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“Someone took a shot at my grandbabies today. How can I rest?” She took a seat in front of Liam’s desk. “Who are these ingrates?”
I took a seat on the arm of Liam’s chair while Fedel walked in front of us.
“It’s the Chinese mob…or triad, as they call it.”
TEN
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
~ Jane Austen
CORALINE
“The head of the of the Tàiyáng finally is sixty-seven-year-old Ju-long.” Fedel pointed to the man on the screen, which hung on the wooden wall beside the bookcase. Ju-long was only sixty-seven and yet he looked much older than that. His face was beyond wrinkled and he must have been blinded in one eye because it was gray, a scar running from the tip of his white hairline to his cheekbone. “He has two children. The oldest, Ruò Jiàn, is thirty, and the one whom the boss kicked out of the city last Saturday; he is an imbecile. His second child is his daughter, Liling, twenty-eight. There isn’t much on her other than of her love of clothing and American Hollywood stars.”
It was almost impossible to tell Ruò Jiàn and Liling were siblings from the ways they carried themselves. They were complete and utter opposites. Ruò Jiàn looked greasy, his black hair grown out and piercings in both his ears. It looked like he picked his clothes blind: he wore a 90s jean jacket with a gold dragon on the back of it, and his jeans looked two sizes too big, making me positive that his whole outfit was one horrendous throwback to the dark ages. Meanwhile, his younger sister stood with pride, her long dark hair in a side ponytail. She wore a long embroidered red traditional cheongsam with a golden dragon on the neck cuff. Both of them had pale white skin, but that was the end of the similarities.
“In a few days, Liling will be getting married to thirty-six-year-old Emilio Esteban Cortés, here in Chicago—”
“Something is wrong.” Declan cracked his jaw to the side as he looked to Liam and Melody, both sitting at the head of the table. “The triad has never married outside their own kind.”
“Neither did the Irish and yet here each of us sits. African-American, Korean, Italian,”
I replied. “Adapt or die.”
“Let’s not pretend there wasn’t a reason,” Liam said, never looking away from the screen, his finger hovering over his lips. “I married Melody for an alliance. Neal you married Mina…well because she was already on the inside—”
“I married my wife, brother, because I love her,” Neal cut in, speaking up for the first time.
“That’s nice. Don’t interrupt me again.” Liam rolled his eyes and Neal clenched his fist; they always butted heads during times like these. “The only person who married outside the family without reason was Declan, and the only reason why he could was because he wasn’t going to be the next leader of this family. Liling…why is she marrying a Hispanic, a nobody Hispanic? Who is he?”
“That’s all we know, sir,” Fedel answered. Emilio was now on the screen. He was attractive, with long curly black hair that stopped at his shoulders, big hazel eyes, and sun-kissed skin. He stood well over six feet and had broad shoulders. A swimmer maybe? “He was born here in Chicago, spent his whole life here doing nothing noteworthy other than some community organizing, and he graduated from the University of Chicago Law School a few years ago. Before that he did teach each English in Shanghai for eight months; that is where we believe he first made contact with Liling. Other than that, he is a ghost.”
“He’s a person. Bullets do not harm ghosts. Something isn’t right, Fedel, and I want to know what it is,” Melody stated, speaking up for the first time since we’d started this conversation, which wouldn’t have been so odd if it weren’t for the fact that she could not look away from the man on the screen.
“Yes, boss, one of our people will be in Hong Kong by morning.”
“What of the sniper?” Liam spoke, his voice dangerously lower than it had been only a second before. His green eyes seemed clearer, scarier.
“The police—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the police! I want the sniper, Fedel. I wanted him hours ago. Someone! Somewhere! Saw something! It is your job to get them to speak!” he hollered, slamming his fist on the table. None of us spoke and had it not been for my damn cell phone, it would have been silent.
Buzzz.
Buzzz.
Reaching into my pocket, my shoulders dropped at yet another call from the hospital. The moment I ignored it they just rang back once again.
Urgh.
“Babe?”
&nbs
p; “Huh?” I snapped up to find not only Declan staring at me but everyone else.
“Is everything okay?” Declan reached to touch my hand but I stood.
