A cinderella crime story, p.10
A Cinderella Crime Story, page 10
“I see…” Brendan removed his hand. “Well, let us know if we can help.” He reached over to the forgotten water bottle left on the table and handed it over to Aiden.
Aiden’s eyes softened at the sight. He grabbed the bottle. Every time, he thought fondly. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Good luck with class. And work.”
He nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
• • •
Mr. Yang waited outside the front door of a gated home. Unlike Mr. Zhou’s home, Mr. Yang’s looked like a box. With its walls painted a neutral tan, the house appeared larger than Mr. Zhou’s, made more so by the lack of gardening, decorations, and color on the outside. The second Aiden stepped out the car, the man bounded down the steps of the front porch and shook Aiden’s hands with a wild grin on his face.
Mr. Yang was only slightly older than Aiden’s brother. His hair was still pitch black and fell in a messy scrawl over his head. He was far skinnier in stature. His clothes did not tuck in tightly against his body. His shirt was oversized, he wore no jacket, and he had no weapons hanging from his pants or hidden elsewhere in his body.
In contrast, the driver who picked Aiden up wore pitch-black clothing tightly fitted to their body.
“I wasn’t able to really talk to you the other night. I adored your brother, did you know that? Hui Ye and I had plenty of fun going to bars, talking, and finding women for the night. Of course, he was always the one that brought one home. I’m married, so I wouldn’t lower myself to that kind of behavior,” Mr. Yang droned on, leading Aiden into the house. As he walked, two personal guards followed closely behind.
He glanced back to spot three daggers hanging off of one of the guard's belts, and he couldn’t snap his head around back faster. “Anyway, I want you to feel comfortable with me. We are young! Well, I guess your brother was ten years older, and I’m even older than your brother, so maybe we do have a generational difference and—” Mr. Yang stopped abruptly, inspecting a vase splashed with neon colors. His finger traced the rim, and his eyes narrowed. Suddenly, he placed the vase back, twirled around, and the wide grin reappeared. “What was I talking to you about again?”
Aiden stepped back. “You were talking about my brother…” He tried to keep his hands from fidgeting. His knees, to his horror, began to shake. This man terrifies me. He clenched his jaw. He’s far worse than Zhou.
“Right!” Mr. Yang twirled around again. “Anyway, I have something fun planned for you today, but it’s going to take some time to prep. While you wait, you can help me out by entertaining my kids. They’re very young, so they’re easy to handle. You can do that. Right?”
Aiden froze in place as Mr. Yang pushed his face into Aiden’s space. Mr. Yang's breath rushed against his skin. It smelled of sunflower seeds.
Hands fully fidgeting, Aiden met Mr. Yang's gaze.
Mr. Yang’s large, sparkling eyes reached deep inside, probing his organs. Unlike Mr. Zhou, Mr. Yang blinked. Like Mr. Zhou, he continued staring longer than necessary.
Him, too. Aiden realized. He’s also looking for something from me. Why? Something to do with the Guo family?
He cleared his throat and nodded. “I can keep your kids distracted.”
Mr. Yang stared for a beat longer, then broke eye contact with an excited skip. “Of course you can! One’s only three, and the other one’s five.” He beckoned Aiden up the stairs and into a playroom.
The screams of the children bounced against the walls. Mr. Yang called to them in Chinese. His hand latched around Aiden’s wrist like glue and shoved Aiden forward with a welcoming smile. “Look! I found a playmate for you two! Play with him while Daddy continues to work, OK? And—” Mr. Yang lowered himself to the ground and pinched the five-year-old’s cheek. “You can do whatever you want with him!”
The three-year-old clasped onto Aiden’s leg. As Aiden turned around to concentrate on the two innocent children before him, he failed to hear Mr. Yang’s steps down the wooden floors.
Silent people are good at killing.
His brother’s words echoed in his ears.
His shoulder screeched in pain when the five-year-old yanked him. “You’re my horse!” the child declared, and Aiden obeyed, going on all fours. He did whatever the kids wanted, but his mind couldn’t rest. What is he prepping?
