A Cinderella Crime Story, page 2
“Visit,” Aiden answered resolutely.
“Then don’t think about my life at all.” His brother leaned forward to Wang Xing. From behind, Aiden could see Wang Xing’s lips twitch in annoyance at the snail-paced traffic. His brother patted Wang Xing on the shoulder with a disarming smile.
The chauffeur relaxed but rolled his eyes. “You don’t pay me enough,” he grumbled.
“For today, Wang Xing, I will give you a raise.”
• • •
“Xiao long bao.” The waitress lifted the bamboo top from the container. A mist of steam floated into the air, and the scent of soup dumplings permeated the room. Aiden’s eyes glowed as the food rolled in—pork buns, shumai, and rice noodle rolls.
He clicked his chopsticks. The second the waitress left, he reached over, picked the dumpling up, and placed it in dipping sauce.
“Careful, it’s hot,” his brother said, but Aiden had already bitten a hole through the dumpling and carefully drank the soup.
Warm and salty flavors of pork that smoothed over like water burst upon his tongue. Aiden sighed longingly, savoring the bite. “I’m never going to get food as good as this back in the States,” he lamented. “Every restaurant makes the long flight worth it.”
“Right?” His brother grabbed sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf.
Aiden could not stop grinning. He reached for a shrimp dumpling to devour when Hui Ye spoke first with a question. “Are you excited to go back?”
He froze in place, chopsticks nearly crushing the shrimp dumpling he picked up. “Yeah, sure. I am. It’ll be fine. Everything will be fine. She’ll stop nagging me about it eventually.” He shoved the dumpling into his mouth and chewed slowly.
His brother leaned back with his eyebrow raised. “I was asking about whether you were excited to start college.”
“Oh.” He stared down at his plate. “You think I’ll make friends there?”
Hui Ye blinked. “Of course. Making friends is easy.”
“Well, if it’s anything like the academy, no, it’s not. It’s all just a game of survival,” Aiden scoffed. He stabbed another shrimp dumpling and dropped it on his plate.
“Use what I taught you. You’ll make friends in no time.”
He swirled the soy sauce with his chopstick. “You mean those lessons about reading people?”
“Yes. They’re not just skills to protect your life.”
What if it doesn’t work that way? Aiden thought, swirling the soy sauce harder. Observe their behavior. Look at their eyes. Eyes don’t hide emotions the way body language can. Listen to the inflections in their voice. Do they lean forward? If they do, they like to lead. Do they lean backward? If they do, they like to insinuate. Like an instruction manual, he repeated the lessons back.
“I’m just scared I’m going to go there, and everything that Yin Mei says is going to come true. That I don’t belong. That I can’t be normal like everyone else. That my place is with Infinite and with the family.” He pulled the shrimp dumpling into pieces with his chopsticks. “Because what am I going to do if she’s right?”
The waitress suddenly entered, and both brothers stopped their conversation and smiled pleasantly. Aiden feigned his gasps at the last three dishes placed on the table and observed the food aloud until she left them alone.
His smile dropped from his face. His hands shook underneath the table. Finally, he looked up into his brother’s eyes. “What if I don’t find my place?”
Hui Ye sighed. He leaned over and squeezed Aiden’s shoulder. “This is going to be your first year. Relax.”
“But—”
“And for the record, you will find other people to belong to.” Hui Ye dropped a shumai, a pork bun, and the last soup dumpling onto his plate. “Have I ever lied to you?”
Aiden shook his head, staring at the food.
“So, believe me when I say you’re okay. Attend those organization fairs. You’ll find a club, and you’ll make a bunch of friends there. I have no doubt about it.”
Aiden slowly nodded. He brought the soup dumpling to his mouth and gently sucked out the soup before eating the dumpling whole. Smooth warmth filled his body.
He looked at his brother’s empty plate. Always thinking of me first. He dropped a rice noodle onto his brother’s plate.
Hui Ye smiled, and the silence wrapped around them like a cozy blanket. The two gorged on the food before them.
