I spend no real time with them. I never care to. They’re all faceless to me.
But spending time with Mia is different. Sure, we’ve been around each other in the past, working and socializing, but we were never tethered together like we are now. There was never this charged energy between us electrifying my senses.
She’s the only person who can get me in with a few of these men I will meet with. Because with the news out about what I’ve ‘supposedly’ done these men won’t think twice about refusing to meet with me.
When I pull up to the Ping An Bank, we get off the bike. “Ready?” I ask.
She shrugs. “For what?”
“Whatever’s in this box will determine where we go from here, ok?”
She shrugs again like she couldn’t care less. “Ok.”
And maybe she couldn’t care less. Who knows? And who cares right now? She’s here, and I need to make sure she will not pull another stunt with me while we’re in the bank.
“If you make a scene in this bank, they won’t laugh it off. Ever been in a Chinese prison?”
Mia’s eyes widen to the size of a quarter. “I’ll be a good girl, promise.”
We step into the bank and I find a receptionist, telling her I need to get into my safe deposit box. I produce the key, giving her the number, and she directs me to a hallway with four doors.
She walks us through the first door and proceeds into a room with safe deposit boxes, where she pulls out the number box and lays it on a steel table.
Mia stands next to me, watching.
Please let something useful be in this box.
The woman leaves the room and I pull the key from my pocket. “Ready?” I ask Mia.
“I guess.”
I open the box, looking inside at the contents. “Oh, wow.” There’s about twenty thousand dollars inside.
I smile and feel around in the box, looking for more. There’s some papers at the bottom. I pull them out.
“What is that?”
“It looks like a bank statement. But I don’t recognize any of it.”
“Do you think it’s for this bank?”
I shrug. “It could be. Maybe Oliver has an account here. I’ll ask on the way out.”
I stuff the money back in the box.
“You’re not going to take the money?” Mia asks.
“It’s not my money. Even though the money’s most likely dirty as fuck, it’s not anymore mine than it is Oliver’s.”
“Well, that’s why you should probably take it. It’s stolen money.”
“Yes, but we don’t know where it came from.” I smile at Mia. “Don’t worry, I have plenty of my own money.”
“Ok. I just don’t want Oliver to get away with stealing from my family.”
I lean in closer. “He won’t.”
“Alright.”
“Wait here,” I tell Mia.
I step out of the room and head toward the lady who helped us earlier. I show her the paper I found, and speaking Chinese, question whether she recognizes anything on it. She doesn’t, but tells me it’s a list of withdrawals from what looks like a Swiss bank.
Great.
I thank her for her time and head back to Mia, who’s still standing in the same spot I left her.
“Where to now?” she asks, once we’re outside.
A black sedan squeals out of its spot right across from the bank, and Mia and I watch as it zooms past us, squealing its tires in the process.
“God,” Mia says, stepping back on the curb so the car doesn’t hit her.
I hold on to her, wondering who the fuck that was. “How much do you trust Nate?”
Mia blinks up at me. “Do you think he told someone we’d be coming to the bank?”
“Yes, and it’s not safe anymore.”
My plan to find Oliver evaporates about as fast as that car squealed away from the curb. I pull out my phone, putting in a call to Jeremy. “Change of plans,” I tell him.
“What’s up?”
“We’re getting out of town. Quick.”
“Boss, you have to leave without a single trace. Terminals are hot spots for surveillance.”
“Still have that number for that guy with the boat?” I ask into the phone. “I have an idea.”
My idea is to ship us in a junk, a Chinese traditional sailing ship. Now they rent them as charter boats. For a fee the owner agrees to take us to a small port on the other side of China. From there, we’ll take the train to Shanghai.
“Do you think this is a good idea?” Mia asks, watching the wood vessel’s battened sails.
“It’s the only option,” I reply. “We need to leave here. Jeremy will meet us in Shanghai with our things.”
“I’ve never traveled by ship before, not even a small boat. This is reliable, you said, right?”
This will be a long trip and Mia’s looking green already.
But I can’t leave her here. There’s no way I’d leave her here. She’s mine to protect now.