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wouldn’t. I knew that going in.”
    Her finger curled around the trigger. “Goodbye, Nicholas.” She began to squeeze it. “Our relationship has outlasted its usefulness.”
    But Nicholas was already on the move, inside her defenses before she could fire. Wrenching her wrist, he forced her to drop the gun.
    “That’s enough,” he said.
    Her empty gun hand rose up, grabbed him by the throat in a death grip.
    “Anna, don’t make me do this.”
    A gleam of triumph lightened her eyes, as he reverted to the intimate address. Then her knee slammed into the spot where blood from his knife wound had stained the towel.
    “Hurt? Does it hurt, Nicholas?” she whispered.
    They were locked together, body-to-body, eye-to-eye. Anyone observing them would be hard put to say whether they were making war or making love. Sometimes, there is no demarcation. The known morphs into the unknown. The becoming arises like a creature of terrible substance, but without form. She kept firm hold of his windpipe. Her knee struck his wound again and again, a battering ram at the imagined weak point in his defenses.
    He saw into her now—saw the animus for the men who had tirelessly sought to minimize her influence, to diminish her, to punish her for her unforgiveable rudeness in penetrating their inner sanctum of power. He saw the loneliness of her life, the desperation. He saw her love for him. And he saw the end—the only end for her life.
    “Stop,” he whispered. “Stop.”
    But she wouldn’t. He knew she wouldn’t. Staring into his eyes, she tightened her hold on his throat, completely cutting off his ability to breath.
    “Anna,” he gasped.
    Her lips were so close to his they almost touched. He saw it in her eyes: what she wanted, what she needed him to do. What she was forcing him to do.
    “ Jiu Ming .” Her whisper was like a reed stirred by a summer breeze. Save me.
    He took her head in his hands and as swiftly as a cheetah lunges at its prey, broke her neck.
    He carried her into the bathroom, arranging everything so the forensic team would believe that she and Quilin had killed each other. He sanitized the apartment of both his fingerprints and his DNA. He’d have to take the sheets and pillowcases with him when he left. There was no helping it; sometimes in life things worked out in a distasteful manner. This was one of them.
    Later, he would make the time to contemplate what had happened here, and why. He would also have to figure out what to do with Joji. Death was not always the most useful consequence of betrayal.
    Dressed, with his silk bundle over one shoulder, he opened the slider and stepped out onto the terrace. Peering over the side, he saw Ko standing by his car, meditating as he waited. Seemingly endless ripples of terraces were below him; an easy descent. It was a long way down, but not nearly as far as Anna Song had fallen.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
    Copyright © 2014 by Eric Van Lustbader
    ISBN 978-1-4976-7300-7
    Published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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    New York, NY 10014
    www.openroadmedia.com