• • •
Aiden stumbled into his brother’s apartment, holding his stomach and gasping for air.
With a groan, Hui Ye tossed his keys on the table. “Did you really have to laugh the entire ride back? Wang Xing was getting annoyed.”
“Wang Xing was two seconds away from getting fired for insubordination,” Aiden wheezed, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Should I be concerned that you screamed at every jump scare?”
“I just had my guard down.” Aiden watched Hui Ye’s face. Hui Ye rolled his eyes dramatically, but his embarrassment for not only screaming, but screaming so loudly that Aiden had to plug his ears with his own fingers to drown out the noise, still announced itself to the world through red-tipped ears.
“If people start demanding answers, or if you’re trying to tell a lie, go cold. Act like you don’t care, act like you’ve been through this, and act like everything’s a joke,” Aiden repeated his brother’s lessons verbatim with a grin. “Exactly like how you’re acting right now. Since I’m not demanding anything of you, that means you’re lying.” He followed his grumbly brother into the bedroom.
A shimmer of sparkles reflected in Aiden’s eyes, and he stepped back in surprise. He stared at a lime green dress with a V-neck plunge laid out on his brother’s bed, decked in beads with fringes decorating the ends of the short skirt. Like everything Hui Ye owned, Aiden wouldn’t be surprised if it was custom made.
A custom-made dress for a woman.
He stared at the dress a few seconds longer.
A woman was in his room.
Heart racing, Aiden dashed over to Hui Ye, who was washing his face in the in-suite bathroom, when the doorbell rang.
Aiden froze, and his brother’s hands dropped from his face. The two glanced at each other. He immediately moved inward into the bathroom, while Hui Ye moved outward to the intercom. The intercom beeped.
I don’t want to know what he deals with. I can’t know what he deals with. Aiden huddled alone.
Footsteps sounded from the front door. He peeked out into the entryway. Four individuals in expensive suits and shiny shoes stood before Hui Ye. His brother mumbled something and sat down on the edge of the sofa. His shoulders relaxed, but his eyes remained focused enough to aim to kill. They caught sight of Aiden and softened.
“Aiden, go down to the lobby. I’ll catch up with you there, and we can figure out what we want for dinner.” The stillness of Hui Ye’s voice scared Aiden more than pelting rain.
He snatched a jacket, slipped into his shoes, and escaped into the elevator. The opera music sang in a haunting rhythm in the closed space. He fiddled with his fingers.
He couldn’t read the strangers who entered his brother’s place uninvited. Their faces were set in stone. What does that mean again? He searched through his brothers’ lessons.
The elevator door dinged open. He stepped out, still picking at the quicks of his fingernails. How long should I wait for him? He sat down in a chair, foot immediately tapping away at the marble floor. What if something goes wrong? He looked around. Is there anyone I can call? Just in case?
“Here you go, sir.” One of the employees of the apartment handed him a glass of water with lime.
Aiden took it with a slight smile. He brought the glass to his lips. A sweet scent, unlike the lime that hung on the edge, curled up his nose.
He froze. Heart racing, he sniffed the lime, and its distinct sour slammed into him. Aiden threw the lime out and smelled the water again.
The scent of roses continued to rise like smoke.
His stomach jumped to his throat. He slammed the glass water onto the table.
Look at their faces.
He whipped around, inspecting the individuals roaming around him. Their casual clothes, business clothes, and fancy clothes befitting the super-rich living in this complex passed around him with little care.
Read their behavior.
His eyes searched every passing face, who squinted back at him in confusion or looked away with noses scrunched.
Look at their eyes.
“Sir, you dropped this.” The quiet employee who handed him the water said behind him.
Aiden pivoted on his feet with his arms raised, ready to throw a punch, but a sharp pain jabbed into his neck.
“Are you okay? Let me take you somewhere to sit down.”
His vision blurred. He stopped feeling his body.
