Jason froze. He’d known if he spent time with Alana, that question, or one like it, was bound to come up eventually. But just because he’d fallen hard for her didn’t mean he was ready to reveal all his secrets. He wasn’t about to tell Alana that RMM was his creation. That the money bankrolling the organization came from him. “Why do you ask?”
She considered him for a moment. “Because it’s important to you,” she said quietly.
“What did Dirk and Mei-li tell you?”
“Not much. Just what the initials stand for, and that the phrase comes from a quotation. That RMM does whatever it has to do to rescue the innocent.” She paused for a second. “Oh, yes, and that RMM played a key role in rescuing Dirk’s twin daughters when they were kidnapped last year. Were you involved in that?”
Jason nodded. “Mei-li asked for my help and I gave it.”
“Just like when you rescued me three weeks ago. Mei-li asked and you said yes.”
He nodded again.
“Does RMM ever say no?”
Jason allowed himself a small smile. “The organization doesn’t get involved in solving every crime, if that’s what you’re asking.”
She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I know RMM isn’t the police.” An expression of—could it be frustration?—crossed her face. “I’m just trying to understand you,” she said in a low voice.
He thought about what he could tell her. “You see...or maybe you don’t...but my family didn’t live in Hong Kong year-round. My father—perhaps you’ve heard of him? Sir Joshua Moore? He’s a producer and director, pretty highly regarded in the movie industry.”
“I’ve heard the name. Didn’t Dirk do a movie with him? Isn’t that why he came to Hong Kong in the first place?”
Jason smiled. “Yes. Well, as I started to say, we didn’t live in Hong Kong year-round. My father traveled to the locations of his movies for three or four months at a time, and my mother and Mei-li accompanied him.”
“Not you?”
“Only until I turned thirteen. That’s when my father sent me to school in England.” He named a world-famous prep school.
“That’s a prestigious boarding school, right?”
He nodded. “My father went there. He wanted that for me, too.” Just as Jason had never said anything to his parents about his experience there, he wasn’t about to tell Alana, either. “But I spent most summer and Christmas breaks here in Hong Kong, with my mother’s family. And mine, too, whenever my father wasn’t on location.”
Alana’s eyes softened with compassion. “That had to be a lonely life for a teenage boy, growing up away from your parents. Your sister.”
It had been a lonely life in many ways, although not all that unusual in the upper echelons of British society. His paternal grandfather’s world. The world his father had tried not to impose upon his only son, except in this one way. “It wasn’t too bad. I had two close friends growing up, Sean and David.” Both Sean and David had been fifth-generation Hong Kong natives. But whereas David was Chinese, Sean had still been considered a foreigner by most of Hong Kong’s residents. Their roles had been reversed in England, where David had been the foreigner; most of the students at the school had never let him forget it, and not just in subtle ways.
And then there was Jason. Never quite fitting in anywhere, despite his parents’ best efforts. The target of jealous and malicious cousins who’d also attended the same prep school. But he wasn’t going to share that with Alana.
“Both of my friends were born here in Hong Kong. And like me, they were both sent to the same boarding school in England when they were old enough.” His school years would have been appallingly desolate if he hadn’t had his two best friends with him. “We were the Three Musketeers. At least, that’s how we thought of ourselves.”
“Ahhh, I see.” Alana smiled. “Where are Sean and David now? Are you still close to them?”
He’d let himself forget for a moment as he lived in the past, but the present came crashing down on him. “David, yes. He works here in Hong Kong, as I do, and I see him fairly often. But Sean...”
When he didn’t continue, she prompted, “Sean?”
“Sean...died. He’s the reason I...became involved with RMM.”
* * *
Alana reached across the table and gently touched Jason’s hand. “What happened?”
He didn’t reply at first, as if it was difficult for him to talk about. Finally he said, “Sean was a great guy. I’m not just saying that because he was my best friend. He was also going to be my brother-in-law. He and Mei-li...” He cleared his throat. “Sean had fallen in love with my sister when she was sixteen and he was barely twenty, but he was a true gentleman. He never said anything. Never tried to put the moves on her or anything like that. He waited until Mei-li was eighteen before he asked her out. They became engaged a year later.”
