“Can’t I leave you boys alone for just one night?” Lingyi asked. Her hair was pulled back with a large orange daisy tucked into it.

“Apparently not,” I said.

She sat down, adjusting the short summer dress she wore, splattered with bright geometric designs. “What happened?” she asked, removing her face mask.

Iris had wandered over to the sim suits, touching one with mild curiosity. She wore black fingerless gloves, as always.

Vic flipped out his Palm and leaned over, showing Lingyi the poorly rendered image. She looked from the image to me, then down at the screen again. “I see a little resemblance,” she said. “How’d they get this?”

“We don’t know,” I replied.

Someone knocked, and both Victor and I jumped. Iris raised an eyebrow at us and stalked over to the door, glancing at the monitor. “It’s Arun.” She pulled the heavy door open and he entered, lifting his chin once in greeting.

“What’s with the emergency meeting?” he asked as he plopped himself on the long sofa near Vic.

Lingyi handed Victor’s Palm to Arun. “Zhou is on someone’s radar.”

Arun examined the rendering. “It could be worse. They have a likeness, not an actual image.” He yawned. “I got out of bed for this? I’m working in the lab early tomorrow—”

“You’re here,” Victor said, “because we need to call the whole thing off.”

Lingyi made a noise in the back of her throat, and Iris slipped over to drape herself on the wide arm of Lingyi’s plush chair, staring unblinkingly at Victor like a cat contemplating her prey. Iris hadn’t bothered to remove her face mask and looked like the ninja that she was.

“Why?” Lingyi said after a loaded pause.

Victor sighed and took his Palm back from Arun. “I recognized the leader of the group—he’s Jin’s right-hand man.”

“Jin?” Lingyi and I said at the same time.

“Yes. Goes by Da Ge, but he’s no big brother anyone would want to have,” Vic said. “He heads Jin’s security team but is not above kicking the shit out of someone, or having one of his goons knife and kill a guy in a dark alley. Hell, I’ve heard of him being responsible for assassinations in bright daylight in a crowd—but no one can actually pin it on him. Jin’s power and wealth protect him.”

“Is he our ‘Mr. Wu,’ then?” Arun asked in a quiet voice, but I didn’t miss the steel beneath. The anonymous Wu, who murdered his mother.

Tension in the suite coalesced as sharply as if a gunshot had gone off.

Vic swiped a hand over his face. “It’s impossible to know. Jin’s got a lot of people working for him. I can see him going outside of his legitimately employed men to . . . to”—Victor cracked his knuckles—“I’m sorry, Arun. I don’t know.”