Gabe waited to give Chao a chance to respond, and was pleased when he did. As usual, he didn’t contest, didn’t probe. If Chao saw he wisdom of an idea, he never stood in the way. And over the years, Gabe’s ideas had been damn good and the money Gabe saved Chao made Gabe’s healthy fees seem like a bargain.
“That’s an interesting idea, Gabriel. Of course, it frightens me that you believe the perpetrator is close to our family. That is unsettling, as you know. I do have an idea of how we might make the affair seem more probable. Senator Webster sent me a telegram a couple of days ago indicating that he would be in San Francisco. Wanted to meet some of my ‘friends.’ Having grown up in a political family, Gabriel, you know that means he’s stalking campaign funds. No U.S. Senator wants to host a group of mob leaders or gang members, but he is always willing to come to an event where he can rub a shoulder or two and, coincidently, leave much wealthier than he came.”
“That’s an excellent idea, Chao. Gives an excuse why it is late notice. It also gives us cover. Webster is key to many of the issues affecting tax policy, mineral rights, land issues – all dear to the hearts of the California underground. Brilliant, Chao.”
While they finished their whisky and cigars, Gabe fleshed out more of his plans.
When they were finished, he got up to leave. A grin tugged at his mouth.
“Don’t know that I am much in favor with Penelope at this point, but I’m willing to be an ambassador, indicate that it is my idea.”
Chao shook his head.
“That won’t be necessary, Gabriel. Mention power, influence, and money and Penelope becomes a whirling dervish. She’ll have this party pulled together in days. And trust me, she will ensure that all the ‘important’ men in San Francisco attend. Corralling moneyed men is one of her skills.”
Chao joined him as Gabe walked to the door.
“Now, getting Ana to attend may be the hardest part of this shindig. I presume you want her there.”
“Yeah, Chao, I do. I hate like hell that we are using her for bait, but I don’t know what else to call it. We’re using all three of you. You, Kai, and Ana. Just know that no one, and I mean no one, will threaten any of you. You have my word.”
“That’s a given, Gabriel. You’ve never let me down and you won’t now.”
Gabe nodded in agreement. As they stood in the doorway, he turned back to Chao. He felt like a fool saying it, but damned if it could go unsaid.
“One more thing. Make sure Ana doesn’t wear that damn red dress she wore the other night. You now the one, Chao, the one she made sure didn’t restrict her.”
“Why Gabriel, I thought you were intrigued by that slit she put in the front of her dress.”
Gabe’s grin didn’t reach his eyes.
“I was. And so was every other lecherous asshole at the party.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“Yeah, Chao,” he said with a grin, “That’s a hell of a big problem.”
“Shall I put her in a nun’s costume, a monk’s robe?”
Gabe laughed. “I know you are a powerful man, Chao, but you’re also a smart one. You know better than trying to contain an exotic bird in an artificial cage.”
“That I do, Gabriel. I’ve had a great deal of practice over the years trying to protect that little bird without annoying her.”
“Someday when you have time, I’d like to learn some of those tactics. The only thing I seem to be able to do with your daughter is infuriate the hell out of her.”
Chao put his hand on Gabe’s shoulder, “That’s a start, Gabriel. Means you have her attention.”
“Hmm. Ever the optimist, right, Chao?”
Chapter 18
Gabe headed out to the barn, resisting the impulse to look back over his shoulder to see if Ana was at her window. He knew it was unlikely. She’d looked exhausted when he left her. He wavered when he got to the barn and looked up at her window. Her room was dark. He was surprised at how disappointed he was. He chided himself. What did he think she would do? Hang out longingly at the window to catch a glimpse of the man who had embarrassed her? Hurt her?
Thirty minutes with Clem and his hands convinced Gabe that the foreman and those close to him were not involved in the plot. Clem was furious that the two men he’d hired had planned to attack Ana.
Sympathy tugged at Gabe, watching the tough wrangler struggle with his guilt.
“How do you think I feel, McKenna? You think I like knowing that the sons of bitches who planned to rape that little girl and then kill her were working for me?”
Gabe shuddered at the description. He’d refused to let himself think about what could have happened. If he did, he didn’t know how he could keep himself from storming the jail and killing the two mongrels with his bare hands.
