Vengeance (part 14)
“Jian,” Feilong kneeled so that he could look at the boy at eye-level, “Look at me?” The young boy raised his head slowly, his eyes looking up from the floor to Feilong. “Jian...” he whispered again, prepared to say the inevitable words to the young boy.
Suddenly, Jian broke into sobs, his body shaking in uneven rhythm, standing there, clutching the shirt of his blue pajamas, barefoot. He was small and frail in Feilong’s eyes. Eyes dark and lonely and needy with a messy and ruffled bed head, his shoulders, thin and delicate, shook as thin drops of tears ran slowly from his eyes to his chin where they dripped onto the shirt, leaving dark, wet spots.
He was young and most likely, he wouldn’t come to understand fully the situation until he was much older, but he seemed to at least know that something bad had happened and that he was alone. He knew at least that his father would not come home again though the reason, he did not quite grasp. Whatever his emotions were, they were much akin to grief, and with time, he would come to feel it in its whole and complete way, but for now...for now he cried because it was the only way he knew to express what he now felt.
As a child should... Feilong though as he took the boy into his arms. Mourning together, perhaps that might ease the weight on them both. Or perhaps he could lift some of it from the child and put it upon himself.
The guards watched in silence, silent as hushed as the soft warmth which Feilong offered the child. Had tenderness been possible? Plausible? Was it within the narrow range of their master’s so limited expressions? But they would say nothing in this tacit agreement that it would never once been mentioned - it was “overlooked” for the sake of everyone and especially for Feilong.
He gently picked up the boy and felt the almost weightless body, fragile in his arms. He nodded to the men and they followed him as he made his way out of Zhen’s flat and to the elevator. By the time they reached the bottom, the boy had stopped sobbing uncontrollably though still moved from short, infrequent sobs.
Feilong glanced at his watch. 5:57 AM. His men were probably on their way home with Tao onboard, and he was glad for it. If he could permit himself, he longed for someone he could fall back on, even for a temporary and fleeting moment.
Tao. He had grown up to be a fine individual. Where he himself lacked, Tao did not. Somewhere along the line, Tao had figured out the balance which Feilong had never quite grasped; at least, Feilong believed it so. Unlike himself, who was cold and distant to just about everyone and anyone, Tao allowed more of his self to be exposed but never enough to put himself at a disadvantage. In other words, he seemed to know exactly where the line ran and knew how this line shifted unpredictably from situation to situation, person to person.
A very few brave people had even told Feilong that he looked at Tao as he would a son. As to the validity of this statement, he wasn’t sure; he never had had a real son to compare to, but he found it better that way.
Feilong figured it much like this. If he couldn’t suppress a genuine smile to see Tao finish first at the swim meets (Tao chose the pool as his athletic territory) and if he felt a pang when he saw Tao’s disappointed expression to see that he had missed first place by a minute fraction of a second. If he found himself pacing when Tao came home late after a day out with his friends...then perhaps those daring people had been right. Perhaps he did so look at the grown young man as a son. But what of Jian? Would he look at that boy the same way?
****
Zurich
He couldn’t help but notice her grace and her elegance as he led Svetlana down a corridor though a series of double doors until he finally stopped before a room where he laid his hand on a scanner. The lock whirred as it unlocked and he opened the door and motioned with a swoop of his arms for her to enter.
The room was a medium-sized office, furnished sparsely in a contemporary style.
“Please, take a seat” he motioned at a hair as he went around a desk and sat down before a monitor. Svetlana took off her coat and hung it on the back of the chair before settling down.
“I see the protocol hasn’t changed,” she said with a smile.
“No, it hasn’t in the past twenty-five years, I believe.”
“Is that so...” she ran her hand through hair.
He was typing rapidly into the account, “When was the account deactivated?”
“Fourteen years ago.”
“Was it automatically deactivated?”
“Yes, it was.”
“A numbered account?”
“Yes.”
“The account code would be?”
“Misha.”
“M-I-S-H-A? Did I spell that right?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, here it is.” He turned the monitor around so that she could see, “Could you confirm the details?”
She leaned forward, her eyes moving down the screen, “That looks right. But I’d like to change something that isn’t shown here.”
“Which would be...”
“I’d like to transfer my ownership to someone else.”
“Of course...” he set the keyboard before her, “To whomever you wish.”
Svetlana’s hands trembled faintly. Was this the right way? Was this how it should be done? Money didn’t pay for apologies. Money didn’t forgive.
But what choice did she have?
It had been difficult, painful to leave her brother. Her mentor. But how could she have been forgiven for that task she attempted. Patricide. She had never had to do it, but the very fact that she had it planned to the last domino, that made it enough, she believed. Worse was, she had been fully intent on carrying it out. Perhaps an instinctive reaction. To fight back when attacked. But how primitive all that sounded now. How crude and brutish and raw that was. Where had her logic been then? And where was it now?
Like this, she had no right to return, after all. Her mother had been right; she never belonged in that family. Not since her very birth, she only had one faint foot in the family. This fact, she never disclosed to anyone, not even Nikolai. Especially not to Nikolai.
Her father was afraid, and justifiably so. After all, she was not truly of his blood.
****
Moscow [14 years ago]
“You incestuous bitch!” He stood over her, breathing heavily.
“Father, please...” she groaned, blood running from her nose. Already, the welts of the belt mark were swelling like hives on her skin, “...please...” her body ached all over, wounds throbbing madly and furiously where and around the places she had been struck.
“Dmitriy!” Her mother suddenly burst into the study, “Lord, what are you doing to Sveta?”
“You, too!” he spat, “Did you think I would never find out?” he was pointing a finger at her, as if to accuse her for her infidelity.
“Wha-” she looked at him, eyes wide with fear.
