expat Hong Kong friends. His parents’ social circles were limited to other Bay Area Chinese families, of which there were many.
His parents taught him all of the myths and stories they had grown up on, including the ones that portrayed the Chinese Communist Party heroically, the vanguard of the Revolution against Western imperialism.
His mother and father didn’t leave the Red mainland for ideological reasons but green ones—dollar bills, to be exact.
Outwardly and legally, Lawrence Fung was as American as apple pie, secretly listening to Alanis Morissette, Jay-Z, and Limp Bizkit and smoking dope along with the rest of his non-Asian skater friends after school. But inwardly, he was Chinese to the core. Part of the great Han diaspora. Every year it became more and more obvious to him that the twenty-first century belonged to China, and, no doubt, the centuries after that. In his heart, he’d always hoped his motherland would reach out to him.
When Lawrence turned sixteen, he told his ultra-traditionalist parents he was gay. They disowned him. At seventeen, he left home—technically, he was thrown out—and entered the UC Berkeley mathematics program. Not easy for an Asian kid to do back then, with all of the admissions biases against Asians, who dominated GPAs, test scores, and extracurriculars relative to other ethnic groups. Cut off from his parents, he paid for everything along the way with student loans, including extensive international travel, a lavish lifestyle for him and his friends and paramours, top-of-the-line computer and audio equipment, and, best of all, cars.
By the time Fung had finished graduate school, he was almost three hundred thousand dollars in debt, and according to the law, none of those educational loans could be discharged through bankruptcy. One more reason to hate the U.S. government, as far as Fung was concerned.
His penchant for getting hired on at Silicon Valley “unicorns” that failed was a running joke among his so-called peers who couldn’t code their way out of a bento box. But he made enough quick cash to pay off all his debts and accelerate his already lavish lifestyle. Giving up his dream for a fast score with another startup, he finally relented and joined a boring but reputable firm two years ago and began making seriously good and stable money for the first time in his life.
Money he couldn’t help but spend.
CHIBI knew all of this. And more. Fung didn’t care. In fact, it was a relief. And deeply satisfying. An intimacy he shared with no one else in the world but this mysterious brother on the other side of the planet. Another dark and dangerous secret he kept from the people around him who thought they knew him. Only this time, he would never out himself. And neither would CHIBI. What would be the advantage of doing so?
Fung feared being discovered. The idea of going to jail terrified him. The idea of getting caught by his inferiors humiliated him. He knew the shame that would fall upon his parents would be unbearable for them—and for him.
“I’ll make it happen,” Fung typed.
THANK YOU. AGAIN.
CHIBI logged off.
So did Fung. He’d saved his connection to his mysterious friend. But now he was in deep shit.
Drowning in it.
And for all of his bravado, he’d probably get caught.
How in the hell would he pull this off?
He wanted to call Torré and bare his soul. But his lover was so damned moody these days, and a bad Internet connection only made things more frustratingly awkward. Even if he did pick up, what would he say to him? He had to keep Torré in the dark to protect him, just in case.
Fung sighed. It didn’t matter. His lot in life was to bear everyone else’s burdens all by himself. He just had to accept it.
Fung stood and shuffled toward his shower. The thought of pleasuring himself beneath the steaming twin rain heads crossed his mind, but he was too damned tired. Instead, he poured himself a glass of Beringer Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and popped a couple Ambien before falling into bed, exhausted and depressed.
14
WASHINGTON, D.C.
After Senator Dixon had left for her office the next morning, Aaron Gage entered his library, closing the door behind him. The housekeeper wouldn’t arrive for another hour and he had the place to himself. Plenty of time before his driver would take him to his private jet for a flight to corporate headquarters.
Five years ago, Gage Capital Partners had relocated to Dallas. He didn’t particularly care for the city, its weather, or its