Pier 14 reeked of spilled kerosene, rotting carp, and wet gravel. Liao Bixue staggered across the slick cobblestones, her silk maid blouse soaked in saltwater mist and machine grease. Two dozen armed hoodlums flanked the shipping yard, revolvers raised, while Boss Ma stood atop a pallet of contraband grain, grinding a cigar under his heel. "Look at the ambitious little rat," Ma barked, flashing gold-capped teeth. "Thought you could corner the shipping routes, girl? You bought every warehouse from here to the canal, yet you forgot who owns the water. The Iron Fang eats entrepreneurs like you for breakfast." Bixue caught her breath, leaning against a rusty stanchion. She had worked eighty hours without a pause. Her spreadsheets were shredded. Her inventory was surrounded. "You're operating on stolen ledgers, Ma. The maritime board already—" "The board drinks my liquor!" Ma roared, drawing a silver-plated snub-nosed pistol. "Shoot her knees. Let her watch while we torch the dry dock." High above the docks, perched in the cab of an eight-ton industrial overhead gantry crane, Kuo Tzilan yawned until her jaw popped. She looked down through the smeared glass. The digital dashboard of her watch read 3:42 AM. That was deep into prime REM sleep. Five hours past her nightly cup of roasted barley tea. The rumble in her belly sounded like a diesel engine giving up the ghost, and the thought of Bixue going broke—which meant Bixue sleeping in the guest room indefinitely, nagging, talking about quarterly projections—filled Tzilan with white-hot, homicidal irritation. "Lotuses," Tzilan muttered, squinting at the lever array. "I told him I wanted to plant lotuses. Why must people always make me pull things?" She casually kicked the heavy pneumatic release with her embroidered cloth slipper. A four-ton steel container marked *CONSOLIDATED FROZEN MACKEREL* plummeted fifty feet. The metal box whistled through the salty air and pulverized eight of Ma’s gun-toting enforcers instantly, smashing the wooden dock into kindling and sending a volcanic geyser of seawater and crushed fish into the night sky. The concussive thud rattled the rivets of every cargo ship within a mile. Boss Ma tumbled off his pallet, coughing salt spray. "What the hell? Who authorized that rig?!" Near the gatehouse, Wei Jianhong vaulted a row of fuel barrels, two custom ivory-handled automatics blazing in his grip. "Tzilan! Stay behind the concrete barrier, my sweet peach! These brutes have no manners!" Jianhong was magnificent. His tailored trench coat billowed; his cheekbones cut the neon glare as he put three rounds through the radiator of an approaching technical truck. But an Iron Fang grenadier on the catwalk tossed a bundle of dynamite straight toward the gas pumps. *BOOM.* The detonation lifted Jianhong off his boots. He flew backward through the air, his skull cracking against an iron bollard with a sharp, hollow gong. He slumped limp against the concrete, eyes rolling shut, automatics clattering across the wet stones. Tzilan watched through the crane window. Her husband was down. Unconscious. Dead to the world for at least twenty minutes. Which meant nobody was watching. Tzilan didn't take the maintenance ladder. She kicked the emergency hatch open, stepped into empty space, and dropped forty feet, absorbing the kinetic shock through bent knees before rolling across the asphalt without tearing a stitch of her velvet cheongsam. She rose slowly. Her spine cracked with an ominous pop. The scent of gunpowder mixed with the stench of charred fish, and her stomach screamed for a midnight feast of steamed dumplings that was currently nowhere in sight. "Do you have any idea," Tzilan said, her voice dropping into a raspy, gravelly baritone that made the surviving dockworkers stiffen where they stood, "what sleep deprivation does to cellular regeneration?" Boss Ma froze. He rubbed brine from his eyes, staring at the slender woman approaching through the sulfurous smoke. Her shoulders were slack, her posture infuriatingly casual, but the way her feet moved across the gravel left no sound at all. That specific ghost-step. That posture. "Blood... Orchid?" Ma rasped, retreating a step. "No. You vanished three years ago! You drowned in the Pearl Estuary!" "I didn't drown," Tzilan snarled, closing the gap in three gliding strides. "I retired!" A thug charged her with an iron pipe. Tzilan didn't even look at him. She caught the swung pipe with the flat of her palm, twisted the metal three hundred and sixty degrees until his wrist snapped like celery, and drove her elbow into his sternum. He flew twenty yards into the basin with a dull splash. Across the lot, Bixue scrambled to her feet, spotting a yellow diesel forklift idling near the loading ramp. "Screw this! If I'm losing my venture capital, I'm taking the port master's permit by force!" Bixue hurled herself into the forklift cage, threw the gear into reverse with a savage grind of teeth, and spun the steering knob. "Clear the lane! Commercial assets coming through!" The heavy steel tines rammed through the barricade, scattering four gunners who were trying to flank the pier. Bixue slammed on the gas, cackling like a deranged accountant as she pinned the Iron Fang’s remaining lieutenants against a corrugated warehouse door, locking down the entire perimeter through sheer vehicular audacity. Meanwhile, Boss Ma drew his second gun, firing point-blank. Tzilan tilted her neck half an inch. The bullet clipped a stray hair. She stepped inside his guard, caught his gun hand, and shoved her palm beneath his chin. Bone met bone in an explosive crack. "I had a four-course breakfast planned at nine!" Tzilan yelled, driving a knee into his ribs. Ribs splintered. "Congee with preserved egg! Warm crullers! Do you know how hard it is to digest fried dough when your circadian rhythm is shattered by gang wars?!" "You... you freak!" Ma wheezed, spitting blood, swinging a desperate left hook laced with hidden brass studs. "You were our apex killer! You had the whole city at your mercy! Why throw it away?!" Tzilan sidestepped, grabbing his wrist and twisting him into the cobblestones with enough torque to dislocate his shoulder. She pressed her satin heel directly against his windpipe. "Because killing people is work!" Tzilan hissed, her rage vibrating in every syllable. "Paperwork! Stashing corpses! Cleaning stains! It's endless labor! Do you know what isn't work? Lying on a feather mattress while a handsome mob boss buys you pearl necklaces and feeds you imported pastries! That is living! And you... you noisy, bald insect... kept setting off explosives before dawn!" Ma stared up into the murderous, golden glare of the Blood Orchid. He choked against the crush of her slipper as the reality set in. "You wiped your own mind... just to sleep? Just to be a useless... pampered..." "It’s called early retirement," Tzilan said coldly. She pivoted on her heel and drove an open-palm strike down into his sternum, driving the air and consciousness completely out of his lungs. Ma collapsed like an empty sack of grain, eyes glazed, body twitching into motionless silence. The pier fell dead quiet, save for the hum of Bixue's forklift and the lapping tide. Bixue cut the engine, hanging out of the operator's cabin, chest heaving. "He's done. The Iron Fang supply chain is mine. We own the waterfront." "Shut up," Tzilan wheezed, rubbing her eyes with the back of her sleeve. "I need a pillow. I will literally sleep on this pile of cod." Behind them, a low groan echoed from the rubble. Wei Jianhong stirred. His eyelids fluttered. Blood trickled down his handsome brow as he pushed himself up onto one elbow, blinking through the clearing smoke. Tzilan froze. She stood directly atop the battered, bleeding form of the city's most feared syndicate boss, her slipper resting on his throat, her hands still raised in an ancient, lethal killing stance. Jianhong looked up at her, his vision clearing on his supposedly fragile wife.

Fists, Fury, and Forklifts