The Long Siege - Chapter 12

“Are you ready to hear my entire story?” I ask Elise as my heart beats in victory.

My phone buzzes again, a sharp, insistent vibration against my thigh. This time, the screen glows with a known number. Linh. The message is terse, devoid of warmth. The Reverie Saigon. Suite 1207. 9 PM. Don’t be late. It isn’t an invitation; it’s a command. The trigger.

I show the screen to Elise, the cold blue light reflecting in her wide eyes. At that exact moment, Vinny’s voice crackles like static in my hidden earpiece. “She’s on the move, boss. Left the gym, stopped at her villa in Thao Dien for about twenty minutes. Now she’s heading into District 1. The package is likely on the move.”

“Do it now,” I murmur into the collar of my jacket, the words swallowed by the gym’s dense air. “Disable the cameras. Fish the dog first with the tranquilizer meat, then go over the wall. Two guards on the ground. Be ghosts.”

I find Elise waiting by the heavy bag, her knuckles white where she grips the leather, her expression a carefully neutral mask. “We need to go,” I say, but as I turn, a familiar, stooped figure is slowly, painfully, making her way up the final flight of stairs to the third level. Mrs. Ha, Manh Cuong’s mother. The dim light catches the deep lines of agony etched into her face.

“Harry,” she calls out, her voice thin and reedy, strained from the climb. “These knees… they are finished. This building, with all these stairs… it’s a punishment.”

I climb the steps to meet her, the old wood groaning under my weight. The third floor is a tomb of dust and forgotten things, smelling of mildew and decay. “What can I do for you, Auntie?”

She gestures a trembling hand around the cavernous, unused space. “Rent this level to me. I will open a small tea shop. No more stairs. I can’t live in my old apartment anymore.” Her eyes, so much like her son’s—deep-set and resilient—are now pools of silent pleading.

I don’t hesitate. “It’s done. Consider it yours. No rent for the first six months. May your business be prosperous and your knees find peace.” I press a thick roll of bills into her gnarled hand, a mundane blessing for a hard life.

She blesses me in return, her voice thick with a gratitude that feels heavier than any debt, and I leave her standing in the dust, a small figure claiming a new future. I descend to where Elise has watched the entire exchange, her gaze analytical.

“How?” Elise asks as we step out into the humid evening air, the sudden cacophony of the street a shock after the gym’s muffled silence. “You’re out of the gang, you said. How do you still have this… influence? Men who will break into a guarded villa for you?”

I unlock my bike, the chrome gleaming under a streetlamp’s jaundiced glow. I pull a folded document from my inner pocket, the paper crisp. It’s the certificate of sale for my pawn shop. “I sold this to fund my clean start. But money isn’t influence. Loyalty is.” I nod back towards the grim facade of the gym. “Some people, like Vinny, worked for me at the shop. Others, like the men going over that wall right now, are brothers from the street. I look after theirs, and they look after mine. It’s a simpler ledger.”

Elise is quiet for a moment, the city’s noise filling the space between us. Then she nods slowly, a flicker of understanding in her eyes. “I can see that. You take care of Cuong’s mother without a second thought.”

I smirk, kicking the bike to life. The engine roars, a visceral sound that cuts through the urban drone. “You should have seen me taking care of my enemies back in the day.”

She doesn’t return the smile. Her voice is flat. “I don’t find it funny, Harry.”

“You proposed we lie about Uncle Tam to the police,” I counter, handing her a helmet. “Don’t blink now.”

She swings a leg over the bike but holds onto my shoulder for balance, her touch both firm and tentative. “I just don’t see why I need to be there, amidst you and Linh’s personal drama.”

“Because,” I say, feeling the engine’s vibration travel up through my spine, “I want you to see how we do business before I tell you the real story of how I came to be. Consider this the introduction to our next interview.”

She doesn’t argue further. As I weave through the District 1 traffic, a river of light and metal, heading for the sprawling, artificially lit expanse of District 9, her arms wrap around my waist, holding tight. It isn’t just for balance. I can feel it—a certain tension, a surrender. She is still struggling, but she is in deep now, and a part of her is thrilled by the violent, plunging rhythm of my world.

