2: 2

2

Watching the whole family close in around Aaron, I found I didn't mind after all.

Thank God the years of my adoptive father's love had already filled the hollow places in me. Otherwise, today would have cut a little deeper.

With that thought, I lifted my eyes and looked calmly at all of them.

"Mom, I'm really not trying to force anyone. It's just that my adoptive mother truly…"

I couldn't come out and say who I really was, so I'd meant to lean on the fact that she couldn't do without me, and simply leave in the morning with my dignity intact.

I'd barely opened my mouth when Aaron cut in.

"Brother, if you really forgive me, then accept my gift."

He straightened up, eyes rimmed red, and came to stand in front of me.

"Brother, this old jade pendant was left to Mom by her grandmother, and she passed it down to me. Now I'm giving it back to you. Just stop fighting me over Sybilla, all right?"

He yanked the pendant free and, tears streaming, shoved it hard into my hands.

I moved to push it back, and then came a sharp crack. The pendant hit the floor and shattered, the pieces scattering at my feet.

"Brother, I'm handing you back the pendant that marks the legitimate Floyd heir, and you smash it?"

"Do you hate me that much? You have to fight me for Sybilla no matter what?"

Aaron roared it at me, grief and fury in his voice, then dropped to a crouch and closed his fist around the broken shards. Blood dripped onto the floor, one drop after another.

"Mom, I'm sorry. I don't deserve to be your son. I couldn't even protect the pendant Grandmother passed down to you."

Three stunned seconds, then I stepped back and looked coldly at Aaron crouched there, weeping his heart out.

This time Charlene was the first to lunge, her palm cracking across my face.

"Lance Floyd, how can you be so vicious? You won't rest until you've driven Aaron out?"

"Let me tell you something. Aaron is my real brother, and it disgusts me that someone as shallow and ugly as you shares the same blood as us."

As she spoke, she'd already grabbed Aaron's hand, pressing down hard on the wound, shouting for the butler.

Mother was crying too, holding Aaron.

"Foolish child, if it broke, it broke. Why would you pick it up? You've lost so much blood. What if it scars?"

Then she turned back to me, her voice full of sorrow and helplessness.

"Lance, what is it you want? Are you asking me to give up my life to make it right for you?"

"We only just found you, and already you're making a scene about leaving. You have to break my heart like this?"

She wept as though I were a son with no feeling at all for a mother's tender heart.

She'd already promised to make it up to me. She'd promised to find me a good wife.

They hadn't wronged me.

Compared to Dragon Cove, where I dug for herbs every day and lived in a thatched hut, this was a thousand times better, ten thousand times.

So why couldn't I be content?

Every one of them looked at me with disgust, and the last trace of warmth in my father's face was gone.

"Lance, Aaron has been raised at our side for twenty years. No blood between us, maybe, but he's long been the heir we poured our hearts into raising."

"If you keep overstepping and stirring up trouble like this, then don't ever expect to come back to high society and live in comfort again."

I looked at the grave set of his face and knew he meant it.

After all, a son who'd studied abroad for ten years and knew how to please people was worth far more than a coarse country son like me.

In the face of profit, blood didn't always count for much.

Fine. In the end, there'd be no more tangled ties to sort out.

I cleared my throat, straightened, and spoke coldly.

"Dad, I never once thought of taking anything. A life of comfort, I can provide that for myself…"

"Mom, Dad, my head's so dizzy. Am I dying? Mom, Dad, I'm sorry, I haven't repaid you for raising me yet…"

Aaron took the cue and fainted into Charlene's arms. Every face changed, and they scrambled to hold him up and rush him out of the villa.

Supporting Aaron, Charlene paused at the door, and in that instant she turned back, a flash of murder in her eyes.

"Lance Floyd, if anything happens to Aaron, I will not let you off."

3: 3

3

My eyes went dark as I watched the whole crowd of them vanish into the night.

The courtyard glowed warm and bright, yet a chill crept over my whole body as I stood alone in the middle of the living room.

I don't know how long it took before I came back to myself and walked, step by step, toward the guest room they had thrown together for me.

The room was elegant enough, clean, white gauze curtains pooling on the floor, a thick cashmere rug soft and yielding under my feet.

Compared to Dragon Cove, where I broke my back growing herbs and slept in a straw shed when I was worn out, this was a world better.

But I knew perfectly well that Aaron's room was the master suite, the finest on the second floor, that the cashmere rug ran the whole length of the hallway up there, that his private walk-in closet was bigger than this guest room.

To them, a room like this was already generous. They hadn't shortchanged me on anything.

The truth was I didn't blame them either. But this was family, the family I'd waited twenty years for, and something in me still ached with disappointment.

I lay back on the soft, wide bed, exhausted, staring out at the flowering silk tree beyond the courtyard, its branches heavy with leaves, pink petals drifting down.

In that daze, I remembered my mother holding me under a tree when I was small, murmuring softly,

"Our little Lance is Mama's prettiest treasure, the son Mama loves most."

My eldest sister ran over and pressed a stick of cotton candy into my hands, her childish face all seriousness.

"Little brother, when you grow up I'll give you all the best things. I'll protect you from now on. We'll fight off the bad people together."

Those hazy memories circled through my mind again and again, and for twenty years they had made me long to be with them.

Long to throw myself into their arms and say,

"Mom, Dad, big sister, Lance is home."

"Mom, Dad, big sister, Lance missed you so much. I dreamed of finding you."

