Chapter 6 #2
outside the restroom door and one could only hear Sunbern and Shannon’s passionate throes as they screamed each other’s names.
April did not put it past those media monsters to put out an actual sex tape at any moment, but for now she had to call a
hoe a hoe.
Calm yourself, Roses replied. It’s no use losing our heads. Those two are their own worst enemies. I don’t think we should get involved again.
April perked up, suddenly intrigued. Involved? Again? How so? She pressed the receiver so hard into her ear it hurt.
Hyacinth was still distraught. And why not? What if—Lord Father in Heaven forbid—what if they are back together for good?
Roses was losing patience. Little Sister, when we destroyed your son’s reputation and career by releasing his audio, do you remember what you said to
me? That this was the nuclear option? That it was akin to a mother shooting her child? Tell me, what more can we do beyond
that?
Stunned into paralysis, April put her mother’s fainting couch to its intended use as she collapsed upon it, her jaw dropping at this discovery. Her mother and her Aunt Hyacinth were the architects of Sunbern’s cancellation!?
April had always theorized that one of Sunbern’s many toxic friends had sabotaged him by secretly recording him, but she never
would have guessed that the leaked audio had been masterminded within their own family!
April could hear Hyacinth softly crying. There were a couple weeks after that, Hyacinth sniffled, where he came with me to church. He was humbled for a moment. I thought he would finally accept Jesus and be saved.
Roses sighed. Our children are no longer children. They can only be saved if they want it. There was a pause. Then: If it makes you feel better, you can consult with _______ to see if there is anything else to be done.
And here was where April’s limited grasp of Taiwanese finally failed her. She did not understand who her mother was referring
to, whether she had said a name or some sort of title. It sounded like Roses had said “Theo G,” whoever or whatever that was.
It also did not help that the phone line just happened to crackle at that moment.
April’s mind was racing. Who was this third coconspirator Theo G in such a cruel plot against Sunbern?
Hyacinth mumbled some sort of agreement to this, then Roses said, I have to get ready for work. I have an early meeting. Try to relax and I will check on you later.
The two sisters hung up, and April carefully followed suit. She stayed in the dressing room until she heard her mother start
the shower, then she crept out of the bedroom and back down the stairs. As promised, she was going to tell her Aunt Iris everything
she had just heard.
When April reentered her bedroom, Meadow was jumping up and down on the bed mercilessly over Cristiano, who was hiding his
face under a pillow. Upon seeing her mother, Meadow rushed out of the room and down the stairs, yelling for her breakfast.
April grabbed her Sunfang phone and began texting, but gasped when Cristiano suddenly stood up and snatched it out of her
hands.
“What’s up?” she asked, reaching for her phone, which he held high above his head, so high that he had it pressed against
the ceiling.
“Why don’t you let me make love to you anymore?” Cristiano demanded. His tense tone was so uncharacteristic of him. “Why don’t
you ever let me come inside you?”
“Cris!” April slammed the door shut, stunned by his blunt language. “Do you want the whole house to hear you?”
“What does it matter when they’d all agree with me?” her husband countered. “Ape, we’re both still young and healthy.” He
reached out and she let him wrap his arms around her. “We should be trying for another kid,” her murmured into the top of
her head. “Another little boy.”
Lifting her chin, he tried to kiss her, but she pulled away from him. Unable to look him in the eye, she held out her hand.
“I have to text Auntie Iris about something right away” was all she could say.
His face sullen, Cristiano handed back her phone and left their bedroom, heading downstairs to cook Meadow’s breakfast.
Shaking off the strange outburst, April started texting Iris all of the morning’s discoveries . . . except for the tidbit
about the cryptic Theo G. April decided against it, at least until she figured out who this third accomplice was.
Besides, April already had a strong hunch about this secret identity. After all, she knew very well who the fixer in the Sun
Clan was. She was only surprised because she had always thought her baby cousin genuinely cared about Sunbern, at least in
her own unique way.
April pressed Send on her phone, delivering unto Iris one of their family’s darker secrets. She wondered if little Lola was
truly capable of such cruel measures . . .
And if so, why?
Early in life, Lola discovered the truth about the Suns: They were not a family, but a web. Some of them were flies, and others were spiders.
