The city felt different after the memory. Maybe it was the rain, or maybe it was just that Lian couldn’t unsee her mother falling every time she blinked. The flashbacks came like strobe lights, short and violent. It made sleep impossible.
Kai didn’t talk much either. He’d been digging through data for two days straight, his eyes red from the glow of the monitors in their safehouse. Every few hours, he’d curse softly in Mandarin, then go quiet again.
“You’re going to fry your brain,” Lian said from the couch.
“I already did,” he muttered without looking up.
“Then fry something useful. We still haven’t eaten.”
He ignored that. His hands were a blur over the keyboard, bouncing from file to file. “I found a link. Not to LSK directly, but someone connected to the old contract work from Dad’s lab. A subcontractor named Wong Tse-lam.”
The name meant nothing to her at first. But then Kai brought up a photo, and her breath caught.
He was older now, heavier, but she recognized him—the man who used to come by the house late at night, always wearing that same olive jacket, always laughing too loud for the hour. Her father called him “Uncle Lam,” but Lian had never liked the way his eyes followed the windows.
“You’re sure?” she asked.
Kai zoomed in on the photo. “Ninety-nine percent match from the facial reconstruction archives. He disappeared two years after the attack. Then reappeared last month in Macau under a new ID. He’s working security for a holding company owned by—”
“Don’t say it.”
He didn’t have to. They both knew. LSK.
Lian stood up. Her whole body was tense in a way that felt familiar, like muscle memory from another life. “Pack up. We’re going.”
Kai spun in his chair. “Wait. You can’t just—”
“He was there that night, Kai.”
“We don’t know that.”
“He was one of them.”
Kai hesitated, jaw tightening. “Then we do it right. We get intel first, not blood.”
Lian’s expression didn’t change. “You think he deserves that?”
“I think we need answers.”
They stared at each other for a moment, the air between them sharp. Then Lian exhaled. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.”
By nightfall, they were on a ferry to Macau, blending in with tourists and gamblers under the city’s neon wash. The casino lights made everything look artificial—faces too smooth, smiles too wide. It was a place built on illusions, which suited them fine.
Kai’s contact had given them an address: a private club near the harbor. Wong Tse-lam worked security there, off the books.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Lian watched from the rooftop across the street, binoculars steady in her hands. Below, men in suits moved in and out of the club. Too polished to be local muscle. Some had the stiff posture of trained operators.
Kai’s voice came through her earpiece. “You seeing this?”
“Yes.”
“Two exits, cameras on every angle. Internal feed’s encrypted. I can break it, but it’ll take time.”
“How much time?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe thirty.”
She lowered the binoculars. “We won’t have thirty.”
“Lian, don’t do—”
But she was already gone, slipping down the fire escape.
Inside the club, music pulsed through the floor like a second heartbeat. The air smelled like smoke and expensive perfume. Lian moved through the crowd with her head down, jacket zipped, eyes scanning.
At the far end of the room, behind a velvet rope, she saw him. Wong Tse-lam.
He was laughing, drink in hand, surrounded by men who looked like they could break bones for fun. His hair was thinner, but that same ugly confidence was there—the kind that came from surviving things you shouldn’t have.
Lian approached the bar, took a stool, and waited. She didn’t need a disguise. People never saw what they didn’t want to.
When he finally noticed her, it took him a moment. His brow furrowed as if trying to place a face from an old dream.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
She smiled, small and polite. “Once.”
He leaned closer. “You from the mainland? You look familiar.”
“Maybe.”
There was a beat of silence, then she said, “You knew Dr. Zhou.”
His smile froze. “Who?”
“My father.”
For a split second, his eyes widened, and she saw it—the flash of recognition, the quick calculation of danger. Then he stood abruptly, pretending to laugh. “I think you have the wrong man.”
Lian grabbed his wrist. “Sit down.”
The two men beside him shifted, hands moving toward their jackets. Wong raised a hand, signaling them to stop. He forced a grin. “You’ve got some nerve, girl.”
“You were there the night they died.”
He shook his head slowly. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Kai’s voice came over comms, strained. “Lian, I’ve got eyes on you. Three more guards moving your way. Get out.”
But she didn’t move. “Tell me who gave the order.”
Wong leaned forward, his tone low. “You think you want that name, but you don’t. You don’t survive long chasing ghosts.”
“I already did.”
The guards started closing in. Wong stood. “Then you should’ve stayed buried.”
Lian moved fast—her hand slid under her jacket, knife flashing once under the light. She didn’t kill him. Not yet. The blade pressed against his ribs just enough to draw a bead of blood.
“You’re going to tell me everything,” she said quietly.
“Too late,” he muttered. “They already know you’re here.”
Gunfire erupted from the hallway before Kai could even warn her. The club exploded into chaos. Patrons screamed, glass shattered, and Lian ducked behind the bar as bullets tore through the walls.
Kai’s voice came through again, urgent. “Extraction point! North alley!”
She yanked Wong to his feet and dragged him with her, weaving through the stampede of terrified civilians. He was heavy, panicked, but she didn’t care.
By the time they burst into the alley, Kai was waiting with the bike running. He stared at the man she was hauling and swore. “You actually grabbed him?”
“Drive.”
They sped off as more shots rang out behind them. Lian held Wong by the collar the whole way, his shouts lost in the roar of the engine.
When they finally stopped in an abandoned warehouse on the edge of the city, she shoved him into a chair and tied his hands.
“You have one chance,” she said, voice steady. “Tell me who ordered the hit on my family.”
Wong laughed weakly, blood on his lip. “You think this ends with me?”
Lian leaned close, eyes hard. “It ends when I say it does.”
And for the first time since that night, she saw fear in one of their faces.
