Iris’s entrance had broken the serious discussion we had been having, and everyone reverted to casual conversation as she ate, talking about the impending typhoon, where everyone would sleep in the headquarters that night, and what we should make for breakfast. That was mainly Lingyi and Victor, setting the next morning’s menu.
I kept silent as I observed Iris. Although I’d known her for two years, she remained an enigma. Her movements were as spare and concise as her physique—there was never anything casual in her motion, anything unnecessary or extraneous. She was tough because she’d had to survive for so long on her own, Lingyi had told me. Among our group of five, she was the most reserved in her words as well.
Iris began clearing the table after she was done. Arun stood to help. “Well, if we had leftovers before, we certainly don’t now,” Victor quipped.
“I said I was hungry,” Iris stated.
“You’re always hungry,” Victor replied.
“Look who’s talking!” Lingyi said.
We laughed as only people with full stomachs in the security of a warm home could laugh as a threatening typhoon loomed. I pushed back from the table, bringing the last of the dishes while Arun loaded them into the domed washer. Arun and I chatted about cheats for Frenzy, ready for a night of gaming soon, while the washer cycled through. Three minutes later, we were stacking the dry dishes back onto the kitchen’s open shelves in exactly the way Lingyi liked them.
Victor brewed jasmine tea for everyone, and we all soon settled back onto various plush seats, nursing teacups in our hands.
“We were just going over Zhou’s new identity,” Lingyi explained to Iris. Lingyi sat in the middle of the sofa, flanked by Victor, who was leaning in toward her so their thighs almost touched, and Iris, who perched again on the armrest.
“I’ve already befriended the best tailor in Taipei,” Victor said. “You’ll have a complete custom wardrobe made. The yous are less likely to question your pedigree the more expensively you’re dressed. No more ripped shirts or jeans—unless they’re designer. I’ll be getting you the best gadgets and accessories on the market too. You’ll be decked out better than Bond.”
I tilted my face up and suppressed a groan. How convincing could I be as an entitled you? I needed to pull this off. No fear. No hesitancy.
Victor reached over and swatted the back of my head.
“Ow!” I yelped.
“Ungrateful wretch. This is all coming out of the main fund. I’d love to get everything you’re getting and play the cool, rich guy. I’ll be securing an apartment for you soon as well. How would you like it furnished?”
“I’d like a rock wall,” I said.
“A rock wall?” Victor shook his head. It was obvious he thought I was hopeless in my rich-you-boy role. “Anything else?”
I shrugged. “A bed, two chairs, a table, and an espresso machine?”
“All this money and you live like a hermit?” Victor paused. “A wall-climbing hermit?”
I smiled, and everyone laughed.
“What am I supposed to be doing in my new identity, anyway?” I asked.
“Our mission is to get as much information on Jin Corp as we can—and you’ll be our link to the inside,” Lingyi said. “The yous are a small group in Taipei, and the ones near our age have even tighter cliques. You’re fresh blood. They’ll be intrigued by you.”
Arun swiped his Palm and the projection wall lit up once more. “Jin has one child, a seventeen-year-old daughter named Daiyu. She’s been shielded from media attention thanks to her father and keeps a really low profile. No wild parties or media blasts of bad behavior from her.”
I tipped my cup and sloshed hot tea over my fingers. Wincing, I glanced up at the wall to see an image of Daiyu looking back at me, dressed formally in a red evening gown, her black hair swept up to expose the graceful column of her neck. I felt all the blood drain from my face.
“Befriend her,” Lingyi said. “She’s our best access to Jin Corp directly.”
“I recognize her,” Iris said. “I’ve seen her coming in and out of Jin Corp. She’s chauffeured in a white limo.”
“Jin is divorced from Daiyu’s mother, Liwen, Cambridge graduate and model–turned–variety show hostess.” Arun’s deft fingers worked his Palm screen, and an image of Jin and his ex-wife appeared on the wall: beautiful and dazzling in their wealth.
I leaped out of the armchair. “I can’t. That’s her.”
I felt all eyes turn to me.
“What?”
“What do you mean?”
I stumbled away from everyone to stand before the wall screen so I wouldn’t have to see the images behind me. “Daiyu was the one I kidnapped.”
The chamber erupted in exclamations.
“It was Jin’s thugs who were looking for you,” Victor said. “Of course you had to kidnap his daughter.”
“But if it was Jin’s daughter, wouldn’t it have been all over the news?” Arun asked.
That’s what I had assumed too. Foolish me. “I had . . . her call her father first.” I couldn’t bring myself to say her name. “He never even picked up.”
I had never told the group the name of the girl I had taken for ransom. Although the kidnapping was core to our operation, it seemed a personal affair. I had volunteered to do it alone, and the less my friends knew, the better. There had been no need to divulge Daiyu’s identity. The ransom had been deposited anonymously from Taipei Bank into the account Lingyi set up. Daiyu had been gone for less than twenty-four hours.
I didn’t share her name because I didn’t want her, in my mind, to suffer the indignity.
I didn’t share it because I wanted the memory of our short time together to be my own. As twisted as that was.
I didn’t share it because I didn’t want to think about her anymore.
“It would have been bad press,” Lingyi said after a long moment. “Imagine the headline: ‘Daughter of Head of Jin Corp Kidnapped for a Large Ransom—Easy Target as a You Girl Wearing One of Jin’s Own Suits.”
“You mean to tell me you didn’t do an undernet search all this time?” Arun asked, eyes wide. “Never once? You had no idea you actually kidnapped Jin’s daughter?”
I paced the length of the wall, avoiding the gigantic screen beside me. “No. I didn’t. I didn’t want to know, all right?”
“Well, surprise,” Victor drawled.
“It changes everything, don’t you see?” I touched the minimalized image of Daiyu on the screen, and she leaped back to full size—larger than life. “What if she recognizes me? What if she remembers?”
“It’s impossible,” Victor said. “I paid for the best memory-wipe that was available from a legitimate dealer. No one has ever remembered. Trust me. I’d wager my cuff links collection on it. You don’t have to worry.”
Arun tapped quickly on his Palm and brought up his search screen onto the wall for all of us to see. “It’s true. Multiple studies and volunteer testimonies over a three-decade time span. No subject has ever remembered the period that was wiped from their minds.”
“They can’t even dream about it,” Victor said. “It’s gone. It never happened. Believe me, to Daiyu, it’s like you never existed.”
“We could change his face. Put him under the knife,” Iris said.