“Xiao Hui,” Mr. Yang sang across the table.

  Aiden snapped his head up with his eyes still wide.

  “Can you let us know if the sale will go through?”

  “Wh-what sale?” Aiden’s voice came out in only a whisper.

  “Your brother promised to sell the land to us. It was on paper at an inflated price, but that was just to keep other folks from buying and developing it. Surely you know about that. We’d like the sale to proceed, you know? There’s business to be made with that piece of land.”

  “I…don’t know,” Aiden said. His scrambled thoughts continued to remain broken. “What were you guys going to do with the land?”

  “Real estate obviously.”

  “I…don’t think I can do anything when the will hasn’t even yet been executed.”

  The room fell to silence.

  What did I say? Was that inaccurate? Aiden’s heart pounded his eardrums with increasing alarm.

  Mr. Zhou’s face darkened. “You don’t know Hui Ye’s businesses, do you?”

  “My brother never talked about his businesses with me—”

  “Are you stupid?” Mr. Zhou reached into his breast pocket, grabbed a cigarette, and lit it. “It’s not Hui Ye’s responsibility to tell you. It’s your responsibility to ask.”

  “I…”

  “Wow. You never even asked?” Mr. Yang leaned forward with a head tilt. “Not once?”

  “I.”

  “You didn’t even want to help him?”

  “No, I.”

  “Selfish is what you are.” Mr. Zhou huffed a cloud into the air.

  “Mr. Zhou, Mr. Yang, you are overwhelming him,” Mr. Chen interrupted. He turned his chair, facing Aiden. “Hui Lang, can I call you Xiao Hui?”

  Aiden nodded with tears brimming in his eyes.

  “Xiao Hui, this isn’t about you. This is about Infinite. We have built our wealth from scratch, and we deserve to have it continue. I know Americans like to stress on individuality, but this isn’t the way we live. We live always thinking of how to benefit everyone.”

  Aiden’s heart sank as Mr. Chen droned on. A hole of despair swallowed him. With every fiber of his being, he forced himself not to shove the chair and run as fast and far away as possible. I don’t want this. Aiden wanted to scream at them. His body teetered against the chair. I’ll go insane if I do this.

  “Hui Lang doesn’t understand how Infinite works at all. His brother coddled him and wouldn’t let him know even when Hui Lang asked. I tried to explain to Hui Ye that he was being overprotective, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He resembles his father too much.”

  A hand steadied his body not to fall back in his chair. Aiden stared with mouth open as his stepmother stepped forward. “Please be patient with Hui Lang. He will learn, and perhaps, he will be even better than Hui Ye.”

  “We don’t have time.” Mr. Zhou tapped the table.

  “Then I will take over the businesses. You are okay with that, aren’t you, Hui Lang?” She smiled. “I have been a housewife, yes, but I can do what needs to be done. In the meantime,” without waiting for an answer, she turned back toward the other men, “you can work Hui Lang. Have him learn through experience.”

  “Have him work what? He’s useless,” Mr. Zhou scoffed.

  “Whatever you want. Whatever you think is necessary for him to learn as I temporarily take his place.”

  Whatever protests Aiden had for the situation, he kept them sealed. His acute awareness of his immaturity boiled over onto his face in reddening heat. He lowered his head but felt the eyes of the other men hanging over his neck like daggers. A chill rose through his body at the unworthiness of stepping into his brother’s position and the inherent anger that his brother would even engage in such disgusting acts of business. But I knew. I just chose to avert my eyes.

  He needed to listen to his stepmother. These men would kill. They could kill even her and her children for his mistakes.

  He swore then and there to obey her every word for the sake of protecting her children, grasping onto the last vestiges of his morality in the black business of the mafia.

  Chapter Seven

  “Heads up!”

  A bag crashed onto Aiden’s chest. Heaving, he leapt up and reached for the nonexistent gun. “River—what in the world?” Did the families decide to kill us? Did I screw everything up? He scanned his surroundings, itching to find anything to use as a weapon.

