Chapter Thirteen
Zhu Zhu entered He Bao’s room without knocking, slamming the door behind her. He turned his face in the direction of the door, already prepping an act of fury only to relax at the sight of his sister. “Can I help you with something?” he asked as he closed his laptop, continuing to lie in bed.
“Look at this.” She held out her arm, and a bracelet dangled. The jewels sparkled in the light, and each gemstone was carved in a uniquely abstract shape. “It’s hideous.” She flopped onto the mini couch in his room.
“It’s expensive. That’s all that matters. A gift from your future groom?”
“That’s disgusting—don’t say it like that. Talks about marriage won’t happen until after college, remember? Ma made it very clear.”
“You don’t approve?”
Zhu Zhu stared at him. “And why would I ever approve of this?”
“Transactional relationships. We engage in them all the time. Ma engaged in it, Ba engaged in it, and everyone else engaged in it. I’m sure the Yang guy knows that. This is all just a show of understanding that alliance.”
Zhu Zhu shook her head. Laying on her back, she drew pictures in the air. Art that her mother insisted she stopped because they wasted her time and energy.
“Is this what you want?” she asked. Her hands gripped a nonexistent brush.
He Bao opened his laptop again. “It’s what Ma wants.”
“Yeah, but is this what you want?” Zhu Zhu played with the gold studded earrings that cut into her neck with every swing.
She briefly considered dragging them out of her ears with blood splaying and skin torn but her mother’s voice, lecturing about the importance of appearance and the lack of scars needed in such good looks, dissuaded her more than any pain. Like I’m a mannequin of some sort.
He Bao sighed, tossing his laptop to the side.
Zhu Zhu continued to draw invisible lines in the air.
“I’ve…never thought about what I want,” he admitted.
“Think about it now.”
“Don’t be stupid, Zhu Zhu.” He stared at the laptop sleeping in the corner of his bed. “That’s not possible for the two of us. This is the only life we know, and this is the best life we can have. No one else has as much money as we do.”
“Other people aren’t murdering people.” Zhu Zhu’s voice rose when she rose from the mini couch.
“Grow up. Every billionaire in this country is responsible for the murder of hundreds and thousands of people. We just do it more directly than them. If anything, that makes us more honest.”
“We shouldn’t even be comparing ourselves to those people in the first place!”
She pulled her necklace off and smashed it against the wall.
Before He Bao could warn her about their mother hearing her outburst, she reached for and grabbed a cup of pencils on his desk and threw it on the ground.
She screamed, running to the window and punching at the shades hanging over them.
She rushed toward his laptop with outstretched hands, but He Bao snatched it back.
“Zhu Zhu—stop it! What if Ma hears us?”
“Where is Aiden?!”
He Bao blinked. “Hui Lang?”
“Yes, him! Who else do we know is named Aiden?”
“Why do you care about him? He never wanted to be one of us!”
He shoved her back, and his strength sent her stumbling onto the ground.
She landed on the pencils, and her earrings swung into her face, making her cry out in pain.
He rushed over to help her, but she smacked him hard on the arm before crawling onto the couch, sobbing into her hands.
At a loss, He Bao ran to his door and placed his ear against it.
The TV downstairs roared. With a sigh of relief, he sat down on the floor before Zhu Zhu.
“Are you thinking about what he said?”
“Are you not?” Zhu Zhu hissed.
He Bao narrowed his eyes. “We both looked in the study room that night. We found nothing.”
“She could’ve moved those pictures after Aiden found them.”
“Or maybe he was lying to save himself. I wouldn’t put it past him for that.”
“He’s dead.” Her voice broke. “Ma found a way to kill him.”
“No.” He Bao stubbornly shook his head. “No—I know you and Ma don’t get along, but don’t insult her like that. She wouldn’t cross that line. His life is in the other families’ hands now, but Ma wouldn’t kill anyone.” He Bao chewed on his nails. “Everything she does, she does because she loves us.”
Aiden shook in pain when their mother kicked him in the stomach, and even He Bao couldn’t help flinching when his mother insisted on beating him. The sound of her punches and her angry voice contrasted with her joyful eyes.
“Won’t you stop fighting with her already?” He chewed harder on his nails. “She’s our mom. No one else in the world would care and love us as much as she does. We shouldn’t trust anyone but her.”
Zhu Zhu abruptly looked up. Her eyes had dried, her body stopped shaking, and the apathetic expression that He Bao was familiar with returned to her face.
“Is that what she told you?" Zhu Zhu asked. “And you just believed her like that?”
“Well, why shouldn’t I?”
“You didn’t even get a say in your own room.” She gestured at the old-fashioned furniture.
“Well, I’m okay with that. She’s the one who bought it, so she gets a bigger say than me. This room is hers. Legally.”
Zhu Zhu stared. She bit her tongue to keep herself from laughing. “Ah. That’s why you’re her favorite.” She marched out of the mess she created in his room.
· · ·
Aiden’s eyes widened, and his breath quickened when Mindy drove her car from the roads of the city to one of the richest neighborhoods lingering at the edge.
She opened the gate to the neighborhood with a scan of her license plate.
Her car turned several streets before circling into the expansive driveway of her front yard where a three-story house looked over them in the rising daylight.
