Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) (36 page)

“
Yes. In his warped mind,
he will always be a counselor. When he sees his patient records and
the photos, it triggers the traumatic memories of his
mother.”

Nikolai opened his eyes and saw a
vision of Emily staring at him. Her clothes were tattered and blood
was leaking between her legs. Nikolai’s knees bucked against the
table, nearly overturning it.

“
I need to excuse
myself—”

Láska rose from his seat as Nikolai
teetered away.

“
Nikolai, we’re in the
middle of—”

“
This can’t wait, I’m
sorry—” He thrust open the door and left the attendees looking
belligerent and confused. He could feel their stares boring through
his back as he retreated down the hall with a hand clapped to his
temple.

The door crashed open to his office
and he slouched over his desk. His head felt like a grenade on the
verge of exploding, whereat the fragments of his skull would fly
wide like shrapnel. He swung open a drawer and clawed through the
reports of patients prescribed Syllax, reports that he obtained by
force from Dr. Cervenka.

He looked over his shoulder as he
exited into the alley. He sighed and shut his eyes.

I’m doing this for you,
Emily.
He flicked the lighter in his hand,
his thumb rolling feebly off the flint wheel. Finally, a spark flew
up and ignited the patient records dangling from his fingers. He
watched the paper curl in decay, the ink bleeding into obscurity,
forever erasing the identities of those exposed to
Syllax.

He carelessly flung the flaming
reports over his shoulder as he strode down the alley. Sidling into
his car, he plunged the key into the ignition.

One final task remained ahead of
him.

* * *

As the day grew dimmer, so did
Vivian’s confidence in Camilla’s return. She looked vacantly into
the forest, praying for the moment when Camilla would reveal
herself.

She felt so confused and lost in the
abyss of her mind. What was happening to her? Was Syllax eroding
her senses at this very second, distorting every perception? How
could she have killed an intelligence agent?

But it was a man trying to
hurt me!
she screamed in her head.
Nikolai can’t be right! Why is he doing this to
me?

She blinked and suddenly looked into
paralyzing, green eyes. A woman with raven hair was humbled before
her.

Tatiana Pražakova.

How could she forget the face in the
crime scene photo that Nikolai brandished? Supposedly, she had
pumped a bullet into her lungs, yet the vision before her looked
composed of flesh and blood. Vivian tried to reach out for the
woman to confirm her suspicions, but her fingers refused to obey.
Tears trickled down Tatiana’s eyes as her lips twitched in a silent
plea for mercy. Vivian looked down to see the gun clutched in her
hand. Blood dripped from her fingertips, pecking away at the forest
floor.

“
Oh God,” she whispered.
When she looked up, the illusion had vanished. She couldn’t deny it
any longer. Her brain was unraveling under Syllax.

She began running through the
windswept forest. Gradually, the trees were replaced by towering
buildings, and the distant rumblings of the city swelled around
her. Traffic blurred by her side in a monstrous roar.

There was only one place she could run
to now. Her legs seemed to move with an accord of their own, taking
her deeper into the suburbs.

She finally stopped.

Her house was just as she remembered.
She tiptoed past the garden sculptures of angels and swans, a
playground for midnight shadows. She couldn’t remember the last
time she felt so much dread and excitement as she approached the
front porch. How would her parents react to their estranged
daughter showing up on their doorstep?

That hesitation hardened in her
breast, driving a wedge between her and the house. She wanted so
badly to be accepted again.

But what if they refused
her?

As that thought preyed on her mind,
she looked under the garden statues. She was greeted by a familiar
sight. The house key.

It felt so familiar in her hands, a
piece of her life locked away beneath fond memories.

She took a deep breath and thrust it
in the keyhole. Before she pushed open the door, she stuffed the
key under a pot of peonies.

“
Mom…?” The house was dimly
lit with glass lamps. Everything remained the same since the night
she fled; an eclectic mix of feng shui, incense bowls, crystals and
small fountains.

She remembered her mother telling her
about the importance of feng shui when she was just a little girl.
“Feng” represented wind and “shui” represented water. Wind and
water were associated with good health in Chinese culture, thus
good feng shui would bring good fortune and harmony to the
household.

Little good that did
us
.

She imagined her mother constantly
tending to the feng shui in hopes of mending the harmonies of their
broken family.

Vivian hoped her fortune would change
for the better tonight. She tiptoed past the stairs.

“
Mom?” she called. The
sound of breaking china ignited the silence.

Vivian immediately bound into the
kitchen. Her mother stood with her back to the door. Vivian’s eyes
fell to the gleaming shards of dishes strewn across the
floor.

“
What happened?! Meilin?” a
male voice called from upstairs. Footsteps pounded down the stairs
before they dwindled to a whisper. Vivian turned around to find her
father gawking at her.

“
Please take me back,” she
gasped. Suddenly, her tears were drying against his chest as he
pulled her into an embrace. She felt her mother hug her from
behind, her body quivering with sobs.

They silently shepherded Vivian into
the living room, a mesh of limbs that could not be pulled apart.
All the familiar sights that met Vivian’s eyes tugged at her heart.
The radio hummed with the sound of the local news and jarring
political climate. A forlorn piano waited in the corner, begging
for someone to massage a song out of its ivory keys. Meilin would
so often weave tranquil notes from the family heirloom while Vivian
studied her anatomy textbooks on the couch.

Meilin likely didn’t have the heart to
play while her only daughter was wandering the streets
alone.

