The Eye of God Read Online Free PDF Page A

neon beckoned, along with the blare of music and the echoing muffle of humanity.
    Macau, a former Portuguese colony, had become the Sin City of the South China coast, a gambling mecca that had already surpassed Las Vegas in gaming revenues. Only steps away from the ferry terminal rose the gold tower of one of the city’s largest casinos, the Sands Macau. It was said that the three-hundred-million-dollar complex had recouped its costs of construction in less than a year. Other gaming powerhouses continued to pour in, with new casinos popping up regularly. The total count stood at thirty-three, all in a city one-sixth the size of D.C.
    But the appeal of Macau did not stop at gambling. The hedonistic pleasures of the city—some legal, most not—went well beyond slot machines and poker tables. The old adage of Vegas applied equally here.
    What happens in Macau , stays in Macau.
    Gray intended to keep it that way. He maintained a close watch on the crowd as their taxi pulled up. Someone tried to shoulder past him to steal their ride, but Gray stiff-armed him away. Kowalski bowed his way into the front seat, while Gray and Seichan ducked into the backseat of the cab.
    Leaning forward, she spoke to the driver in rapid-fire Cantonese.
    Moments later, they were quickly headed toward their destination.
    Seichan settled back in her seat and handed Gray back his wallet.
    He stared down at the billfold in surprise. “Where did you—?”
    “You were targeted by a pickpocket. You have to watch yourself out here.”
    Kowalski barked out a sharp laugh from the front seat.
    Gray craned around, remembering the man who tried to shove past him. It had been a ruse to distract him, while another relieved him of his wallet, apparently stealing his dignity also. Luckily, Seichan had skills of her own, learned on streets not unlike these.
    After her mother had vanished, Seichan spent her childhood in a series of squalid orphanages across Southeast Asia, until eventually she was recruited off the streets and trained to kill. In fact, the first time the two had met, she had shot Gray in the chest, not exactly the warmest of meetings. Now, after the destruction of her previous employer’s cartel, she found herself orphaned once again, left adrift, still unsure of her footing in the new world.
    She was a trained killer with no roots.
    Even Gray expected her to vanish at any moment and never be seen again. While they had grown closer over these past four months, working side by side to hunt for clues to her mother’s fate, she still kept a wall between them, accepting his companionship, his support, and once even his bed. Not that anything had happened that night. They had simply been working late, and it was a matter of convenience, nothing more. Still, he had gotten no sleep, lying next to her, listening to her breathe, noting small twitches as she dreamed.
    She was like some wild beast, skittish, feral, wary.
    If he moved too fast, she would likely spook and bolt.
    Even now she sat stiffly in the taxi, wound as tightly as the strings of a cello. He reached over to her, slid a palm along her back, and pulled her closer. He felt the steel in her slowly soften. She allowed herself to sag against him. One hand fiddled with the small pendant at her neck, in the shape of a tiny silver dragon. Her other hand found his, one finger tracing a scar across the back of his thumb.
    Until she found her place in this new world, this was the best he could hope for. He also sensed what fueled the intensity of this four-month-long search for her mother. It was a chance for her to rediscover herself, to reconnect to the one person who had loved and sheltered her, to rebuild the family she had lost. Only then, he suspected, could she turn from the past and look to the future.
    Gray shared that goal with her, wanted that for her, and would do anything to make that happen.
    “If this guy knows anything,” he promised aloud, “we’ll get it out of him.”
    12:32 A .