Chapter 30 Ares
Ares
Ares has envisioned this scene a thousand times over, in a thousand different ways. But nothing could have prepared him for
the reality of it, for the moment he steps out of the DiDi and takes two steps down the street and stops. It’s a rich neighborhood,
the illuminated villas sprawled out in a way that reminds him of the American suburbs he’s seen in movies. He’s never been
here before, and barely has time to wonder why Long Ge would choose this place in particular when another car door slams shut
in the distance, and the boy appears as if from a dream.
His brother.
Ares feels the ground wobble beneath him.
He’d glimpsed Luke’s face in the vision, but the difference is more pronounced than ever in real life.
He’s no longer a child. Most of the softness has dissolved from his face, his hair has been cropped short, and he must’ve grown six inches since they last saw each other.
He’s almost as tall as Ares now, though it’s hard to judge exactly from here.
Something’s changed about his eyes too. They’re darker, difficult to read; before, Ares would only need to take one glance at his brother to know what he was thinking.
Then he says, “Ge?”
Not Gege anymore, just Ge. His voice is deeper, but it’s not a stranger’s voice either.
“Luke,” Ares says. He should’ve prepared a speech, there’s so much he wants to ask his brother, starting and ending with Sorry, I’m so sorry, I fucked up, but he finds himself at a complete loss for words. “Luke—I—”
“Not so fast,” Long Ge calls out pleasantly, coming to stand beside Luke. His hand sets itself on Luke’s shoulder, and Luke
flinches. There’s a lit cigarette dangling from his other fingers, and he blows out a puff of smoke, whitening the night air,
before he says, “Give me the contract first.”
Ares retrieves the crumpled contract from his pocket. “I have it here.”
“Signed?” Long Ge presses.
Forged. But once Ares gives him the contract, he’ll take his brother and they’ll escape together.
“As promised,” Ares says, fighting to keep his voice calm. He’s so close now. He approaches Long Ge slowly, the way you’d
approach a beast in a cage. He hands the contract over. Breathes in.
Then he grabs hold of his brother’s hand, and there’s one terrifying, heart-stopping second where he half expects his brother to shake him off, to turn his back on him, to blame him for what happened, those stupid, thoughtless words he’s regretted every night since.
Can you just leave me alone for once? A moment where he wonders if he’d been presumptuous to think his brother even wants to go back with him.
But then Luke squeezes his hand, and he wants to sink to the ground with relief.
“Let’s go,” he urges, and they’re sprinting down the street, and Long Ge yells something after them, and he makes the mistake
of glancing back. Long Ge’s dropped the contract—must have figured out it was fake—and is chasing them, and he’s so much faster
than Ares expected, and he realizes, with a crush of despair, that this won’t work. “Leave without me,” he tells his brother.
“I’ll meet you back at our old house.”
Luke’s eyes are wide with fear, and all of a sudden he looks closer to his thirteen-year-old self, the boy who ran away. “No,
Ge—”
“Listen to me,” Ares says. “Now. There’s no time.”
He hears his brother’s footsteps slapping against the concrete, fading away into the distance while Long Ge’s footsteps draw
closer and closer. He holds his ground, remembers everything he learned during those fights in the ring, and turns.
He slams his fist into Long Ge’s face, and he’s never enjoyed violence before, but there’s something awfully satisfying about
this. The darkness cloaks their movements as he shoves Long Ge down. He punches until his hands are numb, and he thinks he
might be bleeding too, but that’s normal for him these days. He can feel Long Ge struggling underneath him, and it really
is just like any fight. Hold on for long enough and his opponent will stay down. He imagines the crowd chanting around them.
Five . . . four . . .
Three . . .
Two . . .
Long Ge is shaking. No, laughing. A wild, unnerving noise that sends a chill through Ares, almost a wheezing, as if the man
has lost his mind completely. Or maybe he has. When Ares stares down at him, Long Ge stares right back, a bruise already swelling
on his temple, fresh blood glistening on his teeth.
“You think it’s that simple?” he asks, laughing louder, the sound reverberating through his body. “You can just trick me and
run away with your brother?”
