Page 12 of My Merciless Don

“Yes boss.”

“Get me everything you can on the Triad.”

Marco had been a man of his word, giving me access to everything I asked for, including my assistant. Before I made contact with Marco, I had done a deep dive into him and all his associates. The Triad had come up as a group he had a love-hate relationship with. They had areas of cooperation but mostly, they were in a tug of war over trade routes.

The simple option would be to find a way to snatch trade routes out from under them. The clever option would be to make it, so they were willing to concede some routes, and pay Marco to take them.

But how?

I frowned, biting my bottom lip as I thought hard. I turned to George, who was humming to himself. “Hey man, so the Triad, do they transport their goods over land or is it shipping?”

George snorted, “Going overland is dangerous as hell but with the unrest in the Middle East now, shipping is also tricky. That’s why we’re jostling for space.”

“What about if we rounded the cape of Good Hope, like Vasco da Gama?”

George grinned, “A history buff? Oh, we are going to get along.”

I laughed, feeling pleased with myself. “So? we utilizing that route?”

“Not at the moment. It’s the long way around. Why use it when the Suez Canal is open?”

I sighed, “Yeah… except the trouble you spoke of.”

“It is a challenge, but so far, we’ve managed to get through.”

“Is there a way of stopping the Triad getting through?”

George sniggered, “That’s their back yard.”

I leaned forward thoughtfully. “Okay, how about local harbors? Any chance we can block them there?”

George looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Yeah, we can, I suppose. But how to do it without declaring war?”

I straightened up, and gave him a naughty smile, “By fucking with their money of course.”

“How?”

I smiled. “Now you’re asking the right questions.”

CHAPTER TEN

MARCO

When George came to me with the plan Audry had come up with, I was relieved for various reasons. It was a good plan, I could have kicked myself for not thinking of it sooner. And it would earn us not just immediate cash but increase our cash flow from then on.

She was definitely proving her usefulness.

Dismissing George, I got to my feet and marched down to the cells where she was sitting hunched over again. No one had brought her bedding yet and I decided that there was no need to keep torturing her.

“Congratulations.” I said, “You just earned your way out of here.”

“Hooray,” she said drily, without raising her head.

“If your plan works, I might even consider us even.”

That had her lifting her head, her eyes bright with interest. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Unless you don’t want your freedom?”

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