Jack sat in the safehouse, flicking his butterfly knife back and forth amidst a haze of cigarette smoke and the slurred notes of “Shanghai Bund” being belted out on the karaoke machine for the third time that night by Young Master Murong Xuan and his two younger twin brothers. The three siblings were all that were left of the Nine Terrains Society bosses now. Their mother, Madame Qing, had been taken in a police raid six months ago, and the rest of the syndicate had been crumbling in slow motion ever since.

With the senior members falling at a rate of one every other week, the Murongs had finally decided last week to hole themselves up in a remote safehouse in the mountains south of Puli and wait out the police. Jack had disapproved of the plan, as any good enforcer should, because putting all your Murong eggs in one safehouse basket was unwise. His protests had fallen on deaf ears, because the Murong siblings were strongly bonded together, and they refused to be separated.

“Wait,” Jack had been told by the Young Master. “Mother will find us a way out soon.”

Except they’d just gotten the news today that the prosecutors had managed to find enough evidence to get the charges of money laundering, human trafficking, conspiracy, and first degree murder to stick, which meant that Madame Qing was going to be jailed for life. The Murong siblings had not taken this well, and Jack hadn’t had the heart to deny the three brothers their grief, hence the drunken karaoke.

Jack rose from the couch in the middle of the chorus and went to the next room, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the wailing of the Murong clan’s remnants. He shut the door. Yue-jie and Ju-ge, the Murong twins’ bodyguards, were playing poker against each other. Their sidearms were laid out on the table, their magazines fully loaded. Jack went to the window, leaning his weight on the sill, and gazed through the glass. The moon was waxing, illuminating the forest outside with a ghostly, silver light. There should be three men patrolling the perimeter. Jack couldn’t see them, but he knew they were out there.

“What’re you up to, Jack?” Yue-jie asked, hardly up glancing up from her hand.

“Escaping a fourth rendition of ‘Shanghai Bund.’”

Yue-jie snorted. She was a somber, square-jawed, no-nonsense woman who had once been a drill sergeant in the armed forces. “The Bund is a Murong family tradition. They’re gonna be singing it on loop for the rest of the night.”

“What, not a fan of the classics?” said Ju-ge with a sardonic grin. He was a handsome, lithe man in his late-thirties. He sported a well-kept goatee, a ready smile, and a rakish streak of white at his temple, a pleasing contrast to the rest of his dark coif. Ju-ge put his cards face down on the table and gestured at Jack. “Why don’t you come here and let me take your mind off—”

“No,” said Yue-jie flatly, cutting off Ju-ge’s offer before Jack could take him up on it. She anted a poker chip into the pile. “If you two want to fuck, you can do it tomorrow morning.”

Ju-ge frowned in a mock pout. “Why not tonight?”

Yue-jie raised her eyes, her gaze stony, her expression impassive. “Yang Sheng Ju," she snapped, "have a little respect.”

Ju-ge smirked. “It’s not as if we have anything better to do, eh, Jack?”

Jack forced a smile. Ju-ge was warm and earnest, and Jack had already succumbed to his easygoing, suggestive nature on several separate occasions in the past year, but tonight didn’t feel quite right to him. “I think we better do as Yue-jie—”

Jack stopped. A pinpoint flash of red light in the corner of his eye caught his attention. It was coming from outside, amidst the leaves rustling gently in the midnight breeze. Jack launched himself backward, just as the window pane he had been sitting in front of shuddered. Cracks radiated in crystalline fractures from a clean bullethole. Ju-ge went down. Crimson splattered across the white walls and sprayed the playing cards on the table.

Both and Jack and Yue-jie dropped themselves flat to the floor. Two more bullets embedded themselves in the walls, with two puffs of plaster.

Yue-jie snatched the radio from her belt, snapping at security to hit the lights and sweep the perimeter, while Jack crawled on his hands and knees to Ju-ge. The man had clapped a hand over the side of his neck to staunch the bleeding, but his fingers were already slick. Blood seeped between his digits, oozing onto the floor at a rate that Jack registered as fatal.

“Take Murong Xuan....get out...” Ju-ge rasped. His instructions were punctuated by the odd gurgle, and his other hand pawed weakly at Jack.

Jack nodded, watching as color drained from Ju-ge’s trembling lips, the cuff of his shirtsleeves dyeing a deeper, darker red with each passing second.