Ares feels suddenly very frightened, but of what, he doesn’t know. He’s still pinning the man in place, but it’s as if their
positions are reversed, and he’s the one frozen, back pressed to the ground, unable to move or even breathe.
“I made my instructions very clear,” Long Ge goes on, his black eyes gleaming. Ares can make out his own reflection in them,
distorted, and he’s struck by how young he looks, not that much older than Luke. “I wanted to play fair, be nice, give the
boy a chance and so on. I have been extraordinarily generous, you know. Made it so, so easy for you. All you had to do was
convince your little girlfriend to do this one thing, and you couldn’t even manage that. Useless, compared to your little
brother.”
The words land like a slap. Useless, compared to your little brother. No doubt what his own father had thought, often, or maybe every time he looked at them together. His sweet, clever, beloved
son, and—that other one. Useless. Something wrong with him. A mistake.
Ares’s fingers are going numb and cold, too cold, but he doesn’t release his grip on the man. “Well, it wouldn’t have worked anyway,” he says.
“What?”
“What did you imagine would happen?” Ares says, more to buy himself time than anything, assemble the thoughts in his head,
which feels like an overheated computer, the fans whirring loudly but feebly. “If she had actually signed the contract? You
believe she would have fallen in love with you? She works with you long days and nights, you rope her into your life, she’s
impressed by this empire you built, and the two of you live happily ever after?”
For the first time, something human flickers in Long Ge’s expression. Then rage flashes. “You don’t understand the situation,”
he snaps. “You don’t understand her.”
“And you do?”
“I love her more than anyone else in the world,” Long Ge says vehemently. “I love her, I’ve loved her my whole life, I love
her so much I would cut off my own arm if it made her happy. And if she just spent more time around me now, she’d realize
that I’m the best person for her. I’m not that awkward, pathetic little boy who lost fights in the schoolyard. I taught myself
to be charming, cultured. I have money now, ten properties, hundreds of men who’ll do my very bidding. My companies are worth
far more than the nightclubs that scumbag ex-husband of hers has opened up—”
Ares is still staring down at the man, and watching him, hearing the desperation in his voice as he describes this warped fantasy, he experiences a surge of something utterly unexpected: pity.
All this work. The Cave, the empire he’s built for himself, the suit and hair. Just to impress a woman he knew decades ago,
a woman who wouldn’t even spend that much time with him unless a legally binding contract demanded she do so.
Long Ge must see the pity in his face too, because his features twist. “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t you dare—” He struggles
again under Ares, breathing hard. “She’ll see,” he says. “She’s starting to see already, now that the divorce news is out—”
“That was you?” Ares demands. “You leaked the news. You did that to her.” To Chanel too. He remembers, painfully, how she had arrived at
school the morning the news broke, how hard she’d tried to act nonchalant, like it didn’t affect her, like nothing could.
But Long Ge doesn’t show any sign of shame. “The news was going to leak eventually. I just needed to move things along, to
make her understand. When she has nobody else left, nobody else to love her, comfort her, hold her, protect her, she’ll realize
she has only me, that it’s been me all along. I just need to clear away the obstacles.”
Again, the terror, juddering through Ares. Clear away the obstacles. What does he mean, what could he—
Long Ge reaches into his pocket and pulls out a lighter, an open flame dancing from the end, and Ares’s vision flashes white.
No. He lunges for it, yanks the lighter out of Long Ge’s grip, holding it so tight in his own hand that his nails dig into the flesh of his palm, but Long Ge doesn’t even try to resist. He’s started laughing again, bloodied spittle flying from his lips.
“This lighter’s just for my cigarette,” he says. “But don’t worry, you’ll see what a real fire looks like soon enough.”
A spark catches his eye. Ares glances wildly to his left, just in time to spot a masked figure slip out through the front
yard of a villa. One of Long Ge’s men, stationed there in secret all along.
“I’m sorry about your girlfriend,” Long Ge says, baring his teeth in a horrible smile. “But again, we could have gone about
this the peaceful way. You chose not to listen.”
And Ares watches it happen. Watches the fire catch.
The sky is burning.
Smoke wafts up over the roof, spreading fast through the glowing orange haze.
Someone screams from inside the house.
Chanel.