’d wake up and not remember anything from the past few days. Just long enough for him to forget that he’d seen her again.
“Don’t worry about Ted. He’s just a martial arts instructor. A nobody. I’ve made sure he’ll forget.”
“He’s a loose end.”
“You can’t dispose of him. He’s—” She’d have to give the right excuse if she hoped to keep him from being a casualty in this nasty situation. “Ted is my boyfriend.”
Dead silence.
Then laughter. “Bullshit,” Joanna exclaimed. “You just met the guy like yesterday. The girls told me about him.”
“Did they mention that we knew each other in high school?”