Chapter 2
Kai
I felt my impatience rising, thick and sour in my throat. The stale air inside the car made me want to throw up. The leather seats had been baking beneath the Hong Kong heat for too long, releasing that faint, expensive smell of leather and car perfume that normally wouldn’t have bothered me.
Today, it felt suffocating.
The air-conditioning hummed steadily overhead, but barely seemed to reach the back seat. My black suit jacket felt too tight across my shoulders, and the crisp white collar of my shirt dug into my neck. Even my black silk tie seemed determined to choke me.
I’d said it more than once—bringing Huan Huan here wasn’t a good idea. But Lucy had insisted.
It was the little girl’s first official public outing. Good exposure. Good optics. And Hong Kong media did what they did best—digging through people’s privacy, airing dirty laundry like it belonged to them. Lucy and I both knew that.
We could actually use it. Let them think they’d stolen a glimpse. Let them believe they’d managed to capture our daughter’s face when no one else had.
Tomorrow, there would be headlines—something polished, something warm.
Happy family.
The thought almost made me laugh. The image we were selling was so perfectly constructed that even I sometimes forgot how much of it was an act.
“Can you stop her from crying?” I muttered.
“I’m sorry, Kai, but we can’t just give her whatever she wants,” Lucy sighed.
I cut her off. “Yes, that thing you’ve been trying for weeks? It clearly isn’t working. Didn’t take a genius to figure that out.”
“I—” She stopped herself and fell silent. “That was mean.”
I exhaled, rubbing a hand over my face. “Sorry.”
I loosened my black tie and hit the button to lower the window. I stuck my head out like a dog, but the car wasn’t moving.
No wind. Just heat pressing against my face, thick and damp against my skin. Somewhere beyond the tinted glass, traffic horns blared, engines growled, and voices rose and fell in a constant stream.
Dave said something. Lucy did too. But the street noise swallowed their voices whole.
“We’re not far, right? I’m walking.”
I didn’t need to see their faces to know the objections were coming. But it wasn’t a question. It was a decision.
Dave stepped out beside me, slightly behind, holding the umbrella over me instead of himself. Behind us, Lucy struggled to gather her things, lifting Huan Huan from the car seat and calling my name.
“Is it hot today?” I asked. “I couldn’t breathe in there.”
I glanced at Dave, but his frown wasn’t the answer I wanted.
“Are you feeling all right, sir?”
I nodded. Whatever I was feeling, it had nothing to do with the weather. The sky was thick with clouds, heavy and gray—rain waiting to fall. The umbrella was probably for that. Or maybe for shade.
People had done stranger things for my well-being since the abduction. I’d stopped asking why. It rarely made sense.
“We didn’t have to come today,” Dave said, catching up beside me.
“I had to.” I held his gaze, letting him study my face—the real reason he was walking shoulder to shoulder with me.
“It’s important I’m here.”
“We didn’t need paparazzi. We could’ve paid for coverage in Shanghai.”
“Of course. And it would look fake.” I gave a short breath of a laugh. “Readers aren’t stupid.”
I knew that better than most. I’d learned from my mother—a master at manipulating the media, selling the world a perfect family that never existed. Even before social media, Hong Kong paparazzi knew how to sell exclusivity.
Secrets. Scandal. People loved dirty laundry.
My pace quickened, but it only made the heat worse. Sweat gathered beneath my collar, and the damp fabric of my shirt clung faintly to the back of my neck. Lucy’s calls to wait faded behind me. Either I’d shaken her off, or she’d given up trying.
A crowd had gathered ahead.
I rose slightly onto my toes, trying to see past them. The sound reached us before we did—a restless mixture of excited voices, camera shutters, and people calling out names. Phones were already raised above heads, their screens flashing as strangers tried to capture whatever had drawn the crowd.
Dave moved closer. Two more security men rushed in, forming a tight circle around me, arms out as they pushed bodies back. People turned and stared.
Then the pushing started.
Security or not, they were still human. The youngest guard—barely six months into the job—lost his footing and fell into me. Dave caught him mid-fall, shoving him upright again before he could crash into me.
Dave shot him a look. The kid stiffened instantly, pushing harder now, desperate to avoid the scolding he knew was coming.
I turned around, trying to spot Lucy and Huan Huan, but the crowd had swallowed them whole the moment we pushed through. Bodies pressed in from every side. Shoulders bumped against mine. Someone’s camera struck my arm.