“Don’t pretend to be innocent. I supposed she learned this from you. Like mother like daughter, both of you incestuous whores to that family!” He grabbed Sveta’s hair and made her looked up, “Is that it, huh? Did you sell your body to your own kind, too, then?”
“That’s enough, Dmitriy.” She took a step toward him.
“Stay back,” from inside his vest, he drew out his pistol, “get out of this room. I’ll take care of things one and a time. I won’t hesitate to shoot, not an infidel wench like you.”
She swallowed as she stepped back slowly.
“Close the door,” he commanded, gun still pointed at his wife, “don’t interrupt again.”
Svetlana looked up at her father, or was he? Not by blood, no, certainly not in that category.
“You!” he glowered, “How dare you...”
“I didn’t know. I swear to you.”
“You lie!”
“No, not to you, I would never, father.”
“Don’t call me that!”
The last thing she felt before blacking out was a hard blow to her head.
****
Hong Kong
The study was dimly lit, dark almost with the heavy curtains drawn to completely block out the light of late winter sunrise. The ebony wood seemed even darker, a deep black almost, though it gleamed, menacingly, from the careful polish.
Feilong rested his head against the back of the cough, eyes closed, facing up at the ceiling. In his left hand was a drink, bitter and acrid. Even he wondered why he drank it sometimes, the bile like liquid. Yes, it burned down his throat and would soon dull his mind, but still, was he imitating someone? A certain someone he would rather not have thought about?
His surroundings felt desperately desolate nowadays. So completely empty.
He brought the glass to his lips and took a small sip then winced at the taste. What the hell was he doing. The boy was in one of the vacant bedrooms down the hall, sleeping. The boy had said nothing through the entire helicopter ride from Macau to Hong Kong. It was the most uncomfortable silence; he would have preferred crying or whining or...or anything but the child’s silence.
The maids at Feilong’s estate looked at the boy sympathetically and asked him if he would like something to eat, but the boy was tired and went straight to bed. Or maybe, he was feigning, but either way, he seemed to prefer privacy and Feilong left it at that.
Maybe he himself needed some sleep. He had been awake for about a day and a half. He had had worse before, but exhaustion, more mental than physical, was starting to come over him. Feilong reached for the tie on his hair and let loose the string then ran his finger through the braid. Slowly, he leaned back into the seat and let his breathing settle into deep strokes as he drifted off to sleep.
****
Tokyo
Kaito rubbed his neck in the elevator and suppressed a yawn.
“Are you alright, Kaito-san?” one of the female coworkers looked at him with a worried frown, “You look a bit tired.” Her name was Hikari Iijima, and she worked two floors above him in the human resources department. She was twenty-two, a year younger than Kaito and was even more of a newcomer than him, having been hired a little over two months ago.
She was one of those odd, please-pay-me-no-attention-even-though-it’s-completely-obvious-that-I’m-a-bit-strange type of person. She had been the daughter of a diplomat and never really had the whole and complete Japanese indoctrination, which might explain her oddities and in effect, Kaito’s still unrealized attraction. By unrealized, it meant that Kaito still hadn’t quite figured out how to ask her out to even coffee after work. Even so, they were on a strange first name basis. First name with honorifics attached, that is, when most of the coworkers were on a strictly formal last name basis. Maybe that was just another one of Hikari’s oddities.
“Ah, no, just...I woke up on the wrong side of the bed is all.”
“Well. Just be careful; word is you’ve been doing after-work hours and pulling all-nighters too frequently. That’s not good for your health.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise; he had underestimated the stream of information called office gossip. He had indeed been working after office hours and pulling all-nighters lately after being dumped a handful of new clients with some extensive portfolios. It was either his work or Hyouta in his mind. If he wasn’t worrying over his younger brother, he was thinking about checking stocks on his cell phone. Thank god for technology.
“Oh?” was all he could muster.
“Maybe take a short leave around Christmas to relax.”
“Thank you for your concern, and I’ll be sure to give your advice my consideration.” Shit. That came off sounding arrogant, he wanted to bang his head into the wall of the elevator, “What I meant was-”
He was both conveniently and inconveniently cut off by the elevator which had arrived on his floor. She laughed softly at his flustered attempted but unfinished explanation.
“I think this is your floor, Kaito-san.”
I blew it... “Um...you’re right.” You’re right? You stupid, stupid... now he wanted to jump out the window or something now.
He stepped out and gave a slight bow. He took two steps away, turned when the elevator door was halfway closed. Abruptly, he reached in his arm to stop it and almost got his arm stuck in it.
“Oh my God, Kaito-san, are you alright?”
“Um..yeah...” his arm was kind of sore in fact.
“What were you doing? Putting your arm into the elevator door?”
“That wasn’t...”
“Maybe you should take the day off?”
“No, no, I just...” Just say it! “...erm...wanted to ask if you wanted a cup of coffee after work...”
“That’s why you almost got your arm cut off?” she asked incredulously, “To ask me out for a cup of coffee?”
I can’t believe she put it so bluntly... he cheeks were flaring now, “Well...um...more or less, yes...that sounds about right. Is that a yes or no?”
“I’d love to. But next time, you don’t have to put any of your limbs at risk. My extension number is 157, okay?”
“Okay, I’ll wait for you by that weird abstract painting in the lobby after work.”
“That’s actually a pretty famous painting, but whatever you say,” she laughed as she stepped back into the elevator, “Gotta go, I’m sure a dozen people are driving themselves nuts by the elevator.”
“Right, right...”
“I’ll se you after work.” With that she disappeared behind the door. He could hear her steps echoing as he breathed a sigh a relief.
Yes! He pumped his fist and blushed when his coworkers stared at him as he had gone insane.