Chapter 22 #3
have murdered him back then!” She tried to lunge at her eldest sister, but Iris held her back firmly. “Admit it, Big Sister!
You were always threatened by Isaac because he was a boy! Back in France, you tried to force me to abort him!”
“Holy shit!” Wayward said, floored by this stampede of family skeletons from the normally zenned-out Hyacinth.
Iris was stroking Hyacinth’s arm, trying to placate her. Little Sister, not in front of the children . . .
“They should know!” Hyacinth cried with a fury that could not be dammed.
“Everyone should know the true nature of Roses Sun! Roses Sun, who never forgave me for having a son when she could not. Roses Sun, who always spread vicious lies about me because I was Big Boss Sun’s favorite.
Roses Sun, who convinced me to destroy Isaac’s career! ”
“That last one was your idea,” Roses countered, albeit weakly. “Yours and Theo G’s.”
Iris’s shrewd eyes subtly raised at the mention of this mysterious name, but she made no other indication.
“Is it any wonder why I never let go of the Sunfang Trust, no matter how many times you threatened me?” Hyacinth continued
her tear-streaked tirade at Roses, the sorrow pouring out of her like a biblical flood. “So then you told all of Los Angeles
that I was in a crazy cult and that I was mind-controlled by SANTI! Well, after you abandoned Big Boss Sun in this house,
it was SANTI who kept our father company here in his last days, not you! Of course I am going to repay SANTI’s kindness by
keeping him out of prison!”
Wayward felt someone at his side and turned to see that Jamaal had arrived to witness the commotion. Without a word, Jamaal
nodded at him, his amber eyes affectionate and supportive. Gratefully, Wayward leaned his body into Jamaal’s, their hands
interlocking between them.
“Roses, you call SANTI a crazy cult leader,” Hyacinth seethed. “You said he was trying to steal the Sunfang Trust. Well, that
‘crazy cult leader’ recently convinced me to let go of the trust! He said it was for the good of Big Boss Sun’s lineage! That
is how selfless he is! And that is why the only crazy cult leader here is you, Roses! You and your goddamn hungry ghosts!”
Roses did not reply, only closing her eyes.
“Mama?”
Everyone redirected their attention to Sunbern as he stirred back to consciousness, wincing as he rubbed his temple with his
fingers. His right eye was swollen shut with a whole spectrum of blues.
“What the hell happened?” he asked, as Hyacinth peppered his forehead with kisses.
Wayward knelt down to smile encouragingly at Sunbern. “Just a bad accident,” he said. “But you’re going to be okay.” He looked
up at Jamaal. “Let’s help him to his room.”
“No, wait!” Sunbern sprung up, suddenly remembering. “Shannon!”
“Shannon’s fine,” Wayward soothed. “Take it easy and don’t worry about . . .”
“NOOO!” Sunbern roared so loudly that everyone jumped. “Shannon’s not fine! Shannon’s fucking lying!”
“Isaac, what are you talking about?” Hyacinth asked. “Lying about what?
Still fast asleep in her bed with her earplugs firmly in place, Shannon was jabbed over and over again on her shoulder until
she finally opened her eyes. As her vision unblurred, she yawned, batting her long lashes luxuriously.
Gawking back at her were Sunbern, his mother, Hyacinth, and Roses Sun. Ever the self-possessed minx, Shannon smiled sweetly
at them. “Oh, hello. Is everything okay?”
One of Sunbern’s eyes was swollen shut, but the other burned like molten honey at her. He held up her fake belly.
Shannon Shoo rolled her eyes. “Oh, fuck.”
Exactly eight minutes later, Shannon was abruptly discharged from the Big Bear sanctuary into a pile of snow. Her wheeled
luggage followed soon after, rolling through the open double doors to skid to a halt beside her. Finally, her fake silicone
belly soared through the air but overshot her, disappearing into the horizon.
Still hobbling, Sunbern shook his fist at her. “You’ve hurt me for the last time, Mooncakes!”
Shannon stood up, swiping the snow off her parka. “Whatever,” she snapped. “This party blew anyway.”
Standing beside Sunbern, Hyacinth was just as distraught. “I don’t understand,” she wailed as all her belief systems crumbled.
“SANTI said that you were the idealized Eve! SANTI renamed us all Shannons! SANTI . . .!”
“SANTI is a walking yeast infection,” Shannon interjected.