• • •
When the two children finally curled asleep on the carpet, Mr. Yang’s bodyguards called for him. The light had dimmed inside the house. One guard hovered behind him while the other guided him. Aiden turned from the open space of the modern mansion down a narrower hall. He passed through a pair of heavy metal doors and into an even tighter space where they could only walk one person at a time. With every step he took, the walls boxed in more.
Aiden tried to look behind him, but the guard blocked his view from the exit. Their footsteps echoed in the emptiness.
The guard in front stopped and gestured. He turned toward the door waiting for him. Beyond it, he heard whimpers.
His heart dropped into his stomach when the guard opened the door.
Inside, a bruised man sat in a chair, muttering to himself. Nothing bounded him, but his eyes remained wide with fear. He looked up in Aiden’s direction, and a croak left his lips.
Mr. Yang sat atop a table on the other side of the room. At the sight of Aiden, he hopped down from it and gestured. The guard behind Aiden shoved him in. His breath hitched at hearing the door close behind him.
“This man has betrayed me.” Mr. Yang grabbed the gun on the table and loaded it. “I’ve gotten everything I need from him, but it’s time for cleanup. He’s already a dead man—brain-wise. I’ve injected him with a concoction that makes it impossible for him to ever think coherently again. But, seeing how you’ve been so kind to play with my children while I focused on this, I figured you’d want to give him something better?” He sauntered over and offered the gun to Aiden. “Perhaps a mercy kill?”
Terror poured ice through his veins. Limbs creaking like a corpse, he took the gun in his hands and felt the handle against his skin. Warmth resurged through his body. He sighed, staring at the gun. When did he lose the ability to express fear with a deadly weapon in his hands? He couldn’t remember, but he was sure the night she died killed something inside him.
Don’t think of her.
His heartbeat jumped at the very thought.
Don’t remember anything about her.
The deadly peace returned to his limbs. Aiden looked over at the man babbling in the chair with blood still dripping down from his face. His limbs swung by his side like a clock’s pendulum. His head creaked back and forth.
Pity struck Aiden. He gripped the gun tighter. He really is gone inside. He walked closer to the man and pointed the gun at the man’s head.
He wouldn’t miss. Strangely, in all the areas his brother was better than him, Aiden learned through their lessons that he was a better shot than his brother. Quick, painless, over in a second. He continued pointing the gun.
Eyes.
Aiden lowered his arm slightly. He glanced briefly at Mr. Yang behind him. The mafia family head crossed his arms, leaned against the wall, and smiled with twisted satisfaction. But his eyes tell a different story. Mr. Yang watched his breaths, his expressions, his movements. Aiden heard his questions echoing in the room over the nonsense words spilling out of the man’s mouth.
Is Aiden capable of murdering someone? This should be his first time, so how would he react to the first kill? Will he panic and break down? Will he throw up? Or will he act like he’s done it before despite all evidence pointing this to be his first?
If he can do this, is that a sign he killed his own brother?
Aiden gritted his teeth to prevent himself from spitting at Mr. Yang. How dare he test me on this. He lowered the gun. Turning to Mr. Yang, Aiden marched over to him and held out the weapon. “This is your family’s problem. It would be improper of me to get involved.”
“You are part of Infinite.”
“I believe this little internship with the Zhou, Yang, and Chen is to help acclimate me into my position. I am not part of it yet, and even if I am,” he said, shoving the gun into Mr. Yang’s hands, “this is still a Yang family problem. Not the Hui’s.”
He stepped back and kept his eyes down in deference, but his insides writhed in fury. I hate him.
Mr. Yang unceremoniously pointed the gun at the man from a distance and pulled the trigger.
The sound cracked and bounced off the walls. Aiden turned around in time to watch blood spurt from the man’s head. The body slammed onto the floor. He should be disturbed by death stretched across the floor with a flopping head, but at the moment, Mr. Yang’s gaze haunted him.
The man still tested him.