The lights finally went out, taking with them the synthesized chords of The Bund’s opening theme tune. Only then did Jack dare lift his head. They retrieved their armaments from the table—Yue-jie taking her own pistol while Jack took Ju-ge’s. The grip felt slippery even through his half-gloves, as if the stippled drops of Ju-ge’s blood had already soaked through the leather. Jack told himself it was only an illusion. He quickly checked the clip; there were only twenty rounds in the magazine. That was not enough.

Jack sucked in a breath, and then began to feel his way to Ju-ge’s utility belt. Ju-ge already felt cold beneath his fingers, even though Jack knew, rationally, that was impossible. He took the spare clip, and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans.

Yue-jie struggled into a crouch, swearing under her breath all the way. They both braced their shoulders on either side of the closed door. Silence fell as they assessed the situation. Even Ju-ge had stilled, his last breath having already rattled from his lungs.

Sorry.

That small apology was the only fleeting feeling that Jack could spare for Ju-ge. He was not ashamed to be relieved that the bullet had missed him—being alive was better than being not.

“You get the young master, I’ll take the twins,” Yue-jie hissed. Even her voice had a tremulous quality to it, and she had been guarding the family for more than a decade. “Run like hell.”

Jack nodded in acknowledgement. His eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, and he could already make out Yue-jie’s inky silhouette. A reverberating boom shook the walls of the house, followed by muffled cries of startlement.

Yue-jie flung open the door to pandemonium.

Lights flashed from rifle muzzles, splintering wood and hailing chunks of drywall accompanied by the rhythmic pop-pop of gunshots. The entirety of the safehouse’s security had poured into the living room in a disorganized mass to meet the intruders. The shadowy figures advancing into the safehouse were dressed in helmets and bulky bulletproof vests, marching with the trained discipline and sure footfalls of law enforcement.

Stooped low to the ground, Jack fired at the nearest hostiles, aiming squarely for the chest and stomach. Three shots in quick succession downed the first, the man falling to his knees and doubling over, winded, his ribs cracked by the impact of bullets on kevlar. Jack caught sight of the Thunder Squad Special Forces insignia on the breast of the man’s body armor. Another two spotted him, and Jack downed them as he dived behind the legs of the other syndicate members, who were too slow to remember that they presented bigger targets standing.

“Go!” Yue-jie’s voice rose above the din.

Jack scrambled over the fallen bodies of his Nine Terrains Society brethren and hustled to the couches where the Murong brothers had been singing. Bullets whizzed past him, embedding in the walls, shattering picture frames, splintering the television screen in a litany of gunpowder and the metallic echo of discarded shells.

The Young Master lay on the floor, his face pressed into the rug. Shit, had Murong Xuan died, Jack wondered as he reached forward. The still form of the Young Master whimpered with fear as Jack grabbed him by the lapels of his suit jacket and hauled him to his knees.

Jack searched wildly for the nearest escape route as Murong Xuan clambered to his feet. Flashlights split the darkness, slicing disorientingly across large swathes of his vision. He spotted the window at the far side of the room, and half-tugged, half-pushed the Young Master in that direction, ignoring his protests about leaving the twins. Jack picked off two more police officers who had raised their lights, their rifles at them.

The window held fast against Jack’s elbow, and he had to waste a bullet to help him break through it. He hoisted the Young Master out of the window. Murong Xuan the ground hard. Jack moved to follow. He paused on the sill to, taking one second to survey the chaos, a hand gripping the window frame for balance.

“Go!” Yue-jie shouted at him. “I’ll be right behind!”

Jack lifted his pistol, and fired. One bullet pierced each of Yue-jie’s shoulders just as she dragged one of the twins to their knees. She dropped her gun with a yelp. She whipped around to face Jack, her face twisted in pain and disbelief, her expression asking one question.

Coolly, Jack turned and jumped out of the window. Yue-jie would get never an answer. He landed cat-like on the dirt beside Murong Xuan. They were on the far side of the safehouse, and without any of the special forces in sight, Jack and the Young Master slipped into the forest unseen.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Murong Xuan’s voice shook as he cursed. Jack gestured at him to shut up, which he had the sense to actually do, despite the shock.

They picked their way through the trees carefully, never straying too far from the edge of the woods. It would be folly to try to escape into the forest—sooner or later, the sniffer dogs would come for them—so Jack looked instead for a quick getaway. Jack led Murong Xuan in a circle around to the front of the house. Two armored personnel carriers, one surveillance van, and three patrol cars were parked in formation, their headlights illuminating the concrete exterior of the safehouse. Murong Xuan peered with worry at the building, but Jack directed his attention to the rearmost of the vehicles, manned by only a singular police officer, who stood next to the open car door, his back to the trees.

