Page 20 of My Merciless Don

The door opened and he stepped out, coming around to open the door for me. His brother Valerio walked behind us as we stepped into the restaurant where we would be meeting the Triad. My heartbeat began to accelerate with nerves.

Showtime.

We were met by Zhang Heoran himself. He greeted Marco fairly cordially before turning eyes bright with interest on me. “And who is this lovely lady?” He asked in a slightly accented English.

Marco turned to me, a smile on his face, “May I present my colleague, and the translator, Audry Martin.”

I stared at Marco with wide eyes. There was no way he knew that I was fluent in Chinese.

He's grasping at straws.

Mr. Zhang smiled. “No need for that. Everybody speaks proper English.”

Marco bowed to him, “My mistake. Would you object to her sitting in on the meeting anyway?”

The dragon head looked from Marco to me, his eyes shrewd. “Absolutely no problem. Such beauty can only enhance our meeting.” He graciously gestured for me to have a seat. I knew he'd be watching me like a hawk.

Good thing I already accounted for that.

I sat down and crossed my legs, the slits at my side falling open and showing off a bit more thigh. I could see the deputy dragon head looking and I just knew that I had gone from threat to eye candy in zero to sixty.

Hurray for the patriarchy.

The meeting began with the usual rigmarole of expected formalities before we got down to business. The first item on the agenda was the trade routes dispute. Marco proposed a merger, where one courier was used to get through all the bottlenecks. “That way everybody wins.”

The Triad members exchanged glances. I could see they thought it was a good idea but were wondering what the catch was.

“We are all in a bind due to a situation that has nothing to do with any of us.” Marco continued. “The bottom line is, we want to keep it business as usual. Do you not agree, Mr. Zhang?”

The dragon head smiled. “It is a clever plan. But who will choose the courier?”

“I think we both have our own people. And we both know independent couriers. I think the question we have to ask is, who is the fastest and most convenient courier that we can get.” Marco replied.

The Dragon's head nodded. “It is a good plan. Do you have a courier to propose?”

“Indeed, I do.” Marco said at once leaning forward, “but today’s meeting was to assess your interest and to reach an agreement. Once I speak to the courier and they are on board, we can set up another meeting.”

“That seems to be a lot of necessary meetings.” Zhang Heoran said, looking displeased, “why you're not prepared?”

Marco picked up his phone from the table. “If you don’t mind having a quick break I could make the phone call now and we can proceed.”

Zhang Heoran nodded. “Very well, go ahead,” he said.

“Thank you. Meanwhile, my colleague will send you the plans on our target routes so we can discuss further. If you would allow her to connect to your devices for a moment…”

I plucked my phone out, holding it up expectantly. Between my phone and my hand, I held a device that would enable me to plant a virus on Zhang Heoran’s device. It would run rampant, giving me access to his passwords, his camera, everything. Of course, I expected that sooner or later, he would sweep his phone, but by then it would be too late. The virus would have done what it needed to.

The Dragon Head and his underboss both activated their blue tooth and I dutifully sent the files they were expecting plus one more that would ‘fail to open’ and then dissolve into nothing, making it’s greedy way into the heart of Zhang Heoran’s systems.

Marco came back, switching off his phone and giving me a look. I gave him a small nod and he smiled slightly before taking his seat. “Right,” he said, “Back to business. The courier is on board. Now we can start talking how to proceed. We’re in business gentlemen.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

AUDRY

Three hours later that we were finally able to leave the meeting. I, for one, was excited. It was rare that I got to see a master at work, and Marco was definitely a maestro at his job. He had not only given me a chance to siphon money out of the Triad accounts, but he'd made a legit deal with them. Of course, sooner or later they would realize that they would be unable to pay the courier due to an inexplicable shortage of funds.

Marco had managed to include a clause in the deal where, to save the courier any inconvenience, should one partner come up short the other partner would cover the cost of transportation. The loan would be recovered from the goods.

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