“Clem, let it go if you can. The best way you can help Chao and me and Ana is to tell me everything you can about how those assholes came to be here. Who hired them? Who sent them?”
“That’s the hell of it, McKenna. I’ve been wrackin’ my brain. The only thing I remember is they just showed up. We’d lost a couple of men to the Harcourt’s spread and those two showed up at just the right time. They looked like any other sorry asshole I hire and I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Harcourt? Peter Harcourt? Are you talking about that supercilious prick I met at the dinner party the other night?”
“If you’re talkin’ about a foppish pale fella that no more deserves ownin’ a ranch than I do. Doubt he knows the tail end of a cow from the front leg. He’s a smarmy one. From what I hear, their place is going down fast. Wouldn’t put it past him to try and hire away from us. I ain’t braggin’, but I do have a reputation. Chao Li has the biggest spread around here, in California. Some say it’s the best run.”
Gabe persisted. “I thought Harcourt was a financial guy. That was the impression he gave me. Sure never mentioned anything about a ranch. But I can tell you he’s making money somewhere, from the looks of his clothes and the like.”
“I dunno. Gabe. I just know he hangs around here a hell of a lot more than I like. Like we don’t know that he’s sniffin’ around Miss Ana. But shit, that only makes him like eighty percent of the men within five counties.”
Gabe felt his stomach clench. Why would he be surprised? He had seen what happened at the party. Ana didn’t want to be there, that was clear, but every man there was glad she was. Hell, it was like watching a swarm of bees circling the queen.
~~~
He said good night to Clem, then headed into the barn to saddle up Wild Card, his stallion. He planned to meet Gunnar and Eagle at Shorty’s. A big bottle of whisky sounded pretty damn good. He heard a noise and assumed Clem had remembered something else. He turned to see Kai standing in the shadows,
Gabe shoved down his annoyance. Christ, this was all he needed tonight. First, an altercation with Ana, and now her damned brother. What did he want? A rematch? From what he could see in the shadows, Kai’s eye was swollen shut, his lip was split, and there was a nasty bruise on one cheek. Hell, Gabe thought, if this is what he looked like after the healers got him cleaned up, no wonder Chao thought he didn’t look human? The worst part was that Gabe was intentionally easy on the kid’s face. Sure, he’d wanted him to have marks. Something he couldn’t hide, couldn’t run from. But the real damage was on places that didn’t show. He’d be surprised if Kai didn’t have at least a couple of broken ribs. And that shoulder joint; if he hadn’t dislocated it, then Gabe was losing his touch.
Gabe reached in his vest and took out his cigarette case. May as well enjoy a smoke, while the kid decided if his was brave enough to take him on again. In the flair of the match, he got a closer look at Kai. He didn’t look angry. He looked scared.
“What can I do for you, Kai?” Gabe made a point of calling him by his name. Think he’s earned the right to not be called kid. Hell, at least he was walking. That showed something. Guess he’d find out soon enough if he was talking.
Kai stared at him for a long moment. The tension vibrated off of him.
“What was that you were doing?”
“Ah, can you be a little more specific, Kai? What was I doing other than beating the shit out of you?”
Kai’s face flushed, and a spark of anger flared in his eyes. He took a visible breath and muttered, “What were doing to me when you had me down on the ground?”
Gabe nodded. “Oh, yeah, that. It’s called savate, French kickboxing. I picked it up in the alleyways in Boston. Used it to throw off those big tough Irish brawlers who thought it was fun to beat the crap out of a kid smaller than they were.”
When Kai didn’t speak, Gabe shrugged, and went on.
“It’s a nice addition to Kung Fu. Unexpected. Especially if your opponent is Chinese trained. Now I use it to surprise a fighter like you.”
“Will you teach me?”
Gave studied him for a long moment. He saw the determination on his face. Fierceness had replaced anger. He looked earnest. Young.
“Yeah, Kai, I will. I told you last night, you have the potential to be a great fighter. I have a partner I’m gonna introduce you to. I taught him for the same reasons I’m willing to teach you. I needed him, bad. To protect me, watch my back when I’m absorbed in my poker gambits. Only problem was, he had so much anger that I couldn’t count on him. Savate is a terrific rage reducer. You’d be amazed how twenty minutes kicking the shit out of someone can burn off tension. And what it does to the other guy isn’t pretty. An added bonus.”