Leaving the cover of the forest, Jack stalked the lone policeman until he was within arm’s reach. The man’s shouts of surprise were muffled when Jack grabbed him from behind and covered his mouth with a hand. Jack emptied the rest of his clip—two bullets—point blank into the man’s chest. The man slumped, spared his life by his body armor, but not the agony of several fractured ribs.

Jack tossed him to the ground and jumped into the car. The Young Master following beside him in the passenger’s seat. The engine of the law enforcement-customized Mitsubishi Lancer roared to life. Jack hit reverse, already halfway down the driveway by the time the rest of the police realized that one of their vehicles had been hijacked.

Bullets pinged harmlessly off the unpaved gravel as Jack accelerated away from them, tires screeching as he lurched backward down the hill, the safehouse disappearing from view. His rear undercarriage scraped against the ground as they reached the bottom, and Jack yanked the handbrake up, spinning the car around.

They sped off into the night.

“Reload,” Jack said tersely, ejecting his clip with one hand and tossing his gun to Murong Xuan along with his spare magazine. It was dark in this uninhabited forest, with only his high-beams and his memory to guide him as he raced along the track, trying to put as much distance as he could between them and the police. The long pause before the Young Master picked up the pistol told Jack that Murong Xuan had been reticent to obey—he was the de facto head of the syndicate after all, and took orders from no one. But in the end, he had decided to do as he was told. After all, his survival and that of the syndicate, now depended entirely on Jack.

Thick trees loomed out of the black, materializing one after the other in the corona of his headlights, their leafy canopies hanging low and dense, blotting out the moonlight. Jack tore down the trail, the rear wheels of the police vehicle skidding and spraying gravel as he maneuvered it around steep hairpins and sudden, blind corners. One wrong move, one second too late on the brakes, and they would be careening into the forest, meeting a quick but violent end at the trunk of a tree.

The radio crackled, a distorted voice giving a rapid series of codes and dispatches. The remaining vehicles Jack had left behind were to disengage from the safehouse and pursue. The nearest patrols were also given orders to divert and intercept at the foot of the hills. Their only shot at getting away was making it back to civilization ahead of the police, and hijacking another vehicle so they could run ground somewhere—anywhere, at this point.

Cold, blue light flickered in a corner of Jack’s vision, and he spared a brief glance at his rear view mirror. Their pursuers were closer than he had hoped.

“They’re catching up to us,” Murong Xuan cried, turning his head around to look out the back. His voice was shrill with panic.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Jack thought savagely. But instead of saying anything, he merely pressed his lips into a grim line and opened the throttle as much as he dared on the narrow mountain pass.

The G-forces threw them forward in their seats as Jack braked hard for a tight right turn, wrenching up the handbrake again to twist the car around the corner. Branches clawed at their windows as they pitched sideways, losing traction for a moment. Jack slammed the accelerator and they surged forward, the wheels spinning before finding purchase.

Jack didn’t even bother looking backward as he continued thundering down the mountain, the headlights of their pursuers growing fainter with each successive corner that Jack threw the Mitsubishi into. The car almost spun out of control when the gravel road transitioned onto tarmac again, Jack barely keeping from smashing into the guardrails as he wrested the steering wheel around and righted their course. The forest grew thinner the closer they edged to the town, the road leveling, but still dangerously narrow and windy.

The white lines demarcating the edge of the road danced hypnotically, undulating left, right, left, at the boundary between his headlights and the tenebrous darkness. The clouds parted, allowing a sliver of moonlight to cast its pale, phosphorescent glow on the surrounding flora, revealing the haunting, hulking outlines of the odd edifice half-hidden in the bushes.

Beams of yellow light suddenly flooded through the car windows as Jack shot past an abandoned foundry, the blaring cry of sirens piercing the steady purr of the Mitsubishi’s four-cylinder engine. Red-blue beacons swept across Jack’s mirrors, leaving mottled afterimages in his vision.

“Shoot them,” Jack ordered, his voice startling Murong Xuan from the panic that had frozen over him.

The Young Master snatched up Jack’s sidearm, this time obeying him immediately. Air rushed in as the car windows were rolled down, the wind carrying the echoing discharge of the pistol as Murong Xuan leaned out. From his mirror, Jack could see the gunshots bloom on their pursuer’s windshield. The image lurched forward, and their entire vehicle shuddered as plastic and metal crumpled. The Young Master’s head bashed the edges of the open window, his last two shots thrown wide with the impact of the police cruiser on their rear bumper.

