CHAPTER SIX
EMERALD HILL, SINGAPORE
It was eleven thirty on Sunday night, and Cassian was finally down for the count. Astrid padded back to her bedroom, sinking wearily into bed. It had been a long weekend after a very long week, what with her grandmother’s funeral, and she thought that Cassian spending a day with his father would give her a chance to recoup a little. Instead, her son had returned home and had spent the better part of the evening attempting to launch an insurrection. Astrid fired off a text to Michael:
ASTRID LEONG: Simple request—when Cassian spends the day w/ you, could you please refrain from letting him play 7 straight hours of Warcraft? He comes back a total zombie and is just impossible. Thought we were in agreement about the gaming.
A few minutes later, Michael replied:
MICHAEL TEO: Stop exaggerating. He didn’t play for 7 hrs.
AL: 7 hours, 6 hours, it was clearly too much. Tomorrow is a school day and he’s still up.
MT: Not sure what yr prob is. He always sleeps fine @ my house.
AL: Because you let him go to bed whenever! His schedule is all messed up when he comes back. You have no idea—I have to deal with him all week.
MT: U wanted it this way. He should be at Gordonstoun.
AL: Boarding school in Scotland is not the answer. Not going to argue with you over this again. I just don’t understand why you bother having him when you don’t even want to spend time with him.
MT: To get him away from your corrupting influence.
Astrid sighed in frustration. She knew Michael was trying to bait her again, and she wasn’t going to fall for it. He was just getting back at her for how he perceived he had been treated at her grandmother’s funeral. She was about to switch off her phone when his next message popped up:
MT: Anyway, this will be over soon. I’m getting full custody of Cassian.
AL: You’re delusional.
MT: No, yur a lying cheating whore.
Astrid’s text message app froze for a moment, and then a high-resolution file came through. It was a photograph of Astrid and Charlie lounging together on pillows on the deck of a vintage Chinese junk that had been cruising the South China Sea. Astrid’s head was resting intimately against Charlie’s chest. Astrid recognized the photo from five years ago, when Charlie had attempted to cheer her up after Michael had dropped a bombshell on her in Hong Kong, begging to end their marriage. Michael’s follow-up text read:
MT: No judge is going to give u custody now.
AL: This photo proves nothing. Charlie was only consoling me after you left.
MT: “Consoling.” Did this include blow jobs?
AL: Why do you need to be so crass? You know I never cheated on you. You were the one who fake cheated, wanting out of our marriage at that time, and I was so destroyed. Charlie was just being a good friend.
MT: Friends with benefits. I got tons more pics. U have no idea.
AL: I don’t know what else you could possibly have. I’ve done nothing wrong.
MT: Yes, jury will really believe you. Wait till they see what I’ve got.
Astrid stared at his words, her face going hot with fury. She immediately speed-dialed him, but it went straight to voice mail. Hi, you’ve reached Michael Teo. This is my private line, so you must be damn important. Leave a message and I will get back to you if it’s important enough. Heh Heh Heh.
At the sound of the beep, Astrid spoke: “Michael, this isn’t funny anymore. I don’t know what sort of advice that lawyer of yours has been giving you, but these tactics are only going to end up harming you. Please just stop, and let’s try to come to a reasonable agreement. For the good of Cassian.”
Astrid hung up the phone, placed it on the side table, and turned off her bedside lamp. She lay in bed in the darkness, furious at Michael, but even more furious with herself because she knew she’d played right into his trap. She should never have texted him in the first place. Michael just wanted to agitate her. That’s all he wanted to do in every interaction they had these days. Her phone beeped again, and she knew it would be another incendiary text from Michael. She was determined not to look at any more of his texts. She needed to get some sleep, because tomorrow was going to be another big day—the reading of her grandmother’s will was taking place at 10:00 a.m. sharp.
Her phone buzzed again with another text message notice. And then another. Astrid turned to face away from her phone, clenching her eyes closed. Suddenly it occurred to her…What if it wasn’t Michael? What if it was Charlie, who had just returned to Hong Kong? Sighing, she reached for her phone and turned it on.
There were three text messages, and surprise, surprise, they were from Michael. The first one simply read:
For the good of Cassian.
The second text was a file that was still in the process of downloading, but the third text read:
$5 billion or you lose him forever.
