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"Forty Four„

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"Ah, I'm sorry," Guanxiang apologized as soon as they sat down in the living room. "I should've taken the chandelier down since you were coming, especially after what your mother did."

"What did she do to the uh... chandelier?" Hendery eyed the crystal chandelier hanging above their heads. 

"She hung herself on it." Guanxiang was surprisingly nonchalant when talking about- wait. 

"What do you mean she hung herself? She died, because she was really sick, wasn't she?" Guanxiang froze, confused. 

"I didn't tell you?" His shoulders shook with small laughter. "Oh, Guanheng, your mother, your birth mother, was a prostitute."

Hendery felt everything stop. Was his mother not the kind woman he knew her to be, but a prostitute? "You... cheated on you wife?" Of the thousands of questions he could've asked, he chose that one. 

"Well, yes. But, if she had gone running around, telling everyone what we had done, it'd ruin me. I told her to work here as a maid. Eventually, she had you.

"My own wife saw you, as a baby, and wanted you. So, she got you, but I guess it became too much for your birth mother since she hung herself, right there," he pointed to the chandelier.

Hendery moved even closer to Lucas, almost like he was using him as  shield, staring at the chandelier in fear, horror. "But... my mom-"

"She was nothing, the both of them. It was pathetic how much they fought over your, especially with how you turned out," his father sneered. 

"What do you mean by that?" Lucas questioned him. 

Guanxiang shrugged, leaving both Lucas and Hendery to wonder what he meant. Or, just Lucas, because Hendery already knows he doesn't like him. 

"Anyways, would you like to meet your fiancé?" Hendery swallowed the lump in his throat at the thought of being with someone who wasn't Xiaojun or Yangyang. 

He wished to say no, but he couldn't. Well, unless he wanted his own gang killed, but of course he didn't. 

His father stood up as the front door swung open, moving towards it to greet the woman who just walked through. And, Hendery paled. 

"She cannot be who you chose!" Hendery exclaimed and his father frowned. "There's half of the world to choose from, and you choose the girl who hurt me? That really says a lot about how much you care about me."

"Huang Guanheng, you do not get to raise your voice at me. She has done nothing to harm you and you will get married."

 Hendery slumped down next to Lucas, clearly distraught, as his father sat down once more, this time on the one person sofa. 

Lucas could've sworn he heard a click, but maybe he was just tired from the flight. 

Once everything had calmed down, the woman sat down, an inch or fifty too close to him. The woman who used to be his middle to high school bully. 

She used to ruin his books and homework with juice. When he went home, he'd be blamed by his dad. She was also violent. 

Thankfully, Lucas is his Wong brother and could practically read his mind, protectively putting an arm around his shoulders. 

Hendery was blocking out everything his father and his fiancé were saying. Lucas was barely someone in the background. He was completely dazed. 

He was suddenly pulled from his thoughts from a hand on his though. He jumped, almost falling on the floor.