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69
Ru woke slowly.
He was no longer in a hospital. That was good. His last few wakings had been little more than foggy dreams and fluorescent lights.
Some memory from…last time? The time before? A doctor reading out a litany.
“I don’t know if he’ll ever speak properly without an electronic voice box. His larynx was badly crushed. The blow to his temple was so severe that we had to remove the eye. Both of his testes were burst, but there was no lasting harm to his urinary tract.” He’d droned on about other fractures and breaks, but they were of little consequence.
Now that the drugs were clearing out of his system, Ru had no trouble remembering what had happened. That little ABC bitch had attacked him.
She was going to pay. She and the Chase woman. He would take them both and make them suffer. How many times could he fuck the ABC in front of her precious girlfriend before she died? Maybe he’d whittle her down one joint for each time he took her until all that was left was a torso and a destroyed mind.
Then he’d start in on Chase. For her, he’d think up something worse. He’d take her with a red-hot poker and see how the little lesbian liked that.
He blinked his eye, hisoneeye. They were going to pay for that too, personally—an eye for an eye.
He didn’t recognize the room. It was rustic, little more than a hunting cabin. A fireplace burned hot, flooding the room with its heat. An unlit gas lamp, a table, and the bed he lay on. The one window let in a dull red glow. Sunrise? Sunset? Didn’t matter.
The pain had been so immense that he’d been positive the old bastard Death awaited him. Yet he’d survived. That would show them he wasn’t so easy to kill.
Pushing up— He couldn’t! Straps pinned him to the bed.
Couldn’t even turn his head enough to see the door when it creaked open.
Liú Zuocheng stepped in.
“My old friend,” Ru called out. Or tried to. All he managed was a croak—one that caused an excruciating slice of pain. Shattered larynx, right. He’d have to remember to return that favor as well once he had his hands on those two women.
Zuocheng picked up one of the chairs and set it by the foot of the bed so that they were facing each other. He wore outdoorsman clothes as if this was a hunting cabin.
“I wouldn’t try speaking again, Ru. Captain Wu caused quite a bit of damage with that first blow. The straps are to keep you from hurting yourself further, for now.”
Ru grunted but even that hurt.
“Yes, you have many questions. I shall answer a few for you. Though perhaps not the ones you expect.”
Zuocheng settled himself more comfortably.
“Where are you? I grew up here. My sister and I had bedrolls by the fire. Father was a trapper. We’re quite remote here is all you really need to know; the nearest neighbor was three kilometers away but they moved to the city long ago. I didn’t come from privilege as you did. I succeeded because of my skill and drive.”
He recrossed his legs as if they were having a friendly chat after a good day trekking together in the forest. Ru had never liked the forest.
“Now to the answers. First, I must thank you for removing your predecessor. General Chen Hua was becoming a serious impediment, but I couldn’t remove him myself. My hands had to remain clean there.”
Ru had enjoyed removing the bastard. It still didn’t replace the death of Ru’s young mistress, she’d had such a perfect ass. Well, he would have those exquisite twins soon. And maybe he would find himself a blue-eyed Westerner with magnificent breasts.
“Your various plots against me were foolish, of course. Sun Tzu states one should keep one’s friends close and one’s enemies closer. You have studied Sun Tzu, haven’t you, Ru?”
Not since Zuocheng had practically forced the book upon him while they were serving in Vietnam and he’d used it to level his barracks bunk.
“Ah, an opportunity missed. I recruited your prior mistress very early on, the lovely Chen Mei-li. I knew of my granddaughter’s preferences for women, of course. I was quite pleased how they took to each other after I introduced them. Those two girls do make such a beautiful couple. Everything you said in their presence came directly to me, of course. But I knew they were going to grow beyond either of us as they are very impressive in their own way. Therefore, I needed other solutions.”
Mei-li. He should have seen that somehow. He’d thought that the whore and her lesbian lover were his window into General Liú Zuocheng’s operations, not the other way around.
Zuocheng rose, but returned to the foot of the bed after replacing the chair by the desk.
“Oh, and the first two people you thought you owned on the Central Military Commission have always belonged to me. Your latest addition, well, the crash of his personal helicopter last night was most regrettable.”
