Jackpot

54

Arrow knew something was wrong the moment his driver pulled up to the safe house. Everything looked in order from the outside, but Arrow’s driver had been skittish the entire drive.

“What happened?” Arrow asked when they arrived.

“Happened where? Here? Everything looks fine.”

Arrow slammed his door shut and rushed inside the house. Li Feng was nowhere to be found. The driver was behind him in the doorway, and Arrow grabbed him by the front of his suit and threw him against the nearest wall.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

Arrow punched him in the chest and in the gut.

“What did you do with her?”

The driver was curled on the ground crying, muffling his words.

“She beat me,” he said.

“She attacked you, so you let her go?”

The driver nodded his head.

“She said she would only be gone for a few minutes. She just wanted to get some fresh air.”

Arrow kept his rage in check. Killing this man would be hard to clean up, and would get Arrow no closer to finding Li Feng. He went into the kitchen, grabbed a towel, and threw it to the driver on the floor.

“Did she say where she was going?”

“No, but she gave me her cell phone number so I could get ahold of her if I needed her.”

Arrow had no doubt the number Li Feng had given this man was a fake, but he tried it anyway.

“It’s disconnected. She gave you a fake number.”

The driver coughed and took a deep breath before talking.

“I’m not an idiot. I checked first. It’s a secure phone that can’t be traced or receive calls. But you can send texts.”

“Send her one. Tell her to come back.”

While the driver sent a text message, Arrow called Bingo as a backup.

“Li Feng escaped,” Arrow said. “Find her and bring her to the bunker. Alive.”

“That lunatic is going to kill her,” the driver said, struggling to stand up.

“He’ll do what I tell him to do.”

“He blames her for his family getting sent to the camps. He wants her dead, and you just let him know she’s out from under your protection.”

“Just because you are not loyal to me doesn’t mean others are disloyal as well.”

Arrow had thought the same thing about Bingo, but Li Feng’s death would put a target on Bingo as much as it would on Arrow. When the heat blew over on all of this, Arrow would reward Bingo appropriately and all would be forgiven.