A high-pitched battery whine cut underneath the megaphone’s feedback, rumbling like a dying blender. Through the oily haze drifting off the estuary, headlights flickered. Yellow, round, and mounted on a pastel-pink fiberglass frame. Tienya trundled onto the suspension bridge at seven miles per hour. She wore a peach-tinted silk robe over flannel pajamas, oversized tortoiseshell sunglasses perched crooked on the bridge of her nose. Her left hand loosely guided the cart’s tiny padded steering wheel. Her right hand clutched a chilled bottle of imported soda pop. Next to her on the leatherette bench sat the Iron Hound—two hundred pounds of lean, brindle muscle, drooling contentedly into a gold foil wrapper of dried strip beef. "Jianmo!" Tienya yelled, dropping the megaphone onto her lap with a hollow clatter. "Do you know how hard it is to sleep when two hundred men are shouting through industrial megaphones outside the harbor? The double-glazing in the penthouse does nothing!" Grand Patriarch Lin Shou froze, his jaw hanging open beneath silver-flecked whiskers. His silk robe fluttered in the harbor wind. He looked at the pink golf cart, then at Jianmo’s line of armed operatives, then at Peizhi’s battalion of factory women brandishing assault carbines. "Who is this idiot?" Lin Shou spat, his hand slashing downward toward his rooftop spotters. "Kill her! Gut the cart! Kill them all!" Red laser dots flicked across the asphalt. The Iron Hound did not appreciate the old boss’s tone. It certainly did not appreciate Lin Shou pointing an arm toward Tienya’s soda. With a roar that shook the cart's fiberglass fenders, the beast launched. It cleared the hood in a single, tendon-straining bound, crashing into the front ranks of the syndicate like a derailed freight car. A syndicate enforcer took two hundred pounds of hound directly to the chest, his shotgun discharging uselessly into the sky as he slammed flat against the bridge’s concrete barrier. Metal crunched. Bone snapped. Men shrieked as the dog tore through the line, biting down on Kevlar vests, dragging henchmen across the oily tarmac like rag dolls. "Open fire!" Peizhi’s scream cut through the bedlam. "Protect Tienya's royalties! Charge!" The dock exploded into violence. Peizhi’s garment workers surged forward, wrenches swinging, submachine guns hammering deafening staccatos into the night air. Neon signs from the warehouse rim cast lurid green and magenta gleams across the clash. Steel pipes met syndicate machetes. Brass casings clinked against the asphalt like heavy rain. Tienya stepped on the brake. The cart lurched to a halt right in the dead center of the crossing. "Peizhi, stop running around!" Tienya called out, swatting at a cloud of acrid gunsmoke that threatened her freshly washed hair. "You’re going to sweat through your collared blouse! That fabric is dry-clean only!" High above, on the gantry crane, a green laser dot steadied. A rooftop sniper had recovered from the shock. His crosshairs drifted past the thrashing attack dog, past Peizhi’s charging laborers, settling dead-center on Tienya’s forehead. The crosshairs did not waver. Jianmo saw it. Every ounce of calculated calm the underground king possessed evaporated in a fraction of a second. He did not issue a command. He did not draw his sidearm. He simply moved, tearing across fifteen yards of bullet-swept road like an unleashed hurricane, his heavy work boots gouging deep marks into the soot. *Crack.* The rifle report echoed off the shipping containers. Jianmo hit the golf cart’s side panel just as the round arrived. His body formed a broad, impenetrable shield over Tienya’s slumped posture. The bullet struck flesh with a wet, heavy thud, punching straight through his collarbone and right deltoid. A grunt tore from his throat. Hot, dark fluid sprayed across the pastel vinyl seat, soaking the edge of Tienya’s peach robe. Tienya blinked. A single hot drop landed on her cheek. She looked up. Jianmo was leaning over her, his breath ragged, his teeth bared in an agony he tried desperately to swallow. The grey cotton of his dock shirt was rapidly saturating with red. The sleepy haze in Tienya’s eyes vanished. The indifference that had carried her through strikes, mob visits, and cartel ultimatums dissolved into something colder, sharper, and utterly lethal. Somebody had ruined her man. Somebody had made her husband bleed on her favorite pajamas. "You," Tienya said. The voice was quiet, but it cut through the gun battles around them like a razor blade. Ten paces away, Grand Patriarch Lin Shou was drawing a gold-plated revolver from his waistband, his face twisted in a sneer as he leveled it at Jianmo’s exposed back. "Die like a cur, boy—" Tienya reached into the passenger well. She seized her imported French calfskin tote bag—a massive, structural leather monstrosity she had stuffed that morning with seventy-five solid metal cassette tapes containing Master Chenzhe’s entire discography of experimental synthesizer rock, along with three spare bricks of solid gold bullion she had used as paperweights. The bag weighed nearly forty pounds. Tienya stood up on the golf cart seat, gained leverage against the windshield frame, and swung the bag like an Olympic hammer thrower. "DON'T TOUCH MY HUSBAND!" The reinforced sack cut through the air with a terrifying whistle. Lin Shou had no time to squeeze the trigger. The heavy metal corner of the designer tote slammed flush into the side of his skull with the sickening crunch of breaking masonry. His gold revolver flew ten feet into the air. Lin Shou’s eyes rolled back into his head, his teeth clicking together as his entire body went rigid, spun half a turn, and collapsed face-down on the cold asphalt like a sack of damp grain. The cassette tape cases inside the bag shattered under the impact, plastic bits raining over his unconscious form. The surrounding fighters stopped cold. The sound of their warlord being obliterated by a luxury handbag took all the fight out of their limbs. Peizhi’s workers closed in instantly, disarming the paralyzed thugs with vicious efficiency. Tienya didn't look at the fallen boss. She dropped back to her knees on the vinyl seat, catching Jianmo as his legs gave out. He fell forward into her lap, his massive frame trembling from shock and blood loss. His hand, calloused and stained, reached up toward her cheek, hesitating before touching her clean skin, terrified of leaving a mark. "Tienya..." Jianmo’s voice cracked, barely audible beneath the dying gunfire. "I'm sorry. I ruined... your quiet morning. I told you... I was just a dockhand. I lied. I brought the filth to your door." His eyes fluttered shut as his weight settled heavy against her chest, his pulse fluttering weak beneath the wet wool of his collar.

The Silk Road Ambush