The Reverie is a monument to glass and money, a cold, shimmering spear aimed at the heart of the city. The lobby is a vast, silent space of marble floors and soaring ceilings, the air chilled and scentless. Linh is waiting in the suite, a panorama of the city’s electric grid spread out behind her through the floor-to-ceiling window. She is dressed in a sharp, black cocktail dress that hugs her frame, a silhouette of calculated elegance. Her eyes, cold and analytical, immediately lock onto Elise, dissecting her.

“Why is she here?” Linh’s voice is dangerously calm, a thin layer of ice over a deep, churning river.

“She was with me when this blackmail started,” I say, my voice even, matching her calm. “She deserves to be here when it ends.”

“What are you talking about?” A flicker of confusion crosses her face, then is replaced by dawning, furious comprehension.

“I’m done with the Jade Dragon. You will not hold the generational leash on me.” I take a step closer on the plush carpet, the room so quiet I can hear the hum of the minibar. “You don’t have what your father has. You just have his ambition.”

“Because of this girl?” She points a perfectly manicured finger at Elise, her composure cracking like fine porcelain. “Why? You had that thing with that dead girl… what was her name? Brooke. Then this one. They give you nothing but trouble! I give you peace. I have always given you peace, and never asked for anything back! Why don’t you love me the way I love you?”

Her words slam into me, conjuring a ghost. I am back in another hotel room, the scent of her expensive perfume cloying, my words tender lies as I held her and extracted every piece of information she had about the uncles’ reactions to Brooke’s death. I used the intimacy of her body to find answers, and she mistook the transaction for love.

“Love doesn’t work that way, Linh,” I say, the memory making my voice hollow, echoing in the sterile room. “You know I can’t choose whom I love.”

Her face twists, beauty contorting into something ugly and raw. “Third time’s the charm,” she spits, a vicious reference to the trail of women in my wake. Then, with a shriek of pure, undiluted rage, she launches herself at Elise.

I move between them, a wall of muscle and intent, grabbing Linh by her slender shoulders and shoving her back onto the vast, impossibly white bed. “Enough!” The slap echoes, a sharp, sickeningly final sound that seems to suck all the air from the room. Her head snaps to the side.

Linh stares at me, her cheek blooming a violent red, her eyes wide with shock that quickly melts into utter heartbreak. “You’ll regret this,” she whispers, the words a poison dart, before she crumbles into heaving, ugly sobs, her face buried in the duvet.

I pull a stunned Elise towards the door, her arm rigid in my grip. “Let’s go.”

“This was too easy,” Elise breathes as the elevator doors sigh shut, enclosing us in a box of polished brass and soft light. “It’s just like you wanted. It can’t be real. What if she’s acting?”

Her suspicion is a cold splash of reason. I curse under my breath. The elevator hasn’t even reached the lobby. I slam my palm against the emergency stop button, the sudden jolt unsettling. I shove the doors open at the next floor and sprint back up the stairwell, the cold concrete steps echoing, Elise’s footsteps a frantic echo behind me.

I burst back into the suite. Linh isn’t crying anymore. She is on her feet, her back to us, holding a small, black USB drive as if it were a holy relic. Her shoulders are set, her posture one of grim, horrific determination. It is a vengeance-tell, a perfect, terrible mix of horror at what she is about to do and a cold commitment to seeing it through.

She hears me and spins around, her face a mask of feral fury. I cross the room in two long strides, the carpet muffling my steps, and snatch the drive from her hand. It feels cold and final.

“You think you’ve won?” she hisses, her voice ragged.

I don’t answer with words. I slap her again, harder this time, a brutal punctuation to the end of our story. My palm stings with the impact. It isn’t about anger; it’s about creating distance, shock, a precious moment of delay. Not wasting a single second, I turn and flee, grabbing Elise’s hand and pulling her into the stark, hollow echo of the fire escape, the ghost of Linh’s scream chasing us down the metal stairs, the cold weight of the USB drive a brand in my clenched fist, our head start measured in frantic, stolen heartbeats. “Are you ready to hear my entire story?” I ask Elise as my heart beats in victory.

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