A long silence followed. “And?”
“Three days before the wedding, Sean was kidnapped. I don’t know how much you know about kidnapping here in Hong Kong, but in many ways it’s almost like a business. First rule of thumb is, if the ransom is paid, the victim is released unharmed. Which is why most people don’t report kidnappings to the police until after the fact. Until after the victim is returned safe and sound.”
“Isn’t that what Mei-li does for a living? Private investigator and ransom negotiator?” Then it clicked for her. “That’s why,” she said softly. “That’s why she went into that line of work. Because of her fiancé.”
“Yes.” Jason’s voice roughened. “Sean’s parents made the payoff, but there was a horrible screwup, and Sean was killed.”
Alana’s hand tightened on his, and tears filled her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, blinking hard, her throat aching for his obvious pain. “That’s why you joined RMM.”
“It was more than twelve years ago,” he said, his voice harsh. “But I’ve never forgotten.”
“I understand.” And she truly did understand. Tragedy had never touched her life, but she could see that for a man like Jason, there was only one response to something so life-altering. “So...you and RMM...you do whatever you can to prevent this from ever happening again.”
“Not just kidnappings, though that’s how RMM—” He broke off, and Alana wondered what he’d been going to say. “But yes, that’s why we do what we do. Every man in RMM accepts that he could die, because much of what we do is extremely dangerous. Barring that, we could also go to jail, because some of the things we do are illegal. Not immoral, but illegal.”
Alana digested this. Then her brows drew together in a frown. “Only men?”
Jason cleared his throat. “Well...in the covert operations arm, yes.”
“Hmm.”
“It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“You have no idea what I’m thinking.”
“I do. You’re thinking women have been deliberately excluded, and that’s not true. If a woman such as Mei-li, for instance, wanted to join our ranks...if she trained as we train...if she was as dedicated to the cause as we are...
“But you have to understand this is a highly secret organization. We don’t recruit people to join except in very circumscribed circumstances. Remember, anyone who is added to the organization is a risk to every one of us. So the members of RMM only recruit their trusted friends. And a man’s friends are—for the most part—men.”
“Hmm.”
Jason laughed softly at her skeptical response. “You’re severe,” he told her. “But I’ll admit there’s a modicum of truth to your criticism.”
“Yes, I know.”
“So there is a...slight...bias against women in RMM. It’s not forbidden, and we do have some women in the organization, just not...”
“I see.” She thought about arguing further but realized the point was moot. She didn’t know any women who wanted to belong. And she certainly wasn’t about to criticize RMM just for the sake of criticism. Jason and RMM had saved her. She owed them the benefit of the doubt.
With that decision made, she changed the subject. “You reported the license plate number of the van this afternoon to someone in RMM, and they told you the plate was stolen.”
“Yes.”
“So there’s no way to track down those men today. What about when I was taken?”
“What do you mean?”
“Mei-li explained about the tracking device I was carrying, so I know how you found me. But the driver of the van who took me back to the DeWinters’ estate said that rescuing me was only part of the job—that you needed to take care of the men who kidnapped me.” She hesitated. “Since the police didn’t mention finding any bodies...I figure my kidnappers were long gone by the time you went back there.”
“Astute of you.”
Her gaze fell to her hand, still lying atop Jason’s. Then her eyes met his. “Would...would you have killed them?” Then she held her breath.
“Not like that. If they’d come in while I was rescuing you and I had no other choice, yes. But not in cold blood. We’re willing to break the law, if necessary, but we’re not judge, jury and executioner. Yes, we want to shut this triad gang down, but we want to bring them to justice. Not mete out a death sentence.”
She let her breath out in a rush. “I’m so glad.”
“Did you really think...?”
“I didn’t want to think it, but...I’ll admit the thought had crossed my mind. And it worried me.”
Jason didn’t reply at first. Then abruptly asked, “Do you know what RMM stands for?”
“Dirk mentioned that the night I was rescued. ‘Right Makes Might.’ RMM.”
“Yes. But I think if you know the context, you’ll understand better. It’s three words from a quote by Abraham Lincoln, a man who could put complex thoughts into simple words and phrases that touch the heart. The full quotation is, ‘Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.’ Which means RMM tries to do what’s right. Not what’s expedient. Always.”
