Chapter Seven #3
Mr. Yang sat atop a table on the other side of the room. At the sight of Aiden, he hopped down from it and gestured. The guard behind Aiden shoved him in. His breath hitched at hearing the door close behind him.
“This man has betrayed me.” Mr. Yang grabbed the gun on the table and loaded it.
“I’ve gotten everything I need from him, but it’s time for cleanup.
He’s already a dead man—brain-wise. I’ve injected him with a concoction that makes it impossible for him to ever think coherently again.
But, seeing how you’ve been so kind to play with my children while I focused on this, I figured you’d want to give him something better?
” He sauntered over and offered the gun to Aiden. “Perhaps a mercy kill?”
Terror poured ice through his veins. Limbs creaking like a corpse, he took the gun in his hands and felt the handle against his skin.
Warmth resurged through his body. He sighed, staring at the gun.
When did he lose the ability to express fear with a deadly weapon in his hands?
He couldn’t remember, but he was sure the night she died killed something inside him.
Don’t think of her.
His heartbeat jumped at the very thought.
Don’t remember anything about her.
The deadly peace returned to his limbs. Aiden looked over at the man babbling in the chair with blood still dripping down from his face. His limbs swung by his side like a clock’s pendulum. His head creaked back and forth.
Pity struck Aiden. He gripped the gun tighter. He really is gone inside. He walked closer to the man and pointed the gun at the man’s head.
He wouldn’t miss. Strangely, in all the areas his brother was better than him, Aiden learned through their lessons that he was a better shot than his brother. Quick, painless, over in a second. He continued pointing the gun.
Eyes.
Aiden lowered his arm slightly. He glanced briefly at Mr. Yang behind him.
The mafia family head crossed his arms, leaned against the wall, and smiled with twisted satisfaction.
But his eyes tell a different story. Mr. Yang watched his breaths, his expressions, his movements.
Aiden heard his questions echoing in the room over the nonsense words spilling out of the man’s mouth.
Is Aiden capable of murdering someone? This should be his first time, so how would he react to the first kill? Will he panic and break down? Will he throw up? Or will he act like he’s done it before despite all evidence pointing this to be his first?
If he can do this, is that a sign he killed his own brother?
Aiden gritted his teeth to prevent himself from spitting at Mr. Yang. How dare he test me on this. He lowered the gun. Turning to Mr. Yang, Aiden marched over to him and held out the weapon. “This is your family’s problem. It would be improper of me to get involved.”
“You are part of Infinite.”
“I believe this little internship with the Zhou, Yang, and Chen is to help acclimate me into my position. I am not part of it yet, and even if I am,” he said, shoving the gun into Mr. Yang’s hands, “this is still a Yang family problem. Not the Hui’s.”
He stepped back and kept his eyes down in deference, but his insides writhed in fury. I hate him.
Mr. Yang unceremoniously pointed the gun at the man from a distance and pulled the trigger.
The sound cracked and bounced off the walls. Aiden turned around in time to watch blood spurt from the man’s head. The body slammed onto the floor. He should be disturbed by death stretched across the floor with a flopping head, but at the moment, Mr. Yang’s gaze haunted him.
The man still tested him.
· · ·
Aiden’s steps faltered climbing up the porch in the darkness of the night to his house.
Ears ringing, skin clammy, and breaths short.
He numbly wandered his way over to the porch chair and dropped into it.
He propped his head up on his hands, and he closed his eyes, concentrating on the chilly air nipping at his skin.
Mr. Zhou and Mr. Yang expected something from him, and he didn’t know what or why. Neither family gained anything if they pinned his brother’s murder on him. Why do they keep looking at me like I’m more involved than I am?
His hands trembled as he recalled his last kidnapping.
Zhou’s worried about the Guo. That man was worried about the Guo.
I don’t even know who the Guo family is.
He missed the opportunity to test the waters with Mr. Yang, but the memory of a bloody corpse still flashed before his eyes.
He had managed to leave without his stomach lurching, but he didn't want to talk to Mr. Yang again and give the dangerous man any more opportunities to taunt him.
He dropped his hands from his lap and glanced over at the door to the unfamiliar house that confronted him.
He was on edge around people whose hands were drenched with blood, and he did it all for a family that didn’t care about him.
I guess I shouldn’t fault them for that.
He got to his feet and entered the house.
Even Ge constantly lectured about self-survival.
He entered a dark hallway and turned around the corner to a well-lit kitchen. A pile of dirty dishes waited in the sinks, and not a single bite of leftover food remained at the tables or in the refrigerator.
Aiden glanced behind him just as his stepmother walked out of another room. She went straight for him.
“Hui Lang, can you clean up for tonight? Also, finish folding the laundry. You know that we can’t risk hiring anyone right now.
” She looked around and sighed at the sprawl of clothes left behind on the floor.
“Also, if you can just clean everything up. I’m just so tired having to take care of the things that you should be doing. You owe me, right?”
He internally heaved for breaths, but Aiden smiled and said, “Sure.”
The smile dropped when his stepmother returned to her room. He looked at the blinking midnight time and glanced upstairs to see lights still shining from Zhu Zhu and He Bao’s room. Music pounded from one of them, furious and persistent.
With a sigh, Aiden turned on the lights to the living room to see paper shredded across the floor. They were fighting… He bent down to pick up the scraps. He should wonder more, but the chores listed themselves in his head.
Folding the laundry. Taking the jackets left on the ground and putting them in the basket. Moving the shoes from the front door to the shoe racks in the garage.
The image of the corpse weighed heavy on his mind. He turned too quickly and accidentally knocked down a vase with fresh flowers.
The water pooled like blood.
“Slow down,” he murmured to himself. He cleaned up the pieces of the vase to safely discard them. Mopped up the water. Bundled the flowers. Found a cup to temporarily hold them before his stepmother would replace the vase with likely a more expensive one.
His stomach growled, and he checked the refrigerator once more to only see fruit. He grabbed an apple and made quick work with ravenous bites. His stomach grumbled, but the dirty dishes dared him not to waste any more time.
Pumping dishwasher soap onto the sponge, scrubbing, rinsing, drying, and repeating.
His hands moved ever slower in the soapy water.
The drain burbled in the dim glow of the kitchen light.
His eyelids drooped, and his arms hit against the side of the sink.
The impact startled him awake as he almost dropped a dish on the floor.
His stomach cried once more.
“I’ll eat tomorrow,” he reassured it.
He placed the last of the dishes away to dry.
His slippers shuffled against the floor as he made his way to the basement.
He stumbled over the boxes still there. He flopped onto his bed.
In the shadows of the basement and the chill of poor insulation, he could still hear the pounding music overhead from one of his stepsiblings’ rooms. The ceiling of the basement shook with every beat that slammed through the house.
He wished he could be angry at them, or annoyed with them, or just selfishly fearful for himself, but he wasn’t. There was a strange numbness instead.
I’m doing this for the family. He repeated the thought in his head, succumbing to the emptiness. I’m doing this because it’s my duty.