For a second, panic tightened in my chest. This must be what it felt like in a zombie apocalypse—that moment when people got separated and you knew, knew, that was how they died.
Oh God. I felt like I had already failed.
As a husband. As a father. As the man who was supposed to protect his family.
“How’s Huan?” I shouted, twisting my head toward Dave, forcing my voice through the traffic noise and the rising murmur of the crowd.
“Mrs. Li’s team will handle them,” Dave answered, steady as ever, like the world wasn’t tilting under my feet.
A long minute of shoving, squeezing, and breathless jostling later, we broke through. We stood at the center of the disturbance. The reason everyone had gathered.
“Kai.” Every hair on the back of my neck rose.
That voice. A voice that had lived only in my dreams for the past year.
“June.”
Her name left my mouth before my brain caught up. Maybe this was a dream. Maybe I was hallucinating from the heat, from the pressure in my skull.
And she was there. Right in front of me. Real. Breathing.
I had known she would be here. But knowing and seeing were two different things.
She looked… wrong. Not physically, not exactly. She was still beautiful—painfully so—but the light in her seemed dimmed, like someone had turned down her brightness. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. Her shoulders carried something heavy, invisible.
A few strands of hair had escaped around her face, stirred by the damp breeze, and there was a faint flush across her cheeks from the heat.
My stomach twisted, and it took everything in me not to step forward and pull her into my arms.
Behind her, in the middle of the road, a cluster of men stood over someone curled on the ground. A few cars had stopped at the roadside, their engines idling while curious onlookers gathered behind the security barriers.
“What happened?” The words fell out of me, instinctive.
“Nothing important,” Dannie’s voice cut in smoothly. I hadn’t even registered him until then. He stepped closer, offering a hand. “Good of you to come.”
“Condolences,” I said, taking his hand. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
His palm was warm despite the coolness settling into the air. He pulled me into a hug. His arms were firm, but there was a tremor there—strength wrapped around something fragile.
I caught the faint scent of his cologne, mixed with cigarette smoke and the sharp sweetness of incense clinging to his black suit.
“Come inside,” he murmured.
I glanced again toward the road. “And that… if you needed help—”
“Just an idiot causing a scene,” Dannie replied, his expression smooth, unreadable. “No reason to dirty your hands.”
“Hey, guys.” Lucy’s hand slipped into mine from behind, warm, grounding. I glanced down at our hands. Her fingers curled naturally around mine, the simple gesture reminding me of the image we were supposed to present: husband and wife, parents, a family standing together during a difficult time.
“Sorry we’re late. Traffic was…” Lucy hugged Dannie politely, still holding onto me like an anchor. Then she gave June a careful smile. “Nice to see you.”
Dannie moved beside June, his arm sliding around her shoulders. He squeezed gently, reassuring her, then leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead, whispering something only she could hear.
Something inside me burned—fast and ugly. I looked away before the heat in my face could betray me.
“Right,” June said, her voice distant, almost mechanical. “Come.”
She walked ahead of us, and we followed.
“You look well,” Lucy offered.
It sounded polite, necessary but not entirely true.
Lucy was good at occasions like this. Social, polished, always knowing exactly what to say.
She knew how to make people feel at ease, how to keep a conversation moving, how to say the right thing without saying too much.
Everything I could have asked for in a wife.
The truth was, June looked thinner. Tired. Like sleep had become a stranger.
She paused mid-step, glancing at Huan Huan. “How old is your little one?”
“Almost eighteen months.” Lucy answered without a pause.
“Oh.” That was all she said as Huan’s nanny and security finally caught up. Her eyes flick toward them—the quiet judgment, the unspoken question.
A child this young needs this much protection?
I hadn’t wanted it either. But Lucy had insisted. This wasn’t a place where she could risk Huan Huan safety. And I couldn’t exactly argue with that.
We moved down the long entrance path, wreaths lining both sides—white flowers, yellow chrysanthemums, black ribbons fluttering in the rising wind. The stone beneath our feet was darkened by the first drops of rain, and the wind carried the scent of wet earth through the open courtyard.
Behind the wreaths stood cameras. Long lenses peered through the gaps like silent witnesses.
They didn’t step forward. Didn’t shout. They simply observed. Recorded. Then the questions came. About me. My wife. The little girl.