From those early days he had learned that anyone could pretend friendship and end up betraying you. It had been his father’s best friend who had come late in the night, knocking on the door. His father would have been prepared for an attack had it been anyone else. He had opened the door without hesitation. He had grown up with the man and thought of him like a sibling. Gedeon had called him uncle. That betrayal had hurt his father almost more than the torture and death that followed.
Gedeon was thankful his father had died. It had spared him seeing what the pakhan had done to Gedeon’s beloved mother. Selling her to any man. Beating her at every opportunity when she resisted. What he did to Gedeon was beside the point, but it built a rage in him and his leopard that would never go away. Gedeon could push it down, but it would always be there, and sometimes the nightmares were relentless.
Gedeon was intelligent and he had waited for his opportunity, looking compliant so the pakhan trained him to become an assassin for him. He found his father’s best friend first, and he spent days making him suffer. First by killing his family one by one in front of him. He made certain the man had no one left. Then there were days of merciless torture, every single one in retaliation for what his mother had suffered. Finally, a slow, agonizing death. Gedeon had never felt a single ounce of remorse. He was still very young and knew he should—but he hadn’t. That had only been the beginning of a long, secret campaign to get the murderers of his family.
The pakhan had never suspected a young boy would be behind the brutal killings. How could he be? These men were experienced. They had vicious leopards to warn them. And Gedeon always had an airtight alibi.
Time was slipping away. The longer Meiling spent tailing Lola in the marketplace, the greater the risk of her being discovered. Where the hell was the man on Georgi Chaban? For that matter, where was Georgi?
“She just made contact with Georgi,” Meiling whispered in his ear. Her voice was so soft he barely heard it.
Gedeon’s gaze jumped to her instantly, his heart accelerating. Her head was down as she smelled a ripe apricot. Lola was to her right and behind her, talking animatedly with the vendor while Meiling purchased a few of the apricots and placed them in her small basket. She began to wind her way through aisles around the rest of the long length of tables, walking toward the exit, ignoring Lola completely. Twice she stopped to look at something one of the vendors had to offer before shaking her head and continuing on her way.
“She’s coming out,” Gedeon advised.
He had to work to keep from being tense. This was the moment Meiling was most at risk. Georgi had someone backing him up, and so far, no one had spotted that man. They were all leopards. Gedeon wasn’t at all familiar with the terrain, and their enemies were. This was their home turf, and they regularly made their drops here. They would know every nook and cranny to wedge themselves in to watch over their charges, but like him, when their responsibilities were on the move, they would have to move.
Very carefully, but with great speed, he broke down his rifle and placed it in the small carry case. While doing so, he barely made any movements. The entire time, he scanned the rooftops and the one little open meadow just to the right of the parking lot. That meadow kept drawing his attention. His gut knotted.
“Lotus, come back inside. I don’t care what your excuse is but come back inside. Make it look real.”
Meiling was a pro when it came to working with him. She didn’t argue, although she had to be afraid she would lose her quarry. She snapped her fingers and turned around, nearly bumping into a man who caught her by the shoulders. She laughed softly and apologized.
“Forget something?” he asked, keeping her from falling.
“Yes, what I came for in the first place. I’m always doing that.”
The older man laughed with her, and then she continued into the farmer’s market while he headed toward the parking lot. She hurried immediately and then purposefully turned to her left and went straight to a vendor who had a multitude of lettuce on his table. She pointed to three different types and added them to her basket, explaining how she’d forgotten the very thing she’d come for in the first place. Chatting with him a little more, she added fresh beets and a bundle of asparagus. After paying, she turned back toward the exit just as Georgi and Caleb Basco entered. Meiling smoothly rounded the vendor’s table to examine the strange artichokes he was pointing out to her. She listened carefully as he explained how to cook and eat them.