Her father, George, was a fly. George Sun, the last living man bearing their powerful surname, was supposed to have received
the keys to the Sunfang empire as the rightful heir. Further solidifying his claim, George even married Lola’s mother, Tingting
Fang, the eldest daughter of the Fang Clan, the powerful Shanghainese family that, more than a century ago with the Suns,
had cofounded Sun & Fang Constructions, the predecessor to Sunfang Global.
But unlike his headstrong sisters, George was obedient by nature—a fly who flew where he was told. And despite his pedigree
and his dynasty-solidifying marriage, young George had gotten caught in the tangles of the more calculating spiders around
him.
Born and raised in Shanghai, Lola was barely eight years old when her father shocked the world by stepping down as president
of Sunfang Global, clearing the path for his oldest sister, Roses, to wrest control of the family company as its newly created
CEO and move the headquarters from China to the United States. For years, Lola was too young to fully understand the sheer
ramifications of her father’s resignation, but the first indication to the little girl was that it marked the last time she
ever saw her parents speak to each other.
At their colonial-era villa in the Former French Concession of Shanghai, Lola and her older sister, Felicia, had been in their
playroom while their au pair sneaked a nap, when they heard a loud commotion downstairs. Creeping down the staircase, the
sisters witnessed their mother, Tingting, raging at their father, throwing plate after plate of their good porcelain at him.
George cowered over the computer that he had been assembling, shielding it from his wife’s fury.
You gave up everything! Tingting was screaming, her face soaked with furious tears. How could you be so cowardly? How could you allow your sister to steal our birthright? How could you forfeit everything that
was ours?
George hung his head low, surrounded by his shattered china. What is best for a family is not always best for the individual, he said quietly, his sorry words hissing out of the sides of his mouth. Unlike his mighty father, he was an introvert by
nature, a tinkerer with a knack for tech and computers who had been born with a peculiar lateral lisp.
His esoteric words only enraged his wife even more. With a yell of anguish, Tingting had charged as though to strike him,
but ten-year-old Felicia had sprinted off the staircase between them to shield her father, sobbing uncontrollably.
Please, Mama, please stop! Felicia begged as she wrapped her arms around their father. George buried his face into his older daughter’s shoulder.
Finally abated, their mother dropped the last porcelain plate she was holding, where it broke cleanly in half on the floor.
She sank to the ground, broken as well.
Daughters, forgive me, Tingting wept, for failing to protect you from your father’s weakness. As the sole descendants of both the Suns and the Fangs, you two were
meant to inherit the Sunfang Trust! All of it!
Yes, that was the moment young Lola learned that her father was a fly. Her parents never fought after that day because Tingting
never acknowledged George again.
But for Lola, the fight had just begun. Yes, the Suns were either flies or spiders, and their baby cousin was determined to
be a spider. To her, a spider’s best trait was its pragmatic brutality.
Lola did not have the luxury of pondering the significance of lofty concepts like her Aunt Roses’s superstitions.
She didn’t care whether hungry ghosts were real or not.
But she did understand that Roses’s blind faith in them could very well be undermined.
Yes, Roses could grandly endorse Wayward and encourage him to have a son, but that would take time—even the most expedited IVF process could never beat the real thing.
Her father, George, had never produced a son, and Big Boss Sun’s will had been clear: “In the event that I do not have a paternal
grandson by blood, the first male child to be born of any of my grandchildren shall inherit the Sunfang Trust.”
“The first male child.” All Lola had to do was beat Roses and Wayward to it.
Like the pragmatic spider using its surrounding resources to build its web and catch its rewards, Lola was going to best the
Sun matriarch at her own game.
“I mean . . . no offense, but do you have, like, references?”
Lola snapped out of her childhood echoes as Shannon Shoo’s gravelly vocal fry scraped against her ears. Lola shot daggers
at Sunbern. He had reassured Lola that Shannon had already agreed to everything—what the heck was this about references?
Sitting on piles of musty Persian pillows, the three of them were meeting in the most incognito place Lola could think of:
a hookah lounge in Mid City before noon. Sure enough, it was empty except for them. Still, she had insisted they all wear
hoodies and sunglasses. Now that Sunbern and Shannon were trending again, the last thing Lola needed was to be photographed