“You can tell me the truth,” he said, his voice ringing like a spoon on fine china.
“I don’t know what truth you want,” Aiden croaked. “I know what my stepmother told you. That I’m the traitor. But I’m not. I’m not conspiring with the government or with other enemy families. She’s a far likelier suspect than me. She has hidden photographs of my brother in her study room.”
“A mother would never risk her children’s futures that way.”
“Then askherwhy she has those photographs.” Aiden winced when raising his voice.
Mr. Chen leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a long time. Finally, with much deliberation, Mr. Chen turned toward him again. “I know you have a grudge against my family.”
Aiden stared. “No, I don’t.”
“It is okay. Hatred and anger are natural emotions.”
“I don’t,” he insisted through gritted teeth.
“There is no point in denying it. It must’ve been hard finding out that I was responsible for your mother’s death. You must’ve felt betrayed by your brother to know that he was the one who invited me into your family’s circle of connections.”
Freezing sweat dripped from his back, sending shivers up his spine. “What…?”
“I want you to know, Aiden, that it was a mistake. There was a…misunderstanding. If you cooperate and tell me everything, including the people you’ve been talking to, I am more than willing to apologize.”
“What?” Aiden failed to hear even his own voice as the ghostly whisper disappeared into the air. Fury burned him. “What?” He lunged at Mr. Chen, but his body remained tied to the chair. Its legs pulled ever so slightly against the floor in an agonizing screech. “Youkilled her? Did my brother know this?!”
“I do not wish to speak ill of your deceased brother. He was a charming young man. Not gruff like your father.” Mr. Chen chuckled. “However, he was not aware.”
“How could you kill someone like that over amisunderstanding?” Tears rolled from Aiden’s eyes, and his shoulders burned in pain as he pulled at the cuffs. He wheezed for air as the ghostly echoes of his mom’s last breaths vibrated against him.
Mr. Chen’s inquisitive eyes turned cold. His delicate voice hardened. He crossed his legs and arms while watching Aiden writhe. “You are the only person in Infinite who could potentially have access to information that would galvanize the government to come after us and still have a reasonable motive.”
“I wouldneverkill my brother!” Aiden howled. His body felt as if she laid on top of him again.How did Ge feel when he died? I hope he didn’t feel anything. Please, let him not have felt anything when he died. Ma felt something. She died in pain. She definitely felt herself die.Aiden dry heaved toward the ground, screaming.
“There is no one else. You accuse your stepmother, but she’s been a part of Infinite before you were born—just in a lower ranked family. She risks far more by being the traitor than someone as young as you who hasn't yet bloodied your hands.”
“It’s not me!”
“Stop lying,” Mr. Chen growled. He threw the chair across the room, and it crashed into the wall. The older man paced all around the room. “We have consolidated all the families together. Only you and the disgraced Guo family would have something to gain from this.”
The Guo family again. Him. Zhou. The kidnapper. Their obsession with that family.Aiden wanted to press harder about the family that has haunted him since his trip to Hong Kong, but his family’s dead faces flashed before his eyes. His father withered away in a hospital bed, his brother left no body behind, and Aiden was too familiar with his mother’s body. Crying and gasping, he tried to fling himself onto the ground and curl up and fade into nothing, but his burning shoulders and legs stayed tied to the chair. He continued to sob.
“It appears you are in too much of a panic at getting caught. That or you really are just an excellent actor.” Mr. Chen took out another cigarette. “You will come to regret not talking to me. Yang and Zhou will not be as kind.”
The man motioned the guards and left the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
Aiden wished he'd never left campus.Brendan, Brendan. His hand desperately grasped for the other boy’s warmth. Alone in a room where people were, without doubt, murdered, he wept, wondering how to leap back in time to where he danced with joy, kissed with love, and understood what fun felt like.
• • •
Freezing water splashed against his head and shoulders. Aiden gasped from his frozen darkness and sputtered for air. Water dripped from his hair and face. Two large leather shoes reflected the light above. Angry, heavy breathing commenced. Aiden sighed, raising his head to meet Mr. Zhou’s stiff anger.
Mr. Zhou stood with his arms glued to his side, his shoulders straight and statuesque, and his lips pressed thinly together.Ah,Aiden realized, staring up at the sturdy man.There’s no way he would allow Mr. Chen into the upper circle if he knew that Mr. Chen killed my mother over a misunderstanding.In fact, it was laughable to Aiden, and he chewed on the inside of his cheeks to keep himself from cackling. Mr. Zhou, the man who expected perfection from his employees, who cared so little about his own family that Aiden couldn’t name his wife, was oblivious to Mr. Chen’s mistake.
Aiden knew Mr. Zhou would throw a fit if he ever found out.
“You made a big mistake to turn down Chen’s questioning. I will be blunt. Tell me everything you know.”
If people start demanding, you go cold. Act like you don’t care.
“I already told him everything I know.” Aiden glanced to the side nonchalantly.