Jack cursed aloud, fighting every instinct in his body that told him to punch the accelerator and try to outrun the other vehicle. He edged forward only slightly as he rolled down his own window and seized his gun from Murong Xuan. He was only vaguely aware of the answering fire shattering his rear window. He twisted his body and aimed his barrel low. He wasted four bullets, but one of them found their mark. The tire of the police vehicle behind them burst with an explosive bang. Only then did Jack hit the throttle, jamming it all the way down to the floor and propelling them forward. The vehicle behind them swayed from side to side before running straight into a ditch with a metallic crunch.

Exhilaration rose within Jack, lasting for only a second as he rounded the next corner. The white paint of half a dozen patrol vehicles reflected the moonlight. Two rows of spikes gleamed on the asphalt before them.

“Speed up, don’t stop!” Murong Xuan snarled, but Jack hit the brakes.

He noticed the turn-off on his left side too late, its entrance hidden by an exuberance of hydrangeas. He could have used it as an escape route—anything to keep his tires intact—but as he sailed past it, he saw that it was occupied. An engine roared and Jack found himself knocked to the side as a Humvee collided head on into the flank of his car. Momentum carried him laterally, as the vehicle spun. The Mitsubishi came to an abrupt halt when it smashed into the concrete barrier at the edge of the road.

Pain lanced through Jack’s neck as he turned his head. Murong Xuan grabbed the pistol, which fallen into the passenger side footwell.

“Don’t,” Jack shouted, but the Young Master had already thrown open the door, and brought the gun up to—

Several shots discharged in unison.

Soundlessly, the Young Master crumpled to the ground.

A calm but stern voice gave instructions over megaphone for Jack to put his hands up, to exit the vehicle.

Jack obeyed. He realized that this had happened too quickly, that it was too soon for law enforcement to have assembled this many vehicles in ambush. His mind raced. Had the raid on the safehouse had merely been to flush them out? Had it all been a trap to lead them here from the very beginning?

But of course it had, Jack thought. He raised his hands into the air, blinking against the bitterness rising inside him and the brilliant Humvee headlights that shone directly into his face.

A dark silhouette raised its sidearm at him, and gestured at him to come out. Jack did, squinting against the brightness.

Pain blossomed in Jack’s chest. He gasped and dropped to his knees in surprise, feeling as if he had been speared by two white-hot lances. It was only a few moments afterward that his senses registered, through the agony, the smell of gunpowder and the soft, tinny chime of empty shells on pavement.

Jack snarled, trying to move, but his muscles had seized and he had no weapon, save for the butterfly knife still in his leather jacket. He wouldn’t be able to do anything useful with it anyway.

A man approached, dismounting from the Humvee. Jack recognized him. “That was unnecessary,” he growled, gritting his teeth through the pain searing him with every breath of air he forced into his lungs.

Nick, his Interpol handler, stared down at him, his expression a neutral mask. “Sorry. Mike’s new. He’s a little trigger happy.”

Jack hadn’t meant just the gunshots, which had been deflected by the ultra-thin kevlar he wore beneath his shirt, but everything. Ju-ge, the rest of the syndicate, the entire attack—

“Change of plans,” replied Nick, as if reading his mind. He squatted down, so Jack didn’t have to crane his neck upward to meet his gaze. “We have intel that Tang Yi’s coming. The Murong twins secretly called the Xing Tian Group for help earlier in the evening, so the higher-ups decided to extract you, and re-plant you tonight.”

“Could’ve given me warning,” Jack rasped, still glaring.

“We did,” Nick blinked. “Didn't Alice fire a warning shot?”

“She hit Yang Sheng Ju with it.”

Nick’s expression softened. “You didn’t think he was going to go quietly, did you?”

Tears welled at the corners of Jack’s eyes. Fuck, everything hurt.

“Tang Yi’s ETA is in about an hour,” Nick continued. “How do you want the rest of this to go?”

Jack wheezed and then froze, wondering how many fucking ribs he’d broken that he couldn’t even manage a laugh. When Nick asked him that question, it always meant that the Interpol bigwigs had hatched a plan he’d object to.

Jack smirked through the agony. “It's a bit too late to be asking me now.”

Nick swallowed, staring soberly at him. “They want you to go with the story that you’re the sole survivor of a revenge massacre carried out by the Lu clan.”

Jack wheezed again, and this time the pain didn’t stop him from cackling.

“I’m serious, Jack. They want me to bring you back to the safehouse and leave you there until Tang Yi finds you.”

It was a few more seconds before Jack regained his composure, feeling particularly macabre. “Then do it."

Nick stared at him, speechless. “You’re a crazy motherfucker, you know that?” he said finally, and then helped Jack to his feet.