“You aren’t fit to speak his name!” Hyacinth screamed.
As Sunbern’s off-again girlfriend and mother yelled at each other, Jamaal leaned over to Wayward. “Isn’t that your mom’s car?”
he asked, pointing in the distance.
Wayward looked. Sure enough, he saw Iris already driving through the car gate, exiting the sanctuary grounds. “Where’s she
going?” he wondered aloud.
Hyacinth was about to charge at Shannon when Roses grasped her by the shoulder. Though Hyacinth shook off Roses’s hand, she
calmed herself.
“Shannon Shoo,” Roses said. “What I don’t understand is why you lied about your pregnancy in the first place, because that
lie had a definite due date. You’ve been involved with our family for nearly a decade. You are many things, but short-sighted
isn’t one of them. What were your intentions here?”
“And it’s not like she was still trying to get pregnant,” Jamaal whispered to Wayward. “Sunbern told me she wouldn’t let him
touch her.”
Shannon opened her mouth to reply to Roses, but Sunbern cut in. “Don’t listen to anything she says! This woman can only lie . . .
and break hearts!” He grabbed the heavy double doors and pulled them shut.
The last thing they saw of Shannon was her domineering smile, and a certain irony in her eyes as dramatic as the approaching
dawn behind her.
As the sanctuary’s front doors slammed shut, Roses, Hyacinth, Sunbern, Jamaal, and Wayward felt no cause for celebration, no shared triumph over their villainess—only a foreboding feeling that the waning night was not yet finished with them.
Roses looked at the grandfather clock in the entrance hall. It was just past five o’clock. She turned to her little sister,
but Hyacinth avoided her, tending to Sunbern instead. “I’m going to try to get some sleep,” the Sun matriarch said to no one,
uncertainly turning back for the stairs.
“Let’s get you some ice and aspirin from the kitchen, Isaac,” Hyacinth said, draping his arm over her shoulder.
Limping alongside his mother, Sunbern looked around, exasperated. “Seriously, where the hell is Lola?”
When they were alone in the entry hall, Jamaal turned to Wayward and leaned down to kiss him. “Earlier I said some harsh things . . .”
he began.
Wayward stood on his toes to kiss Jamaal back. “Everything you said was the truth, J, and I needed to hear it. We’re going
to be dads soon. Somehow I need to break the pattern. I don’t want our kid in this mess.”
“Speaking of our baby,” Jamaal said, arching his amber eyes. “With April gone and Shannon exposed . . .”
Wayward sighed, nodding. “There is no baby boy . . . and no heir to the Sunfang Trust.”
In the basement, one floor beneath Wayward and Jamaal, Houyi Sun was still trying.
With his teeth, the old pit bull pulled at the wires, trying his best to free Lola Sun.
After being pushed by Cristiano Baccay, Lola had indeed plummeted through the infamous trapdoor of the sanctuary, down the
entire height of the building in its fatal fifty-feet drop.
But it just so happened that her fall was miraculously cushioned . . . by a high stack of excess mattresses that had been placed and forgotten in the basement long ago for storage, the very same mattresses that Kat had been unable to locate as she had prepped the bedrooms the previous weekend.
Yet Lola was still in dire straits. Just as she had fallen through the opening into the basement, her body had caught onto
old wires that ran alongside the trapdoor’s shaft. Though the mattresses had softened her landing, the wires had ended up
around her neck, constricting her breathing and knocking her out.
Old Houyi knew that time was running out. He leaned back with all his weight and pulled at the wires so hard that his jaw
was in danger of dislocating. He whimpered in agony but refused to release; he was down to his last ounce of strength, every
worn muscle in his body on fire.
Suddenly, the wires snapped, sending the dog flying backward and Lola wheezing back to life, panting for air as her lungs
got their first full breaths in many hours. Still gasping, Lola rolled off the mattresses, falling onto the cold concrete
floor, grasping at her throat, unsure if she was alive or dead.
She leaned back against a support beam, coughing uncontrollably. But as Houyi came up to lick her face, she held him by the
neck and hugged him. “Thank you.”
Lola Sun was alive.
As Houyi joyously ran back upstairs, she looked around her at the dim basement, groaning in pain. She knew exactly what had
happened to her, and who had done it.
“Cristiano,” the baby cousin whispered to herself, a hellish wrath awakening within her.