A new addition adorned the mantle
above the television: a photo of Vivian as a little girl. She
almost reached out to touch it when her father’s voice grated
through the silence.

“
How could you do this to
us?” Vivian jumped and retreated from his face hardened with anger.
“Don’t you realize what you’ve put us through? Can you imagine the
pain we endured as parents talking to the police—as suspects in our
own daughter’s disappearance?”

“
I’m sorry.”

“
They thought I … that I …
hurt you … bringing dishonor to our family…”

Tears began to eat away at the anger
clogging his throat until the words fell apart. He buried his face
in his hands. For the longest time, only Keung’s weeping dominated
the silence.

“
I’m sorry,” Vivian said.
She looked to her mother, who was also fighting back
tears.

“
No,” her father choked. “I
am. I’m a goddamned fool for driving away my only daughter. If I
could take it all back, I would. We were afraid you were lost to us
forever.” His admission nearly stole the words from
Vivian.

“
I’m back now and I won’t
run away anymore. I want to be a family again.”

“
I never meant to drive you
out of our lives, Vivian. But the thought of my daughter being
objectified on stage…and men touching you… I just snapped. I wanted
to scream. I thought the only way to get through to you was
rehabilitation.”

“
Where did you go?” her
mother asked. Meilin Xu was a radiant image of her daughter, only
without the red contacts and marble complexion.

“
I went back to the club
and lodged there.”

“
Your father tried looking
for you there.”

“
I eventually left and… I
started wandering the streets. Men started paying me to do things.”
It was so much easier to hide behind vague descriptions than to
force out the humiliating truth. Her mother lingered at the
threshold of tears.

“
A homicide detective
arrested me, and he said I could either go to prison or assist him
with an investigation. He wanted me to track down a serial killer.
I had no choice but to do whatever he said.”

“
Why were you arrested?”
her mother wailed.

“
It’s a long story. I don’t
remember how everything got started.” She winced even as the lie
slid between her teeth. “I just wanted to come home and see you. I
can’t get through this by myself.”

“
Get through
what?”

“
I think I killed someone,”
she said, the first of many tears blurring her vision. “I was under
the influence of a drug and I shot her—except I didn’t see a woman
when I pulled the trigger. I saw a man trying to hurt
me.”

Her father finally reached out, his
movements almost crippled by hesitation. He swept up his daughter’s
hand and squeezed it.

“
We’ll get through this
together, Vivian. Whatever it takes.”

“
Thanks, Dad,” she
sniffled. “Thank you.” She sank into the floral cushions on the
couch with her father’s arms around her. No sanctuary could prove
warmer than this.

“
You’ll stay with us this
time, won’t you?”

“
Yes.”

She closed her eyes as exhaustion
poured through her limbs. She felt her father rise from the couch,
cradling her against his chest. She allowed the slightest smiled to
crease her lips. For the first time in ages, she felt
safe.

“
I love you…
Dad.”

“
I love you, too, Vivian.
Everything is going to be okay. I promise you.”

Suddenly, Vivian’s father swerved to
the kitchen.

“
Who are y—?” Steel
impacted with his head, blurring his vision with blood.

“
Dad!
” Vivian tumbled to the floor. The sight of the gun paralyzed
her. Her father’s blood dripped down the barrel, salivating over
the carpet. Finally, she tore her eyes away from the weapon to see
the man clutching it. Her heart dropped into her
stomach.

“
Welcome home,
Vivian.”

NINETEEN

The key to Vivian’s house gleamed in
Nikolai’s hand. He looked at her with unblinking hatred.

“
I truly wish you could
have reunited with your parents under more pleasant circumstances.
This is hardly how I envisioned meeting your family, Vivian.”
Nikolai scanned the living room, his eyes dancing across portraits
above the shimmering fireplace. “The human mind is a funny thing,
Vivian. We often don’t appreciate what we’ve been given until it’s
wrenched viciously away from us. Both of us should be able to
sympathize with that notion.”

He gingerly picked up a portrait of
her family.

“
You had a nice home and
parents who obviously loved you. You had a blossoming future
awaiting you. Yet, you threw it all away. And for what? Sex?
Money?
Murder?
”

He callously dropped the portrait to
the floor.

“
I suspected you might run
to your parents. Fortunately, I dispatched an officer to monitor
your residence.”

In that moment, Vivian was starkly
reminded of the police breaking into her childhood home, tearing
their family apart. Her mother ran toward Keung when Nikolai swung
the gun in her direction.

“
Sit
down
,” he barked, venom flooding his voice.
She hesitated, torn between his threats and the sight of her
husband’s blood. “Sit down or I’ll leave you widowed.” Meilin
retreated to her chair with tears sparkling in her eyes. “Speaking
of which, how is my Red Widow doing? Did you honestly think you
could shrug me off like that?”

“
Why are you doing this to
me?” Vivian shrieked. “What are you so afraid of?!” The gash on her
father’s head glared angrily at her. This was her fault, she knew.
She never should have returned and brought violence to their
doorstep.

“
I’ve already explained the
charges against you—and we can add on eluding a police officer.
You’re wanted for the murder of BIS agent Tatiana
Pražakova.”

“
I didn’t kill
her!”

“
Don’t make this ordeal
harder on your family, Vivian. Surrender yourself peacefully to the
authorities. You’ve already demonstrated your willingness to kill
and the threat you pose to society. Should you choose to fight,
you’ll leave me with no choice.” He hefted the gun and put her in
his sights. “I won’t hesitate to put you down.”

Vivian stared in disbelief.