Chapter 21 #2
But as the constant keeper of her clan’s secrets, Lola Sun knew Cristiano Baccay in a way no one else did. And she was beginning
to suspect a potential secret of his, as explosive as napalm.
“April,” she said, “you always said you were done having kids after Meadow. What changed your mind?”
April was startled by this question. “I mean . . . I never really changed my mind. This pregnancy just sorta happened, I guess.”
“What do you mean, ‘sorta happened’?”
April struggled to remember that fateful night of their annual party. The truth was, every time she thought of that night,
when Cristiano helped her flood the Malibu compound, what happened afterward seemed to exist only in the dark recesses of
her memory.
April involuntarily shuddered. “The night of the Lunar New Year party . . . I felt dizzy and wandered into the guava orchard.
And Cris . . .”
“He followed you?” Lola asked. She was gnawing on her lower lip, her mind churning.
April nodded. “Yes, but I don’t remember much after that. I mean, I did drink a little, but I’ve never blacked out like that
before.” She sighed and then placed a hand on her stomach. “Anyway, he and I haven’t had sex since that night, yet here we
are.”
Lola was back to staring at Cristiano, her black eyes bright with epiphany. “Yes,” she said. “Here we are.”
Three floors down from the rooftop mixer, Roses had not even changed yet for the festivities. Half undressed, her hair unkempt,
she stared blankly out the window of her suite, only seeing white.
The door opened and she turned to watch Galahad enter in marigold-yellow robes, carrying two steaming mugs of tea. He sat down next to her, offering her a cup.
“Mrs. Sun,” he said gently. “We should go up and greet your family. Everyone is waiting for you.”
“Waiting for me?” Roses said, closing her eyes. “They all hate me. They always have.”
“Mrs. Sun, I encourage you to stay resolute. We have done everything right. Some of it was not easy, but all of it was necessary.”
“Then why, Galahad?” Roses stared at him wide-eyed. “Why did my father appear to me as a jiangshi? What if there is nothing
I can do to appease him? What if . . .?” She gulped. “What if he has blamed me for losing his ashes all along?”
Galahad was about to respond when the door opened again. Teddy walked in, his face bright from the commotion upstairs.
“Rosie,” he said, smiling. “April is here. You need to talk to your daughter.”
Roses shook her head. “I don’t want to fight with her. I don’t have it in me today.”
“No, Rosie!” Teddy got on his knees to look up at his wife. “Trust me, you want to see her.”
“What is going on?” Galahad asked—because for once, the all-knowing holy man did not know.
Teddy grasped Roses’s hands. “April is eight months pregnant! It’s a little boy!”
Roses gasped.
Now abandoned on the rooftop atrium, Shannon watched as everyone surrounded April, lauding her gargantuan bump. Shannon let
out an annoyed huff. Such attention was wasted on April Sun, considering how miserable she looked.
Bored, Shannon decided to leave. She had shown her face and done the bare minimum to contribute to the evening. Besides, there was better fun to be had in her bedroom. She headed down the stairs.
When she got to her individual room, she looked up and down the hall to see that she was alone. Then she knocked a secret
code on the door.
There was the sound of footsteps approaching. The door unlocked with a click and she was pulled inside by . . .
Fenix pressed his lips against Shannon’s as the couple slammed the door shut behind them. They fell upon the bed, laughing.
“Downright brazen,” Fenix said, “you sneaking me in.”
“This house is big enough for a hundred secret lovers,” Shannon giggled as she peeled off her yoga pants. “Besides, the idea
of getting caught is so hot!”
Cristiano was still drinking cheerfully with Sunbern at the rooftop bar when Lola came up to him.
“Cristiano,” said the baby cousin. “Let’s have a word.”
“Ooh, somebody’s in trouble,” Sunbern jeered.
Cristiano laughed good-naturedly, but as he followed Lola to the firepit, his smile was already faltering.
Lola wasted no time. “Months ago, you asked me to meet you at a gas station near the Malibu compound, and you made a very
strange request. You asked me to find you some GHB. Why did you want it, and what did you do with it?”
Cristiano did a double-take. “What do you mean?”
Lola glared up at him. “Cristiano, we’ve had a special understanding for many years. Back when you lived with Roses, you were
helpful in supplying me information from the Malibu compound, and I in turn did you a favor and got you something you wanted.
I didn’t ask why.”
Cristiano frowned. “Yes, and why start now?”
“Because now the timing of your request is aligning with something that I find very disturbing.”
Cristiano tried to keep his composure, but next to the heat of the fire, he was beginning to sweat. “C’mon, Lo,” he said.
“What are you trying to say?”