Half-asleep, it seemed a silk-tree blossom had fallen against my face, a small patch of wet cold.

Then a searing pain tore across it. I jolted upright, clapped both hands to my face, and let out a raw, agonized scream.

The scalding sting swallowed my whole face in an instant, every pain in me gathering there at once and then spreading out into my arms and legs.

I bolted off the bed, clamping my cheeks with both hands, then rolled onto the floor, howling in pain.

My eldest sister's voice came cold beside me. Charlene's voice.

"You brought this on yourself." Each word was frozen, cutting to the bone.

"I never wanted to do anything to you. But you just couldn't keep your place, always turning on Aaron, fighting him at every step."

"Aaron has a kind heart. He couldn't stand to see Mom and Dad hurt, so now he's lying in that hospital refusing treatment. He'd rather die than keep the place of the Floyd family's eldest son from you."

She crouched down and wrenched my hands away from my face, staring at the raw pulp of my cheeks without a flicker of pity, only the satisfaction of a score settled.

"Aaron Floyd, let's see now, with your face ruined, turned into a monster, whether you'll still dare to covet what was never yours."

"Let's see how you fight Aaron after this. Whether you'll still dare to bully him."

My howling brought my father and mother rushing back. The moment they pushed the door open, the color drained from their faces.

My father's always-composed face turned to frost in a single beat.

"Charlene Floyd, you wretched girl."

He roared and lunged, seized her, and cracked his palm across her face.

"Lance is your own brother. You could do something this vicious, ruining his face with acid? Is this how a big sister behaves?"

In his fury my father kicked her into the corner.

He was shouting, out of his mind with rage.

"Gabriel Lambert, bring the family rod. Today I'll beat this heartless, unnatural girl to death."

Charlene had her own kind of spine. She dropped to the floor with a thud, stiffened her neck, and said,

"Today, even if you beat me to death, I'd still throw this bottle of acid."

"He's not my sweet little brother anymore. He's just a selfish, greedy hick. Look what he's driven Aaron to. Do you want him to destroy the whole Floyd family?"

My father froze. For a second his eyes wavered, then the fury took him again, and he brought the whip down hard across her back.

"Even so, you don't throw acid. He's your own brother."

4: 4

4

The braided rod cracked down and Charlene let out a muffled grunt, but her spine stayed straight. She did not beg.

Hal's brow knotted. He raised the rod high and brought it down again.

"Still won't admit you were wrong? Still won't apologize to your brother and beg his forgiveness?"

The whip came whistling down, about to bite into Charlene's back again, when Wendy screamed and threw herself over her, wrapping her daughter tight in her arms.

She didn't feel the pain at all. She just cried, shouting up at him.

"Hal, stop it, stop hitting her. We've already got one child lying in a hospital. Do you mean to beat the other one to death too?"

She wept until she came apart, every ounce of her aching for Aaron, aching for the daughter who had done this terrible thing, and from start to finish she never once saw me, my face a mess of blood, curled on the floor in agony.

Hal stopped, breathing hard, and let out a heavy sigh.

Wendy only held my elder brother and cried as if her heart were being torn out.

A long while later, Hal threw down the rod, turned, and looked at me with guilt and helplessness. He lifted me up gently, an apology in his voice.

"Lance, it's my fault, I didn't raise your sister right. This is on us. We wronged you."

He fell silent for a moment, as though weighing it carefully, before he made his promise.

"Tomorrow I'll set up a card for you and put two hundred thousand into it as compensation."

"Once this blows over, once Aaron has fully recovered and he and Sybilla are married, I'll send you abroad right away to the best doctors. I promise you, they'll make you even more handsome than before, not a single scar left."

As the words landed, Wendy let go of my brother, still sobbing, and hurried over to me. She wrapped her arms around me and held on tight, her tears dropping one by one onto my neck.

"Lance, my good boy, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Mom never imagined it would come to this. It's my fault, isn't it, I didn't keep you safe."

She cried and apologized and explained, over and over.

"Lance, you'll understand me, won't you? They're both my flesh and blood, one side a child we raised for twenty years, the other side your sister. Mom really had no choice."

"Just forgive your sister this once, all right? Even if your face really does scar and you're not handsome anymore, Mom will never think less of you. Your father and I will provide for you your whole life, take care of you for the rest of your days, never let you suffer a moment's hardship."

Her warm tears fell onto the raw, festering wound, and each one sent a fine, splintering sting through it.

I leaned into her arms, listening to this hollow comfort, the searing pain in my face long since gone numb, and the last thread of hope I'd held for family finally broke apart, clean and complete.

Hal began ordering the butler to fetch a doctor for me. I let them carry me to the bed and work over my face however they wished.

Under the heavy anesthetic, I slowly sank into sleep.

When I woke again the room was pitch dark, the sharp pain in my face faded now, leaving only the dry, stinging rasp in my throat.

I sat up slowly and felt my way out to find some water.

Standing at the bend on the second floor, I could see down into the ground-floor hall, where Hal sat on the sofa with a grim face, and Wendy, tending the wounds on Charlene's back with aching care, wept and reproached him.

"Hal, how could you be so cruel to your own daughter? She did it for Aaron, out of good intentions."

Hal let out a breath, his face iron-hard.

"Good intentions or not, she had no right to lay a hand on him and hurt him like that."

"If I didn't punish Charlene hard, vent it for that boy, calm him down, and he'd gone running to the police today, tomorrow the Floyd name would be splashed across the headlines. By then, do you really think the Hardings would still let Sybilla marry in?"