~~~
Gabe nudged Wild Card to a gallop. His stallion couldn’t go fast enough to satisfy Gabe’s churning gut. Getting as far away from Chao Li’s ranch as possible was critical, essential. His brain was buzzing like a hive of wasps had taken up residence, scaring away rational thought. Riding hard and riding fast would help. So would meeting with Gunnar and Eagle.
His partners had been his lifeline to sanity for years now. Somehow, the unlikely trio of damaged men had created a safe haven, a sanctuary where the demons that drove each of them were held at bay. It wasn’t a physical place. It was more than that. It was an unspoken agreement. Whomever was the strongest at the moment stepped in to beat back the devils tormenting his partners. The beauty of the unlikely arrangement was that none of the three ever mentioned it. It was too sacred, too necessary to discuss. It was just there, making sure that each of them would survive, hell, maybe even thrive. Given the specters that haunted them, each man was relieved to survive. Thriving was an impossible goal, better left to better men, more deserving men.
Gabe allowed his frustration to boil up. What the hell was wrong with Chao? If anyone besides his partners knew who Gabe was, it was Chao. And here he was practically giving him permission to court his daughter. Jesus, didn’t he know? Gabe didn’t court, he dallied. No, that was too fine a take on it. He fucked. As many women, and as often as he felt the need. Thinking back over the last decade, that need had damn well driven his life. The more anonymous the sex, the better. Names weren’t necessary, and repeat performances sure as hell weren’t. That didn’t mean he wasn’t polite, a gentleman. Women raved about him, not only his skills, but his courtesy. He didn’t make them feel cheap; just lucky to make the infamous Angel’s roster.
Now, somehow, some way, a haughty little princess was making him take a fresh look at that roster and the behavior that created it. Looking at it through her uninitiated eyes, it wasn’t a pretty sight. Anger swept over him. Who did Ana think she was? A reformer? The one woman who was going to make Angel rethink his wanton ways? Ha! That was an unlikely scenario.
Ana didn’t know how natural, how ingrained, how unexceptional his behavior was. She didn’t know Rory McKenna, U.S. Senator Rory McKenna. But that conniving wimp Peter Harcourt did. Peter was right about his father. Senator McKenna was a household name in every brothel on the east coast. It wasn’t just whores that enticed the unrepentant Irishman. In fact, his primary passion was society matrons, the wives and daughters of other powerful men. The better to underscore his power, rub his prowess in the face of his peers, establish his reputation as the most consummate lover Boston’s upper crust had seen. And the best way to torment his wife.
Gabe
wanted
to believe that at one time his father had loved his mother. Maybe when the raven-haired beauty with the emerald green eyes shocked her society family, and fell in love with the brash red-haired Irishman from the decidedly wrong side of the tracks. Breena Doyle’s family had made it. They’d eschewed their poor Irish roots and clawed their way to the top of Boston society. To the ranks where money talked, even new money, if it was plentiful enough. And the Doyle money, disregarding its source, was one of the largest fortunes in the new Boston elite. In time, even Brendon Doyle came to admire his reprobate son-in–law. Like attracts like. And it was clear that Brendon and Rory were cut from the same cloth. Neither apologized for the questionable sources of their wealth. Both knew how to impose their will on powerful men, with outright violence or the threat of blackmail — often the more potent tool with men who had a reputation to protect.
But it was their treatment of women that bonded the two degenerates. In time, they were trading women, sharing them, or simply passing them along until a drunken cuckolded man drove a sword through Brendon’s throat, missing his unfaithful wife’s heart by mere inches. Brendon’s death left the throne open. Rory didn’t hesitate to grab the crown.
Gabe was seven or eight when he started asking his mother about the bruises on her face; why she was crying. But even at that young age, he knew her tears always followed screaming arguments with his father. He’d tried to protect her, but he couldn’t. His father just batted him away, cursing the fucking devils that gave him a scrawny son with black hair and green eyes, just like his mother. Over the years, Breena stopped fighting back. First it was the laudanum that glazed her eyes, made her sleep through the days and wander the house at night. Not answering, no matter how hard Gabe pounded on her door, or begged her to talk to him. But it was the opium, the white death, that finally stole her away from Gabe. Since the time he was twelve, he couldn’t remember a coherent conversation with his mother.