Jason turned his hand so it was clasping hers, and something in his face told her this was incredibly important to him. Not just what RMM would and wouldn’t do, but for her to believe it.
“I understand,” she whispered, needing to reassure him about this. “I do. I really do.”
She did understand, maybe even more than Jason wanted her to. Because she suddenly knew Jason wasn’t just a member of RMM; he had to be one of its founders. Which explained so much about him, and at the same time was incredibly appealing to her.
All her life she’d been ashamed of being her parents’ daughter. Had desperately attempted to overcome her upbringing. Not wanting people to judge her for something over which she had no control, she’d tried to do the same, tried to judge people by the content of their character, as one famous orator had movingly stated, and not by any other yardstick. She hadn’t always been successful, but she’d tried.
Here was a man who hadn’t merely tried; he’d succeeded. He didn’t care what the world thought of him. He didn’t care he was risking his life. He didn’t care if he went to jail for his actions. He did what was right. Always. That knowledge instilled in her a desire to emulate him. To be as fearless and true as he was. To be worthy of him.
* * *
Jason waited until Alana walked inside after he dropped her off that night before hitting speed dial on his smartphone. It rang and rang, but eventually went to voice mail. He frowned, then left a message to call him and disconnected.
He made the thirteen-plus kilometer trip in less than twenty-five minutes, despite the Saturday evening traffic, then pulled his rental car into the garage beneath his condo building. He inserted the key card and rode the elevator to the top floor—all his own. He was just walking into his condo when his cell phone gave off the ringtone reserved for Cameron Mackenzie, the Australian-born second-in-command of RMM.
“Cam?”
“You called?” a strong Australian accent said in his ear.
“Yes, about today.”
“White van. Stolen plates. Which you already know. We’ve got heung yau out on the street,” Cam said, using the Cantonese phrase that meant “fragrant grease,” the polite Hong Kong euphemism for bribes. “But so far, nothing. It’s like these chaps crawled into a hole and pulled it in after them.”
“Have you checked the hospitals? It’s possible I did some damage to one of them.”
“Already done. And no, if you cracked his ribs, he didn’t visit any of the emergency rooms for treatment.” Cam’s voice turned dry. “Of course, there’s more than one doctor in Hong Kong who’ll treat someone on the QT...for the right price.”
“Understood.” Frustration made him ask, “What about the women this afternoon? Any of them think they were stalked?” It was a long shot, but...
“No dice. Seems to be completely random, like the woman who was abducted two weeks ago. Like Miss Richardson.”
Something was niggling at the back of his mind, but Jason couldn’t put his finger on it. “They’re getting bolder,” he told his second-in-command. “All the other cases were women on their own, weren’t they?”
“So it would seem.”
“Any traction on the other end? How the women are being smuggled into Macau?”
“No.” Jason cursed under his breath, and the other man offered, “They’ll slip up eventually, Jason. They’re not that good—just lucky so far. But they’ll slip up, and that’s how we’ll catch them. Mark my words.”
“Would you make book on that?”
A chuckle sounded in his ear. “Making book’s illegal in Hong Kong, mate...unless you’re the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Ask me next time we’re in Macau.” With that, the other man disconnected.
Jason strode toward his home office and logged on to his laptop. As CEO of Wing Wah, he was never really “off the clock.” While he had a legion of senior and junior vice presidents to help him manage the far-flung enterprise, there were still some things that could only be decided by the man at the top.
And then there were his RMM-related activities. There were three other ongoing covert operations in addition to the triad gang they’d been after for months on this prostitution thing, and all three demanded his attention.
The highest priority operation of the three was attempting to put a curb on certain kinds of pornography. Jason wasn’t idealistic enough to think it could ever be eradicated completely—as long as there was a market for it, there would be people willing to meet the demand. But if the rumors were true, too much involved young women who were coerced into it by threats, drugs or other means. If RMM could make a dent in the supply business, he’d be happy.
Not quite two hours later he shut down his laptop and turned off the desk lamp. Then sat there in the dark for a moment, thinking about Alana.
