Claimed Darker by Em Brown

Chapter 1

Chen He Lee held back a grimace as he walked into the hospital room and beheld Peter, his head wrapped in bandages, his face purple and swollen. Peter had put on a significant amount of weight since Chen had last seen him several years ago, and Chen would not have been surprised if the small hospital bed beneath Peter collapsed at any second. Beside the bed, the heart-rate monitor beeped slowly but steadily.

I should have done better to stay in touch, Chen thought with regret.

Peter Wong had been Chen’s best friend through seven years of boarding school in London, but after high school, Chen had gone off to Oxford and then the London Business School, while Peter had returned home to Shanghai, presumably to take over the family’s failing import-export business.

After getting his MBA, Chen had gone straight into his own family’s multibillion-dollar business. The long hours and international travel had made it hard to stay in touch with old friends. He might not have even known that Peter had been shot if not for a former classmate who had come across a news post about it on WeChat.

“A vision from my past,” Peter greeted in a weak voice.

Chen approached and looked Peter over. He had a dozen questions but did not want to task his friend’s fragile state. Keeping his tone light, he said, “You look like shit.”

Peter grunted. “Says the pretty boy.”

Chen smiled, but on the inside, he seethed. He was going to find the bastard or bastards who did this.

Peter started coughing, and Chen reached for the water pitcher beside the bed. Peter lifted his hand, the one that didn’t have IV’s taped to it.

“I need…a favor,” he said.

Chen leaned in.

“Take care of my…” He stopped to gasp for breath.

Chen pulled back. “You should rest. You can tell me about it later.”

“No. My swan—take care…” His eyes widened as he drew in another difficult breath. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” Chen replied, not wanting his friend to agitate himself.

“There’s a…in kitchen…”

Peter grimaced. At that moment, a nurse entered and addressed Chen. “If you please, Mr. Lee, the patient needs to rest. The police were in here asking questions earlier. You can come back tomorrow.”

“I’d like to come back later today,” Chen replied.

“I’m afraid there are no more visiting hours for today.”

Not satisfied with her response, he merely looked at her till, blushing beneath his stare, she relented.

“If your visit is a short one,” she said.

Chen took his leave, walking by the station where three nurses were obviously conversing about him, but he was accustomed to the attention he received.

After departing the hospital, he decided to stop by the local police to see what they knew, which was disappointingly little. In fact, shortly into the conversation, Chen felt as if the police considered him a suspect.

“We have indications that Peter was involved with the Jing San,” one of the police officers explained. “That triad is comprised of a lot of Lees, isn’t it?”

“That’s the other side of the family,” Chen replied. “Not my side.”

The Jing San represented the lesser-known criminal members of the Lee family. The rest of the Lee family had built a legitimate fortune worth over ten billion US dollars through real estate developments, venture capital funding, tech investments and old-fashioned property ownership.

Done with the police, Chen called his primary executive assistant to say that he would be out of the office for several days. After wrapping up a few business calls and one to a private investigator in case the police couldn’t or wouldn’t do their job, Chen returned to the hospital.

But Peter’s room was empty.

Chen found a nurse and inquired into Peter.

“Mr. Wong experienced a sudden drop in blood pressure. He was taken down to the emergency room an hour ago,” she replied, then looked down, avoiding his gaze. “I’m afraid he didn’t make it.”

* * *

With a frown,Chen surveyed the studio apartment strewn with dirty laundry, Japanese pornography, and wastebaskets overfilled with takeout boxes and disposable chopsticks. This was how Peter had lived before he was killed?

Standing beside Chen, the landlord grimaced at the sight. “Are you certain you want to enter? You might dirty your expensive clothes and shoes.”

The older man looked over Chen’s cashmere sweater and the designer loafers Chen had bought on his last trip through Italy. The shoes alone probably cost more than what Peter paid in rent the whole year.

Chen stepped over several empty beer bottles and made his way to the kitchen table. He moved aside a pack of cigarettes, a stack of bills, and a magazine of hentai. Beneath it lay a cellphone.

Surprised that the police hadn’t taken it, Chen pocketed the device. He’d have his favorite hacker in Singapore take a crack at it.

He walked over to the refrigerator, which was covered in pictures of women, all naked except for one, which Chen plucked off the door and examined. A young woman with long brown hair smiled shyly from behind a pair of large, dark sunglasses. She might have been a model except that she didn’t look particularly comfortable in the skimpy clothes she was wearing.

He replaced the photo and looked over the kitchen. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for.

It sounded like Peter had said “swan,” but maybe Chen had misheard. In Chinese, a slight change in intonation led to the pronunciation of an entirely different word. Chen went through the other possibilities, but none of them made sense either.

“If you want, I can pack up all his belongings for you,” the landlord said. “I charge only two hundred yuan.”

“Not yet,” Chen replied as he opened cabinet doors in the kitchen to find mostly empty shelves except for a few packets of instant noodles and a dead mouse. He looked out the small kitchen window—straight into the kitchen window of the next apartment building.

A middle-aged woman with disheveled hair glared back at him. “What are you looking at?”

She threw the contents of her mug into the sink. The thin window panes failed to muffle her words as she muttered, “Nosy dog fart.”

Chen turned back around and surveyed the kitchen once more. Peter must have misspoken. Maybe the bullet to his head had messed with his brain’s wiring.

“Leave me the key,” Chen told the landlord.

The man shook his head. “Your friend is two months past due on the rent. I should have rented this place to someone else a long time ago. I’ll have to pay a lot of money to have this place cleaned before I can lease it again.”

Chen didn’t bother replying that he doubted there would be a lot of takers for the dump even after it was cleaned. Instead, he took out his wallet, pulled out several hundreds and handed them to the landlord. “This should take care of all your concerns.”

The landlord’s eyes widened as he went through the bills. He bobbed his head up and down. “Yes, yes. You are a good friend of Mr. Wong. Very good friend.”

After handing Chen the key, the landlord left in obvious good spirits.

Setting his hands on his hips, Chen surveyed the apartment once more. Maybe Peter thought the “swan” was in the kitchen and had forgotten he’d moved it?

Fuck.

If only he had stayed a little longer by Peter’s side. If only he had kept in touch, he could have helped Peter out, given him money or a job, helped him sort out his family’s business. Instead, he had allowed his own obligations and interests take precedence. What a shit friend he was. In grammar school, when Chen was a scrawny boy the bullies liked to pick on, Peter had been his protector. When Chen and Peter had gotten back at the bullies by mixing piss with soda and passing it off as Mountain Dew, it was Peter who had volunteered to take responsibility when the headmaster found out. Peter deserved more than what he had gotten in life.

Fuck.

Chen wanted to drive his fist through the wall, but the mobile in his pocket buzzed. Taking out Peter’s phone, Chen read the text:

Van will pick up at 10AM tomorrow. Only one piece of luggage allowed. Have 35,000 ¥ in cash ready.

Whoever had sent the text clearly didn’t know that Peter was dead, but Chen couldn’t help but suspect that it had something to do with Peter’s murder. 35,000 ¥ was about five thousand US dollars and nothing to sneeze at. And given Peter’s living conditions, it didn’t seem he had that kind of money on hand.

Chen took out his own cellphone to call Sanjiv.

“I’ll get on it, but it’ll take time. It’s not easy hacking into a Chinese telecomm giant,” Sanjiv said. “I could do it faster if I have the SIM card.”

“You’ll have to manage without. I want to see all incoming calls and texts for now.”

After hanging up, Chen weighed telling the police about the text, but the Jing San was known to have police on their payroll. Chen decided he would keep the text to himself for now. He would be ready for this 10AM pick up.