“So he’s free then?” said Thura.
“I didn’t say that, because he’s not.”
“What is really going on here?”
“Just keep your head down, do what you’re told, and don’t rock the boat.”
“I am good at not rocking the boat. In Myanmar, I never rocked the boat.”
“Until I came into your life,” Nash pointed out.
Thura grinned. “Yes, you speak the truth there, man. So, the daughter, you think she’ll treat us okay so long as we do our job?”
Nash rubbed his arm where the blade Steers wielded had cut him. “I hope so. But she can be difficult to read at times.”
Thura went back to his apartment, and Nash looked in on Temple in his bedroom, where he was packing his things.
“Everything good with Steers?” Temple said, looking up.
“As good as they can be,” replied Nash. “So, you going back to running your business?”
Temple shot him a glance. “Why, did Steers say something?”
“No, she just said that you two were still going to be doing business.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“So, I guess even though you’re going home, you really won’t be free of her, either.”
“Keep that up, Hope, I might forget my promise to you,” snarled the other man.
“Safe travels,” said Nash before going to his room.
CHAPTER
32
MASUYO MET WITH HER DAUGHTERto go over the business. Then Masuyo spent the next two weeks conducting numerous phone calls with her daughter’s business associates, from very important to very junior. She also spoke with Steers’s attendants and security detail. She took all this data in, and the information she received filled out some thoughts in her mind.
My mission now is clear. I need to move forward in the most effective way possible. I now know what she is capable of, but more important, I know what she isnotcapable of.
The next day Masuyo had her first meeting with Nash and Thura.
Her daughter had provided her mother with her own suite of rooms in the penthouse; one space was a well-appointed office-study, where she sat across from the two men. Dressed in a colorful pantsuit with her hair styled and her makeup done to perfection by one of her attendants, Masuyo looked radiant, confident, and ready to conduct business.
Nash and Thura sat side by side in the new trim Armani suits that had been fitted to their bodies by an accomplished Hong Kong tailor and his team. Their white shirts glistened as the two men waited for Masuyo to speak.
Masuyo studied them in the same deliberate manner that her daughter employed. She finally said, “I welcome the both of you, Mr. Hope and Thura, into our family.”
“Please just call me Dillon, Mrs. Steers.”
“Thank you, Dillon. And you too, Thura, for all that you have done in the past, and all you will do in the future to protect me from harm.”
Thura nodded and said quietly, “Yes, ma’am.”
The friendly look faded from her expression and when she spoke next, the woman’s speech matched her new sternness. “Now, we must get a few things straight, gentlemen. You both work for me, and no one else.” She stared first at Nash and then at Thura, and repeated, “No. . .one. . .else.”
Nash sat straighter, glanced at Thura, and said, “Um, does that mean—?”