  He Bao smirked, shoving a mountain of boxes to the ground. “You start working today. Don’t do anything stupid. For our sakes.”

  The blood roaring in his ears calmed. With a sigh, he dropped to the ground, reached for the bag that fell off of his chest, and opened it to see clothes already prepared for him. Silently, he pulled them out.

  He Bao remained in the basement. “You know you can’t run away from this, right?”

  Aiden tossed the clothing onto his tiny bed. “I’m not trying to.”

  “You sure?”

  Aiden sighed. I really don’t have anything down here to protect myself if the other families attack us, do I? A dim lightbulb hung over his bed. The walls were, unsurprisingly, bare wooden boards propping up the rest of the home. The floor was covered in a wasteland of storage boxes. The basement was a landscape of nothing and everything smashed together, and he saw an image of himself drowning in the boxes with no one around to hear. How long will I be down here? However long until he proved himself to Infinite he feared, and upon that shivering notion, his stomach lurched. Swallowing, Aiden began changing. “I’m here, aren’t I?” he murmured.

  “Yeah, not by choice. Why do you keep running away from your heritage? You should be proud to be part of Infinite.”

  Aiden clenched his teeth. “Are you proud of what we do?”

  “Obviously. Anyone with our history would be proud. We came from nothing, and now we’re rich.” He picked up Aiden’s wallet from the floor and tossed it at his head.

  Aiden caught it before it landed between his eyes. “You’re proud we kill people? That we manipulate the masses to fill our own pockets?”

  “God, the virtue signaling,” He Bao scoffed. “Don’t pretend to be a good guy. You sure didn’t complain when your brother paid for your college with that blood money, did you?”

  He could only stare at the floor.

  “Or maybe you’ll try to excuse yourself with some bullshit story about how you didn’t know the extent of the bad things we did. Get over it. You knew. You chose not to know is all. Which makes you complicit and a coward. It’s pathetic. So don’t screw up like Hui Ye did. I’m not planning to let you drag my family down. Make sure you last long enough until I’m initiated into Infinite.” He Bao stomped away.

  Mouth bitter, Aiden took out the photograph of Hui Ye, tracing his brother’s smile. How could you just leave me like this? The thin paper crinkled beneath the stress of his fingers. He watched the smile warp into Hui Ye’s ever-infuriating smirk, reminding Aiden again of the strangers in their living room begging for mercy.

  With body burning of fury, he stored Hui Ye away. He made his way up the stairs where his stepmother waited with her arms crossed.

  “Will you hurry up?” she hissed, snatching his arm and dragging him into the living room. Mr. Zhou waited with an impeccably tailored suit, a pin of the Zhou family surname, and a tightly fitted tie around his thick neck. He looked pointedly down toward Aiden.

  Aiden willed himself to stare back, swallowing. “Mr. Zhou,” he said smoothly.

  Mr. Zhou gestured. “In the car,” his voice rumbled. “You get instructions at the manor.”

  “Yes, sir.” Aiden followed the humongous man out. Outside, a driver smoked by a Mercedes. He snuffed out the cigarette when Mr. Zhou approached. With his hand resting carefully on the handle of a gun, the guard patted Aiden down, checked Aiden’s wallet, and glared at the photograph he kept of his brother.

  Even so, the driver mercifully didn't remark on the picture. He returned the wallet to Aiden and said, “He’s clear,” to Mr. Zhou in Chinese.

  Once the car lurched forward, Aiden stopped counting his breathing. Hands cold and clammy, gasps escaping, and world tilting, he spent the rest of the ride trying to remember Hui Ye’s lessons and failing to recall a single word.

  The Zhou family manor came to view.

  • • •

  “No questions. No complaints. Your stepmother said the best way to train you is to get you started on the easier stuff. You should thank her wisdom and mercy in dealing with you.”

  Mr. Zhou led Aiden to his office, where a stack of papers waited. The man tossed the papers to the ground and left the room with his hands held tightly behind his back. Aiden fell to his knees, scrambling for the scattered paper. He checked the first item on the list of to-dos.