Chapter Two
Incessant ringing pulsed in Aiden’s head. Wincing, he wrenched his eyes open to blinding light. The ringing turned into cow bells before finally settling down to an annoying hum. With the softening of the noise, so too did the glare of the light. Blinking his vision into place, Aiden shook his head to clear the underwater blurriness.
The fake apartment employee at the lobby paced in uneven circles in front of him with tense shoulders and clamped hands.
Aiden’s own fear crawled from the abyss into the open. Cold handcuffs dug into his wrists. Large coils of rope bound his entire body where he sat against a metal column of an undeveloped building. He looked around.
I know this place…
The paint-splotched floor of the concrete ground, dusty footprints, and bare metal columns told Aiden its story. His kidnapper brought him to a cheap piece of land that a rich person bought, developed halfway, then promptly abandoned.
His brother loved to take advantage of places like these—trapped in a time of grandeur vision but unfulfilled future.
Aiden pulled his wrists, but the cold handcuffs bit against his skin. I wish I had a needle. If I had a needle, I could get myself out of this. The humming in his head continued.
Breaths quickening, heart racing, and his legs jittering, he pulled at his tied hands without thought, clanging the cuffs against the metal beam.
The kidnapper turned around at the sound.
Stupid! Why didn’t you recite your lessons first before doing something so brainless? Aiden wished he could bang his head against the metal column to kick the regret away, but the kidnapper marched, breathing even heavier than him. In the first second, the kidnapper bore holes into Aiden’s forehead, but at the slightest noise, a gasp escaped from his lips. His eyes roamed his surroundings like a spinning top. His knees shook, and the softness that the man originally spoke in when posing as the apartment’s employee now gave away the shakiness.
Aiden should feel reassured at the shared level of terror if it wasn’t for the fact that the kidnapper held a gun.
“I know you know about the Guo family.” The man knelt, pressing the gun to Aiden’s head. “Tell me about them. Now.”
The metal barrel felt like ice against his sweating forehead. Aiden bit his lip to stifle a whimper, but he knew his eyes would give away his pure terror.
The lessons. Remember the lessons.
No matter how badly his lips quivered, he forced himself to breathe through his nose. He counted five breaths. He took one deep sigh for the sixth. His hands stopped shaking.
He remembered.
If people start demanding, you go cold.
“I do not have time for this!” the man barked. “If you do not tell me about the Guo family in three seconds, I will put a bullet through your head!”
Act like you don’t care.
He closed his eyes to force them to stop twitching. He snapped them open.
“Go ahead. Pull the trigger.” Aiden stared at the man.
The kidnapper jammed the weapon harder against Aiden's forehead. The man's hot breath fell against his cheek. Still, Aiden concentrated only on breathing and keeping his eyes on the kidnapper’s.
“So you do know about the Guo family. Tell me, and I’ll let you free.”
Act like you’ve been through this.
Aiden glanced at the gun. He leaned back with a sigh while his hands continued to dig into the cuffs, fingers tapping away at the metal. “I think I’ve met kids more threatening than you.”
Act like everything’s a joke.
“Your plan’s dumb. First, you don’t actually know if I know anything about the Guo family. Second, no sane person would let me walk free even if I did know and could tell you. Third, I’ll be torn apart by my own family if it’s something they don’t want others to know. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Why would I have any logical reason to give you what you want?” Aiden pulled out the smirk perfected in the mirror after days of practice under his brother’s tutelage.
Suddenly, the metal column vibrated. Footsteps approached, moving across the concrete with purpose. Aiden's breath quickened, and he drew his legs close to his chest, shutting his eyes.
The kidnapper cocked the gun with a terrifying click, but another shot cracked through the air, piercing his hand. Blood spurted onto Aiden’s face. He clamped his mouth shut to avoid swallowing it, inwardly screeching at the sensation of it dripping down his lips. Fresh blood was always warm.
The gun dropped to the ground, and the kidnapper howled. The man crawled behind Aiden, but another shot pierced his leg before he could get far. His cries of pain bounced around the abandoned building, amplifying his misery. Aiden flinched at the sight of blood sputtering out from the kidnapper’s leg wound.