• • •
Aiden’s steps faltered climbing up the porch in the darkness of the night to his house. Ears ringing, skin clammy, and breaths short. He numbly wandered his way over to the porch chair and dropped into it. He propped his head up on his hands, and he closed his eyes, concentrating on the chilly air nipping at his skin.
Mr. Zhou and Mr. Yang expected something from him, and he didn’t know what or why. Neither family gained anything if they pinned his brother’s murder on him. Why do they keep looking at me like I’m more involved than I am?
His hands trembled as he recalled his last kidnapping. Zhou’s worried about the Guo. That man was worried about the Guo. I don’t even know who the Guo family is. He missed the opportunity to test the waters with Mr. Yang, but the memory of a bloody corpse still flashed before his eyes. He had managed to leave without his stomach lurching, but he didn't want to talk to Mr. Yang again and give the dangerous man any more opportunities to taunt him.
He dropped his hands from his lap and glanced over at the door to the unfamiliar house that confronted him. He was on edge around people whose hands were drenched with blood, and he did it all for a family that didn’t care about him. I guess I shouldn’t fault them for that. He got to his feet and entered the house. Even Ge constantly lectured about self-survival.
He entered a dark hallway and turned around the corner to a well-lit kitchen. A pile of dirty dishes waited in the sinks, and not a single bite of leftover food remained at the tables or in the refrigerator.
Aiden glanced behind him just as his stepmother walked out of another room. She went straight for him.
“Hui Lang, can you clean up for tonight? Also, finish folding the laundry. You know that we can’t risk hiring anyone right now.” She looked around and sighed at the sprawl of clothes left behind on the floor. “Also, if you can just clean everything up. I’m just so tired having to take care of the things that you should be doing. You owe me, right?”
He internally heaved for breaths, but Aiden smiled and said, “Sure.”
The smile dropped when his stepmother returned to her room. He looked at the blinking midnight time and glanced upstairs to see lights still shining from Zhu Zhu and He Bao’s room. Music pounded from one of them, furious and persistent.
With a sigh, Aiden turned on the lights to the living room to see paper shredded across the floor. They were fighting… He bent down to pick up the scraps. He should wonder more, but the chores listed themselves in his head.
Folding the laundry. Taking the jackets left on the ground and putting them in the basket. Moving the shoes from the front door to the shoe racks in the garage.
The image of the corpse weighed heavy on his mind. He turned too quickly and accidentally knocked down a vase with fresh flowers.
The water pooled like blood.
“Slow down,” he murmured to himself. He cleaned up the pieces of the vase to safely discard them. Mopped up the water. Bundled the flowers. Found a cup to temporarily hold them before his stepmother would replace the vase with likely a more expensive one.
His stomach growled, and he checked the refrigerator once more to only see fruit. He grabbed an apple and made quick work with ravenous bites. His stomach grumbled, but the dirty dishes dared him not to waste any more time.
Pumping dishwasher soap onto the sponge, scrubbing, rinsing, drying, and repeating. His hands moved ever slower in the soapy water. The drain burbled in the dim glow of the kitchen light. His eyelids drooped, and his arms hit against the side of the sink. The impact startled him awake as he almost dropped a dish on the floor.
His stomach cried once more.
“I’ll eat tomorrow,” he reassured it.
He placed the last of the dishes away to dry. His slippers shuffled against the floor as he made his way to the basement. He stumbled over the boxes still there. He flopped onto his bed. In the shadows of the basement and the chill of poor insulation, he could still hear the pounding music overhead from one of his stepsiblings’ rooms. The ceiling of the basement shook with every beat that slammed through the house. He wished he could be angry at them, or annoyed with them, or just selfishly fearful for himself, but he wasn’t. There was a strange numbness instead.
I’m doing this for the family. He repeated the thought in his head, succumbing to the emptiness. I’m doing this because it’s my duty.
Chapter Eight
Aiden’s cellphone slipped from his hand and thudded to the ground. Slowly, Aiden opened his eyes, staring at the unpainted ground and his arm swinging over the edge of his bed. I forgot something. Yawning and body creaking, he dragged the phone off of the floor and stared at the notifications.