  Carrying items from the garage to the designated storage room.

  The man provided him no map, no further instructions, and no one to rely on. People roamed the halls dressed smartly in suits, but they spared not even the slightest glance toward him. From dimly recalled childhood memories of those potlucks which he now knew were business meetings in the shadows, he remembered the entire Zhou family resided in this home. In those memories, the manor was easy to navigate with simple turns and rooms close by.

  By the time he found the garage and the pile of boxes he needed to move, he was too tired to think about which set of hallways might have led him to the garage in the first place.

  I must’ve walked through this entire house. Right, left, right. Or right, right, and left? He played a game of chance with every hallway explored, feeling one of his hands against the walls like he was blind every few seconds as if it would somehow magically give him directions. Dark wallpaper with white outlined roses lined the cold manor, and they loomed with the lack of paintings hanging.

  Aiden was panting by the time he found the storage room. His shoulders burned from the boxes that towered above his head. Skipping backward on one foot, heart racing at watching the boxes teeter, he kicked the storage door open to abnormal walls of metal.

  The scent of bleach flew up his nose. Chilling air stung his face.

  He gripped the boxes tighter so as not to drop them in the shock. Don’t think. Just do what you’re being told. Get it over with. This could’ve been worse.

  His hands threatened to drop everything, and his legs begged to race away despite his commands.

  He dashed out of the cursed room, slamming the storage room shut. Gasping, Aiden looked at his next assignment. “Organize the files in the library.” The same wallpaper leered at him with every turn of the hallway. Up the stairs, down the stairs, left and right he wandered. He observed the doors, the only unique indicator in the existence of the manor. Metal doors, wooden doors, and painted doors, he noted, stared at them and memorized their surfaces. After passing a door with slightly peeling paint three times, exasperation overtook him. He collapsed to the ground, staring at the list.

  “Organize the files in the library,” he read underneath his breath. He willed his legs to stand, but his body refused to move against the burn. If only he could find the library. If only he knew where every room was located in this house. If only…

  Yin Mei’s ghostly disappointed eyes stared a hole in the back of his head. He Bao’s disdain and Zhu Zhu’s apathy hovered over him like a cloud. Groaning, Aiden forced himself to stand and searched the house fruitlessly for another hour before he found the so-called library: a tiny room with only three bookshelves.

  Piles of papers waited for him. Joy he couldn’t understand burst from within. He collapsed onto the ground with a smile, reading and separating the paper into different piles. His feet burned even at the rest. Against his better judgment, Aiden looked at each paper slowly, relishing in the hard ground. From within the company, he read silently and placed it down on one pile.

  Internal observations.

  Aiden froze, staring at the notes written by one of the guards.

  “Suspicious man lurking around the premise of the company’s building. Claimed to be lost and asked for directions to another corporation’s address. Either a federal agent or a remnant of the Guo family,” he read aloud. “Guo family.”

  The kidnapper’s panicked eyes in Hong Kong flashed in his mind. “Tell me about the Guo family,” Aiden repeated the kidnapper’s questions to himself. Who is this Guo family that even Zhou is worried about? Before he could wonder more, a guard entered the room with clenched hands.

  Without warning, he grabbed Aiden by the scruff of his neck and dragged him down the hall to Mr. Zhou’s office. Aiden hid his hiss of pain to himself, falling to the ground. He grasped at the carpeted floor, braced his body, and sat up with his head lowered. The list of tasks fell from his hands to the ground.

  The guard picked up the list and handed it to Mr. Zhou.

  Aiden sat on his legs to keep them from shaking.

  “Lang, if you’re in trouble, remember, don’t show any weakness—it means you’re hiding something. Don’t show any defiance either—it’ll also just mean you’re hiding something,” Hui Ye repeated like a mantra so often that Aiden began to wonder if his brother was trying to teach him or if his brother was only reminding himself of such mafia facts.

  Mr. Zhou tsked. “You’re only on the second task.”

  “I apologize, sir.”

  “I gave you the easiest tasks.”

  “I am doing my best.”

