Chapter 2 #2
I ignored them all. They would write whatever they wanted. Spin whatever story fit their narrative. Build a scandal from a single glance. I wasn’t about to give them anything extra—not a quote, not a nod, not even a stray expression they could twist into a headline.
We stopped before the altar.
It towered over the hall—a grand Buddhist funeral altar draped in white and gold silk, framed by dark carved wood stained from years of incense smoke. Somewhere near the altar, a monk murmured prayers beneath his breath, the low chanting blending with the occasional chime of a handbell.
June handed us incense.
We followed the directions of the funeral attendant standing beside the microphone. He announced our arrival, then guided us through the ritual. We placed the incense into the large bronze bowl, its ash already thick with the offerings of hundreds before us.
My gaze lifted to the portraits. Two framed photographs rested side by side—one slightly larger, more central.
Auntie Five. And her mother.
Two women. Same family. Same day.
I stared at Auntie Five’s photo—the version of her the world loved. Radiant. Laughing. The kind of woman who didn’t just enter a room, but owned it.
She hadn’t been the most conventionally beautiful—not in Shanghai, where perfection was practically manufactured—but she had something else.
Fire. Confidence. A kind of reckless charm that made powerful men stupid.
I remembered the stories. The suitors. The drama. The way my mother and her friends whispered about her like she was both scandal and aspiration wrapped into one.
Her life after leaving Shanghai hadn’t been kind.
Three marriages. Three expensive divorces. Each one stripping something away.
Then my eyes moved to the larger portrait.
Her mother. Quiet. Reserved. A woman who had only ever loved one man.
Auntie Five used to mock that. Said her mother had lived like an old-world queen, while she herself was Princess Margaret—scandalous, modern, untouchable.
Now both of them were gone.
“Heart attacks.” The official explanation. Ridiculous.
The hall buzzed with restrained speculation. No one said it out loud, but the disbelief hung thick in the air.
June didn’t sit with the family. She chose a seat among the guests.
My feet moved before my mind could stop them. I stopped in front of the woman seated beside her. She understood immediately and stood, surrendering the seat.
I sat.
“Heart attacks, huh?” I said lightly, as if we were discussing the weather. The words sounded almost casual beneath the low murmur of conversation around us, but the heavy scent of incense made the back of my throat tighten.
Lucy and Huan Huan settled several seats away with the nanny, Huan Huan’s small voice occasionally rising above the solemn chanting before being quickly hushed.
“Car accident would’ve made more sense,” June murmured.
I huffed softly. “Cleaner story. Less curiosity. Why didn’t you go with that?”
A faint curve touched her lips. Her fingers remained folded loosely in her lap, but I noticed how tightly she held them together, knuckles pale beneath the soft funeral hall lighting.
“I think they want people to talk.”
I glanced at her. “Really?”
She studied me, something unreadable in her eyes. “Do you honestly think I’m involved in triad business?”
“No.” The real answer was more complicated. I didn’t know what June saw in Dannie and I probably never would. And I had no right to judge what kind of man she chose now.
Dannie might not have the cleanest life. But he gave her something I never had the strength to.
Protection. Certainty. The feeling that she was the center of someone’s world—not an afterthought behind duty, family, and obligation.
And maybe that was what love looked like to her now.
“But one day you might need to.” The words came out before I could stop them.
I was impressed that Dannie had managed to keep June this removed from his family’s world. That was something I’d never been able to do—not with anyone. Lucy knew exactly what kind of life she’d married into. Our arrangement had never required illusions.
“Need what?” she asked.
“To get involved.”
Her silence settled over us like a reprimand. Not loud, not dramatic—just cold, disappointed. The kind elders used when you’d spoken out of turn.
I could feel the weight of it even without looking directly at her. I liked to pretend I didn’t care what people thought of me anymore. Clearly, that didn’t apply to her.
“Laura…” June’s lips parted, but the rest of the thought dissolved.
“Dannie’s sister?” I searched my memory. That was the only Laura connected to this world. “What about her?”
“She’s changed.” Her breath trembled. “I couldn’t…” She swallowed, the movement visibly painful. “I couldn’t just let her…” Another breath, sharp and uneven. “Do that. To him.”
The pieces clicked. The man in the road. The circle of bodies. The violence I’d glimpsed but pretended not to see.
“What actually happened?” I asked, keeping my voice low, careful. My hand moved to her back without thinking. “Do you want to tell me?”
“You were right,” she said—and the admission stunned me. “I got involved.” A small, bitter exhale escaped her. “Whether I liked it or not.”
So she and Laura had clashed. The “man” she mentioned must’ve been the one curled on the ground earlier. And the men around him… they hadn’t just been restraining him.
They’d been making an example.
My mind assembled the scene the way detectives probably did—fragments, patterns, motive.
“He didn’t…” I chose each word carefully, watching her face. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
She pulled back, shaking off my hand. “No. He didn’t.”
But something had happened. June didn’t lie unless she had to. She simply withheld.
“He did something.” I said quietly.
Not a question. She didn’t answer.
Instead, she turned toward me, her body angled just enough to remind me of the last time we stood this close—the stolen moment, the one I’d taken for myself because I needed something to survive on.
A memory. A goodbye. A promise that I’d never see her again.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Dannie invited me.”
Her brows pulled together. “To a funeral?”
“Yes.” Too fast. “No—not like that.”
The pause that followed said everything. She didn’t want me here. That made two of us.
“But why?”
“Because I wanted him to.” The voice came from behind us—calm, steady, impossible to ignore.
Dannie.
I looked up slowly. He wasn’t dressed like a grieving grandson. No red eyes. No slumped shoulders. His black suit fit like armor, crisp and deliberate. The white funeral light caught the sharp line of his collar and the silver edge of his cufflink.
The incense smoke drifting between us softened nothing about him. He looked composed, almost untouched by grief—the kind of composure you wore when weakness could get you killed.
“I thought it would be good,” he continued, stepping closer, “for family to be together today.”
Family.
The word sat wrong in my chest.
He reached into the inside pocket of his suit. My shoulders locked. Dave shifted behind me. Across the hall, two of Dannie’s men straightened, their attention snapping toward us.
Not a weapon.
An envelope. Cream. Unmarked. Thick.
He held it out to me.
“I was going to tell you after the ceremony,” he said. “But since you’re already asking questions…”
The air felt thinner. I didn’t want to take it, which meant I had to. My fingers closed around the envelope, its weight strangely heavy in my hand.
“Open it later,” Dannie added. “Not here.”
“What is it?”
“Something that belongs to you.” His eyes never left mine. “Something your mother never told you.”