“Xiao Hui!” Wang Xing called, dashing over.
Shaky air released from Aiden’s squeezing chest, but his body tightened a second later upon meeting eyes with the person following Wang Xing. Hui Ye approached the writhing man with eyes still and breathed so softly that Aiden couldn’t even see his chest rise and fall without concentrating.
“Wang Xing, give him music,” Hui Ye instructed, and Aiden didn’t recognize the cold voice coming from Hui Ye’s mouth.
The chauffeur set Aiden free.
“Ge—” He reached for Hui Ye.
“Come, Xiao Hui.”
Wang Xing ushered Aiden away before his fingers could brush against Hui Ye’s jacket. He glanced back, watching Hui Ye grab the wounded man by the hair, turn him over, and stomp hard on his leg—right where the bullet was lodged.
The growing cries of pain and his brother’s increasing cruelty invoked nails dragging against Aiden’s skin. He stumbled to the ground and covered his ears, but the calm words still resonated clearly from his brother’s lips.
“Diane, shoot him again.”
Who’s Diane?
A gunshot. The wails of a dying man.
“Just listen to this song.” Wang Xing shoved a set of earbuds into Aiden’s ears and dialed up the volume.
Electronic beats pounded against his eardrums, but not even the highest setting could drown out the thumping of his heart. He heard every groan, every plea, and every drop of blood that fell onto the floor. His nails dug into his head. He tried to focus on the lyrics blaring in his ears, but instead, he filtered out the noise to catch the two words he dreaded coming from Hui Ye.
“Kill him.”
• • •
Aiden tore at the towel spotted with blood. Silence hung heavy as Wang Xing sped on the fastest route back to the apartment. His brother leaned away from him.
Lights blinked around them in colorful advertisements. The people outside roamed the city, unaware of the car that passed by with a dead body in the trunk.
How do normal people live without thinking about these things? Aiden wondered, watching a family raise their child up high in the air. How would someone usually react after they’ve been kidnapped and rescued?
His heart didn’t quicken at the sight of Hui Ye and Wang Xing wrapping up the body. Instead, he already strayed toward the car to settle down on the comfortable leather seats, waiting to be driven back. When Wang Xing began the engine, and the world slowly passed, Aiden knew a body, tied and wrapped, rolled behind him, and sickeningly couldn’t find himself to care.
Aiden tugged harder at the towel’s frayed edges. How do you leave this world when you’re so wired to react to it? The questions continued to haunt him as the car pulled back.
• • •
The two brothers filed back into the living room in silence. As Aiden wandered with the towel in his hand, his brother stepped forward and snatched it away. “I’ll take care of it.” Hui Ye disappeared into his room.
With nowhere else to go and nothing to say, Aiden shuffled into the guest room and turned on the light. He lowered himself onto his bed and pressed his face into the nearest pillow.
He hated this world he was born into.
The truth swallowed him whole—to leave this world was to also leave his brother behind.
But without him, I am alone.
He looked up at the quiet knock on his door. Hui Ye entered but kept his eyes on the ground. He held a package. Sitting down in the chair opposite from Aiden, Hui Ye opened his mouth, hesitated, and looked away.
I can’t end my visit like this.
“Are you with someone right now?” Aiden blurted.
His brother blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Are you dating someone?” When his brother continued to stare blankly, he continued, flustered. “I saw a dress in your room today. Unless you’ve decided to wear dresses for fun?”
A chuckle left his brother’s lips. “No. And no, I’m not dating anyone.”
“Well, she’s not a fling,” Aiden pressed. “I know you have your flings away from your place.”
“Should I be concerned that you know that?”
“Who is she?”
His brother sighed and rubbed the back of his head. Seconds ticked by, but Aiden held strong, staring at his brother. Hui Ye sighed again and looked back with a crooked smile. “Her name is Celia.”
