Death Angel - Love & Redemption

Prologue

Landao 藍島 (Blue Island), China • a fictional island about a three-hour ferry ride from Shanghai

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This party was extravagant, yet boring.

From a corner of the back patio, Anyang inhaled his cigarette and waited for the buzz. He tapped the burnt tips off and put it back into his mouth.

His bosses had left an hour ago, leaving him with a few to survey the crowd. For what? He didn't know. If they wanted inventory, then it wasn't here, where the patrons were rich fucks.

The estate was one of four houses on this godforsaken island, also private and designated for the richest.

His bosses didn't own a property here. They had places in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Bangkok, Hanoi, Mumbai, and Moscow, all where they could easily find prey at the corner of every street.

His bosses didn't own a property here. Instead, they had places in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Bangkok, Hanoi, Mumbai, and Moscow, all where they could easily find prey at the corner of every street.

Not here.

Not where one house allowed ten bedrooms and thirteen bathrooms, three entertainment rooms, and one large open space that opened to an Olympic-sized pool.

He didn't want to go inside. It was too loud. It reeked.

Looking at his phone, he watched his squad's text stream roll in of useless conversation. He punched in the question of when they could leave, only to be ignored. Annoyed, he dumped the cigarette on the ground and smothered it with his ratty dress shoes. Rolling up his shirtsleeves, he unbuttoned the first two buttons and let the humid air hit his skin. He was sweating buckets and, ironically, the air conditioning wasn't working.

Fuck this place, he thought. He was going to get on the next chopper or even swim off if he had to.

As he pushed himself off the wall and turned to enter through the sliding glass doors, he felt the suffocating heat worsen. Chatters and horrid laughter blew in the background. Clashes of broken glass hit the floor, and the stench of cigarettes filled the spacious room. No smoke alarm was going to ruin this party, not even if the entire establishment burned down.

Anyang was about to text his squad to move out when someone caught his eye.

A woman.

Ahead of him, he saw the face of who he swore was a ghost. His breath held. It couldn't be her, could it?

But she was dead.

Suicide. She had so desperately wanted out of this world she drank a pitcher of cyanide mixed with all the drugs her husband, his boss's boss—the biggest boss, sold for business.

Their honcho, whom they all called Laoda* since no one knew his real name, was devastated. It was almost humorously romantic and satirical that the most nefarious trafficker would care so much about a woman.

Laoda loved her. Word had it he treated her like a queen. He'd snatched her up from her family when she was only sixteen years old, the daughter of a Chinese wealthy businessman who owned a sleuth of brothels disguised as nightclubs. Laoda made a hefty offering to the family, and of course, they'd practically sold her off.

'Madame' was what they called her when she married Laoda and came to live in his palace. The servants in Laoda's quarters commented on her beauty as well as how miserable she was. She hated her life and was repelled by Laoda. Why wouldn't she? He was twenty years her senior and far from prince charming. The bastard had a harem he kept around for the time Madame rejected his affections, which was plenty.