  “This is your best?”

  Sweat formed against his forehead, and he lowered his head more in an attempt to hide it. “Yes, sir.”

  Silence ticked on.

  I can’t keep my head lowered any longer. The time period of showing defiance has passed. Slowly, he lifted his head, freezing upon meeting Mr. Zhou’s beady eyes. The man’s pupils looked him up and down, stopped at his face, and remained there without blinking. The fingers of his crossed hands placed upon his desk tapped each other, grasping for something Mr. Zhou couldn’t reach.

  Wait a minute…he’s testing me, Aiden realized, setting his mouth into a straight line. Not for my competency. It’s like he’s looking for something from me. Some other kind of reaction. Why? I followed Ge’s lessons. He shouldn’t think I’m hiding something.

  Mr. Zhou dismissed him to finish the rest of the tasks—but Aiden continued to wonder.

  • • •

  “Aiden, are you listening to us?”

  Aiden snapped to attention at Javier’s insistent voice. Alarmed, he glanced around the cafeteria table only to see Christina and Javier looking back at him curiously and a distracted Brendan bent over his math textbook.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say? I didn’t catch it.”

  “I was saying that Christina and Brendan are in desperate need of tutoring because they bombed their last exam in their math class.”

  “Uh huh.” Mr. Zhou keeps his group under a tight grip. No emotions, no weaknesses, and no sense of bonds between him or his employees or even with his family. This means he expects results and professionalism above all else.

  “And I was saying that it might be too much for me to tutor these two by myself,” Javier continued.

  “Uh huh.” I didn’t finish everything he wanted me to do, so I’ll have to do better. It’s good that the assignments he’s giving me are more secretarial work.

  “And I’m asking if you’d be interested in tutoring Brendan and Christina with me.”

  “Sure.”

  “Great! Then tomorrow night, we meet at the library. I'll text you where to meet, and we’ll just use that spot every week. And hopefully, they won’t fail next time.”

  “Wait—what?” Aiden looked up from his tray of food.

  Javier stared, unamused. “You said you’d help me tutor these two idiots. We have to do it every week. They’ll just fall more and more behind otherwise.”

  “Honestly, why am I even learning calculus?” Christina groaned. “I’m a marketing major for crying out loud.”

  “I agree, but unfortunately, I definitely need to do well in this class if I ever want to be a doctor,” Brendan mumbled. He turned the page of the textbook, his brows furrowed, and his mouth pressed to a stressed line.

  For a second, Aiden sat in his chair, blinking. Why he was sitting in an open space with a group of students who complained about homework and grades? There’s work to be done. You’re going to Mr. Yang today.

  The sounds of the cafeteria buzzed around him. Aiden looked around at the other students gathered at the tables. The cafeteria was large with a high ceiling, and strangers roamed with backpacks and plates of food. Oh. He relaxed against his chair. I’m with friends right now.

  Aiden smiled. “Yeah, I can help. I’m doing well with my math class.” He looked at Brendan. The charming, confident president of the photography club hadn't lifted his head once since sitting down at the table. The stress lines on Brendan’s face grew ever deeper with each passing example his eyes inspected in the math textbook.

  Aiden leaned down on his hand, watching Brendan. He’s such a hard worker. If he could, he would spend even more time with the president, but he quickly banished the thought. The fact that he still sat with his friends was already a miracle. To ask for any more, Aiden knew, was the pinnacle of selfishness.

  He reached over and gently closed the textbook. Shocked, Brendan looked up at Aiden. “Staring at it won’t make you understand any faster,” Aiden said, picking up his tray. “Don’t worry about it until the tutoring session tomorrow.”

  Brendan nodded. As Aiden turned to leave, the other boy grabbed him with a gentle tug of his warm hand. “Are you okay? You seem pale.”

  Jumping, Aiden balanced the tray on one hand to feel his face with the other. His cheek came back cold against his palm. Aiden forced a smile. “I started working recently, so I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “Why?” Christina leaned forward.

  “My family’s in a bit of a bind. I can’t go too much into it.”