Alana. So fragile, and yet...the heart of a warrior. Quick-thinking, too. He’d noticed that about her from day one, but if he’d needed anything to reinforce that belief, her actions today were proof. He prided himself on his reaction time, but Alana had been there before him, fighting to free the woman being abducted before their eyes.
God, was there another woman like Alana in the whole world?
Thinking of her made him need to hear her voice, and before he could tell himself not to, he’d called her cell phone.
“Hello?”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the digital clock glowing red in the darkness. He hadn’t realized it was so late, probably too late to call. But he’d already done it and Alana had already answered, so...
“Alana, it’s—”
“Jason.” His name on her lips sliced right through his defenses, and for a moment all he could think of was having her say his name exactly that way...in his bed. His imagination accelerated right into overdrive and he hardened in a rush, envisioning everything he wanted to do to her. Everything he wanted her to do to him.
“Jason?”
The question made him ruthlessly rein in his thoughts...though not without regret. “I wanted to thank you for today,” he said when he could trust his voice not to betray his desperate need. “And to apologize again for putting you in a dangerous situation.”
“You already apologized more than once—you really don’t have to apologize again. How could you possibly know what would happen?” The firm note remained in her voice when she added, “And if one of us should thank the other, I should be thanking you. Not just for a mostly wonderful day, but for rescuing me again.”
“I didn’t—”
“Of course you did. I’d have a black eye, or worse, if you hadn’t stepped in to prevent his fist from making contact with my face.”
“Oh, that.”
He could tell from her voice she was smiling. “Yes, that. And then afterward, when I was having a panic attack...” Her voice softened. “Thank you for holding me. How did you know that’s exactly what I needed at that moment?”
Instinct, he thought, and knew it for the truth. But he wasn’t sure Alana was ready to hear that he would always know exactly what she needed...because he knew her. Instead he said, “It seemed like the thing to do.”
“You’re right. It was.”
For a minute neither said anything more. Then Alana asked, “Was there something else you wanted to say?”
“Are you free tomorrow? I’d like to make up for today.”
“You have nothing to make up for. But yes, I’m free. Tomorrow’s Sunday, remember? And I’d love to spend the day with you again.”
“Is there any place in particular you’d like to go?”
“Other than the places you’ve taken me to, I’ve hardly been anywhere so far. To the Peak, of course, since it’s just up the road. But other than that...I’m open to suggestion.”
“No boat trips around the island?”
“No. Just the Star Ferry to the mainland.”
“What kind of sailor are you?”
“I don’t get seasick, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He laughed. “That’s exactly what I’m asking. How about a tour around the island, then?”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Dress in layers—the wind can make it feel cold even if the sun is warm. Ask Mei-li. She’ll know. Oh, and you’ll want to do something with your hair.”
* * *
Sunday dawned bright and beautiful, and Alana was up with the sun. Jason had told her to leave everything to him. “Don’t even eat breakfast,” he’d warned her. “I’ll take you to my favorite dim sum restaurant before we set sail.”
Following Mei-li’s advice, she braided her hair and coiled it up, then took the hat Mei-li loaned her and fitted it into place. She was already dressed in an outfit that vaguely resembled boating toggery, with multiple layers as both Jason and Mei-li had advised, topping it off with a light jacket in her favorite lavender blue. At the last minute she tied the lavender and amethyst scarf Jason had bought her yesterday around her throat. It was beautiful and she loved it already, but she also remembered the look in Jason’s eyes when he’d said, It gives me pleasure to see you wearing my gift, Alana. Would you deny me that small enjoyment?
The doorbell rang just as she was double-checking the contents of her purse. Alana rushed to answer the door, but Mei-li was there before her. Hand on the doorknob, Jason’s sister said, “Just one thing before you go.” She hesitated for a second, then continued on a rush, “You’ve been pretty much living in Jason’s pocket for the past two weeks, and I’m glad about it. I am. Please don’t misunderstand—there’s nothing I want more for Jason than for him to find the kind of happiness I’ve found with Dirk, and I think you could be the one, Alana. I truly do. But Jason has been hurt more than you know. More than he’ll ever tell you. So whatever you do, please don’t break his heart.”