She parked the car in the garage, and Aiden found himself staring at an empty storage space almost as big as the rooms he grew up in.
He stepped out of the car as Mindy opened the door to the home and locked down the security. “Hurry up, boys. There is much to do still,” she said, entering the house with her boots clicking on the tile floor.
Aiden instinctively grabbed Brendan’s hand.
His body remained hyper alert to the sense of danger that enveloped him.
Upon realizing what he had done, he embarrassingly tried to pull his hand away.
However, Brendan only squeezed his hand tighter.
A desire to protect bloomed inside Aiden.
He positioned himself to walk in front of Brendan and entered the house, a few steps away from Mindy.
The garage led them directly into the kitchen.
Mindy turned on the incinerator by the sink and unceremoniously dropped her gloves into the fire.
She stepped into a walk-in pantry and took out a makeup kit and a first-aid kit, leaving both on the counter.
“Are you two going to just hover by the garage door all day?”
Brendan glanced at Aiden for permission. He nodded, and the two walked in and slowly lowered themselves onto the stools strategically placed around the kitchen’s island. I must look horrible, he thought, when Brendan’s mouth dropped at seeing his face under direct light.
The blinds remained closed. Mindy pulled at her blonde hair, revealing dark hair. Next, she removed colored contacts from her eyes, unveiling brown irises. She worked on scrubbing the makeup off, and before Aiden’s eyes, she transformed from Mindy into a woman he did not recognize.
A large bruise still covered her face where the guard had hit her.
She wrapped a small pack of ice and placed it against her face, while Aiden’s own face began to swell.
His lips were cracked and dry, bruises covered his entire body, and the wound on his head throbbed.
Brendan reached over, but Aiden turned to look at him.
Brendan had remained uncharacteristically silent in the car while Aiden finally told him everything—about his family, about what happened to him and his brother, and why an assassin sent by the families went after him.
He needed to read Brendan’s face, and he braced himself for complete rejection from the boy who brought him joy and fun during days of torture.
Instead, Brendan reached over slowly and placed his hand lightly against the dried blood that caked Aiden's forehead. His eyes glazed over in pain at the sight, and with a start, turned his attention to the woman who slid them cups of water.
“My parents,” Brendan realized, grabbing his phone.
“Don’t bother,” the woman said. She drank her water and poured herself more. “They won’t go after someone as well protected as your father.”
“Are you certain?”
“Real cases of violence at night off campus are far less suspicious than a well-protected lawyer known for specifically going after dangerous cases.”
Brendan remained tense, and Aiden allowed an ounce of courage to put his hand on Brendan’s shoulder. He relaxed when Brendan heaved a sigh of resignation. Sipping at his water, he turned his attention back to the woman. “Do I still call you Mindy?”
“You can call me Celia.”
He eyed the necklace holding the ring steadfastly clasped around her neck. “What was your relationship to my brother? It seemed like you two were dating.”
Celia blinked a few times before bursting out in laughter, almost dropping her water in the process. Coughing, she put the cup down. “I suppose you could call it that, but that’s not exactly accurate. I did everything for him.”
Aiden stared. “He hired you?”
“Well, yes, of course money was involved, but it wasn’t some one-off mission.
” She played with the ring. “Whatever he wished, I granted. Did he want someone dead? I killed them. Did he want to put someone in a compromising position to blackmail? I made it happen. Did he want someone to rescue his younger brother without having to dirty his hands directly? I shot and tortured the kidnapper.”
The sound of gunshots echoed in Aiden’s ears, and he jumped at remembering how the kidnapper collapsed in pain when the first bullet struck.
Hands trembling, he traced the disaster starting from his last trip in Hong Kong.
He lowered his eyes, chest burning in pain.
“Thank you for saving me twice,” he whispered.
“Thank your brother.”
Her words lingered in the air.
Fury burned away the despair. He snapped his head up. His hands gripped the edge of the countertop till his skin turned white, and he gritted his teeth to keep himself from flying to the display of kitchen knives, grabbing one of them, and storming out the door to confront what he suspected.
“My stepmother is the one betraying Infinite. Not only did she kill my brother, but I am certain she is the one who’s leaking information to law enforcement,” he announced.
His fingers dug harder into the countertop.
“She was stalking him and taking pictures. No good person would do something like that. You were in them as well, but I don’t think she recognized you were all the women. ”
“Yes, and it’s a good thing she didn’t. I wouldn’t have the ability to rescue you or Prince Charming over there." She gestured to Brendan, who drank his water.
I knew it. He knocked over the stool on which he sat.
“What does she get out of this? That was the only question I couldn’t answer.
She’s not separating her children from Infinite—if anything, she’s entangling them in it.
Why would she even need to kill my brother if she’s betraying Infinite?
His death set Infinite on edge, so she made things worse. Do you understand her at all?”
“Well…” Celia continued playing with the ring. “Your stepmother did manage to outsmart your brother and me. She did kill him. But…” The ring dropped from her hand. “She’s not Infinite’s traitor.”
Aiden blanched. “I don’t follow?”
Sensing some unspoken cue, Brendan moved from his seat and placed the knocked over stool back in position.
Celia gestured to the stool behind Aiden. “You’ll want to sit down for this.”