A string of silenced alarms starting at nine in the morning.
He had slept through his classes.
Aiden blinked, swiping the notifications away one at a time. His heart remained still, and his mind fogged over. What’s the point? With a sigh, he flopped back down on the bed and stared at the light bulb buzzing overhead. I hope she doesn’t lecture me for wasting money on electricity. The light bulb flickered.
The phone buzzed. Wearily, he raised the phone back up to see Javier’s text reminding them of the study group. He glanced at the time.
His eyes snapped open. His heart jumped. He leapt out of bed.
Aiden stumbled as he threw on his clothes, almost tumbling to the ground. He reached into his wallet and pulled out the picture of his brother. I can’t carry this with me anymore, he decided, recalling the inspecting eyes of both Mr. Zhou and Mr. Yang.
He hid the photograph underneath his pile of textbooks, grabbed the backpack, and dashed out of the basement.
“Where are you going?” His stepmother stepped out from the office downstairs with a folder of papers gripped in her hands.
“I have a school thing. I’ll be back after it.”
“Do not stay out longer than necessary. I have important things for you to do when you’re back.”
“I won’t.” He crashed out the door.
Freedom filled the air the minute he stepped foot out of the Uber and onto the crooked sidewalk of the hilly campus road. The sun burned bright against a brilliant blue sky. The bustling of students who spared no glance at him allowed his heart to soar and his body to float.
He was a stranger in people’s eyes, and suddenly, the anonymity felt like a gift from the skies.
He climbed the steps up to the library where Brendan and Christina waited. He met eyes with Javier, who suddenly took off in a mad dash. Confused, Aiden picked up his own pace, reaching the other two before Javier. His friend arrived last, bent over wheezing. “I thought I wouldn’t be the last one for once,” Javier managed to squeeze out between his gasps.
Aiden shared a glance with Brendan and Christina. “Are you an idiot?” Christina asked, knocking on Javier’s head.
“Says the girl who needs tutoring,” Javier continued to gasp.
Aiden and Brendan laughed. “Sorry, Javier. Next time, I’ll walk slower,” he said with a smile, but his heart descended slowly into his stomach.
He mustn’t believe these days could continue forever.
Suddenly, Javier straightened himself, no longer dying for air. “All right, let’s go. I’m going to blow your minds at how easy math actually is.” He rushed into the library without sparing a second glance at the others.
“He is, without doubt, a big fat liar,” Christina mumbled.
Brendan, on the other hand, was strangely quiet. He glanced at Aiden and reached into his bag to pull out a water bottle. “In case you forgot,” he said. “And as an apology ahead of time.”
Aiden accepted the water bottle. “Apology?”
“For how bad I’m going to be.”
Christina and Brendan’s faces, grey with doom, and their sagging shoulders of despair overtook the chirp in Javier’s voice and the bounce in his feet. They navigated to the private rooms in the back of the library and closed the door. Javier eagerly set down his own backpack and pointed at Aiden. “You take care of Brendan, I’ll take care of Christina, and then we’ll switch at a certain point. Got it?”
Aiden nodded and settled beside Brendan. His chest squeezed when Brendan continued to remain silent, sitting down beside him while hugging a backpack.
“You didn’t do well on your test?” Aiden finally asked.
Mouth pressed tight, Brendan nodded and showed his exam.
Aiden peeked at the failing score. A relieved sigh slipped out, and a soft smile stretched across his face. “Brendan, this isn’t bad. You don’t need to feel ashamed.”
“My parents have always been good at what they want to do,” Brendan admitted. “And I’m already failing a class in my first year.”
Ah. Aiden leaned forward on his hand. I understand.
He scooted closer to Brendan. “Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses in certain subjects. Math isn’t easy for me either. I figured out how to best study for it is all.”
“Well, Javier aces everything,” Brendan muttered.
Aiden laughed. “Javier struggles with other stuff. Like being on time. Let’s just go through each problem you missed and figure out why you got it wrong, and then we can talk about how to solve it correctly. Okay?”