“I dropped off the GHB with you at the Malibu compound a few days before Lunar New Year,” Lola recounted. “And I just now
learned from April that you two had sex at the annual party . . . except she doesn’t remember it.”
“Lo,” Cristiano said with a forced laugh, “it was a party, we had all been drinking and—”
“You and I both know that April has the tolerance of an old pirate,” Lola interrupted, “and I’ve never heard of her blacking
out. But GHB in big doses can be a date-rape drug.”
Cristiano was looking around frantically, making sure no one was listening. “Lo, listen to yourself! We’ve known each other
since we were kids!”
“Yes,” Lola said. “And my entire life, I’ve known you as desperate to be a part of my family. Befriending Wayward. Pursuing
April. Colluding with me.”
Cristiano wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “This is insulting,” he said, and turned to leave.
But Lola was relentless and grabbed him by the arm. “When you had sex with my cousin in Auntie Roses’s guava orchard, was
it consensual?”
Cristiano’s handsome face was as red as the embers in the fire next to them. He spoke in a hoarse whisper. “If you’re asking
me whether I roofied my own damn wife, I can prove to you I didn’t. I still have the GHB.”
Lola squinted at him in disbelief. “You keep it on you?”
“I have an eight-year-old, okay?” Cristiano snapped. “Of course I keep it on me. I hid it in my wallet ages ago, and I actually
completely forgot about it until you just brought it up.”
Lola glowered at him. “I don’t believe you. I’m telling April. I’m going to tell her what you did to her.” She turned but Cristiano pulled her back, his eyes now wide and pleading.
“C’mon, Lo,” he begged. “On Meadow’s life, I swear it’s the truth. Ape is nearly due and very emotionally fragile. Please,
just come with me and you’ll see this is all a misunderstanding.”
Lola looked over at April, who was talking quietly with Wayward, and then relented. “Fine,” she said. “Where is it?”
“My wallet’s in our room,” Cristiano said.
“Lead the way.”
Cristiano opened the passageway to the stairs, and gestured for Lola to go first. They descended to the fifth floor, walking
down the hall to the spiral staircase, and then they hit the peculiar three-quarters floor, the story of Big Boss Sun’s sanctuary
that consisted of a hallway literally shrinking in size from one wing to the other.
Cristiano pointed down that hallway. “It’s faster down the other wing’s stairs.”
He and Lola walked side by side toward it. “Thank you, Lo,” he said. “For trusting me.”
Lola shrugged. “Don’t speak too soon.”
Cristiano had to stoop over as the hallway grew shorter and shorter. There was only one door on this strange floor, nondescript
except for a big red X taped across it.
Lola knew this door as well as Cristiano did. It was the most perilous eccentricity in the Big Bear sanctuary. She stopped
a few paces in front of it as she realized what was about to happen.
But she was too late. Looming over her, Cristiano grabbed her by the collar of her leather jacket with a powerful, inescapable
grip. With his other hand, he wrenched the door open, breaking its rusted lock. A whoosh of cold stale air stung both their
eyes as it rushed in from an immediate drop into the belly of the sanctuary.
“Cris!” Lola gasped, pushing helplessly against his muscular body as he turned her toward the empty void.
“She’s my wife, Lo,” Cristiano growled. “Everything between us is consensual.”
With that, Cristiano Baccay shoved Lola Sun through the opened door with all his might. She plunged into blackness.
In the same lightning-fast motion, he shut the door, and pressed his ear against it.
He listened as the baby cousin fell, fell, and fell . . .
Five and three-quarters floors, all the way down to the basement. When he heard the echoing of a fatal thud, he let out a
ragged gasp.
Cristiano leaned against the infamous trapdoor of the sanctuary, breathing heavily as he stared at his trembling hands. He
let out a few more long controlled breaths, calming himself down.
Once he was still again, he stood back up, smoothing back his hair with his hand.
“I’m so sorry, Lola,” he said quietly.
Then he walked back up to the rooftop as though nothing had happened. He would look for her body later.
Roses had finally put herself together, dressed in an elegant pantsuit, her long hair tied into a ponytail draped over her
shoulder, when Wayward, April, and Cristiano entered.
Roses took in her daughter, who was indeed very pregnant. The Sun matriarch smiled. “Please, sit, sit!” she said as she motioned
to a trio of chairs backlit by the approaching evening outside.
Wayward felt a delicate tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Galahad, as disarmingly pretty as ever.
“Let’s give them some privacy, shall we?” Galahad said.
That’s funny coming from you, Wayward thought.
When they were outside Roses’s suite, Wayward turned to go, but Galahad stepped in his way.