A few seconds later, the download was complete, and Astrid tapped on the icon before she could stop herself. It was a thirty-second video clip, a grainy, night-vision shot, and as Astrid squinted at the glowing screen in the dark, she could make out the figure of a naked girl with her back to the camera, straddling a man lying on a bed. The couple was unmistakably in the midst of sex, and as the woman’s body thrust and swayed, her head shifted for a moment, and Astrid could clearly recognize that the man on the bed was Charlie. It was only at that moment that she realized, in absolute horror, that she was the girl in the video.
Astrid gasped out loud and dropped her phone as if it had burned her hands. “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!” she whispered to herself before picking up the phone and attempting to dial Charlie’s number. Her trembling fingers somehow couldn’t swipe to the correct menu on her phone, and instead made the video play again. Finally, she got to her contacts screen and hit CW1, his private mobile.
After several rings, Charlie picked up. “Baby, I was just thinking about you.”
“Oh God Charlie—”
“Are you okay? What is it?”
“Oh God, I don’t even know what to say—”
“Just take your time. I’m right here,” Charlie said, trying to sound calm. He could hear the terror in her voice.
“Michael just sent me a video. It’s of the two of us.”
“What kind of video?”
“He texted it to me. It’s a video of us…having sex.”
Charlie almost jumped out of his chair. “What? Where?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t look too hard. The minute I saw your face, I just freaked out.”
“Send it to me right now!”
“Um, is it safe to text it to you?”
“Fuck if I know. Send it via WhatsApp. I think that’s supposed to be more secure.”
“Okay, hold on.” Astrid found the video clip and forwarded it to Charlie. He went silent for a few interminable minutes, and she knew he had to be scrutinizing it. Finally, his voice came back on, sounding preternaturally calm.
“Michael just sent this to you?”
“Yes. We were in the middle of a texting argument. Over Cassian, of course. Charlie, is it really us?”
“It is.” Charlie sounded grim.
“Where was it taken? How—”
“It’s taken right here in my bedroom in Hong Kong.”
“So it must have been taken within the last year. Because I didn’t start sleeping over at your place until three months after my formal separation with Michael.”
Charlie suddenly groaned. “Fuck, I could still be under surveillance right now! Let me get outta here and call you back.”
Astrid paced her bedroom, waiting for Charlie to call her back. She felt herself suddenly becoming paranoid. Michael used to be a high-level security expert for the Ministry of Defense. Had he somehow managed to plant a hidden camera in this bedroom too? Grabbing her phone, she fled her bedroom and went downstairs into her courtyard sitting room. Maybe being in a tranquil space would calm her down. As she sank into the sleek white sofa, it occurred to her that the whole house could be bugged. She didn’t feel safe here anymore. She slipped on her sandals and walked out of the house. It was midnight, and a few of the nearby outdoor cafés on Emerald Hill Road were still buzzing with people chatting away and having drinks. She began strolling up the street when Charlie called again.
“Charlie! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m downstairs now, talking from my car. Sorry it took so long. I just needed to get my security team on the case. They are doing a full sweep of the flat now.”
“Did you wake Chloe and Delphine?”
“They are both at a sleepover party tonight.”
“Thank God they’re out of the house.”
“What the fuck is Michael trying to pull? Does he realize how illegal this is?” Charlie fumed.
“He’s been in a black mood all weekend, ever since the funeral when my father’s bodyguards tried to stop him from sitting in the family row. He wants his full settlement—$5 billion—or he’s threatening to leak this video. He’s sure I’ll lose custody of Cassian, and he knows that’s the last thing I want.”
“I can’t believe the fucker is trying to use his own son as a bargaining chip!”
“What should we do, Charlie? I think my house is bugged now.”
“I’ll fly my security team down to Singapore tomorrow and they will take care of it. We’ll get to the bottom of this. You should go home. You’ll be fine. Even if your house is bugged, at least we know who’s watching. It’s not some gang of thieves trying to rob you or anything.”
“It’s only one asshole trying to rob me of $5 billion,” Astrid sighed.
“You know what? I think we should assign a security detail to you. I’ll get the top team in the world.”
“You sound like my father now. He’s always trying to do this to me. I don’t want to live in a cage, Charlie. You know how invisible I try to be. If I can’t feel safe in my own house, in my hometown, I don’t know what point there is in living here.”
“You’re right, you’re right. I’m just paranoid right now, I guess.”
“Well, I’m wandering the streets of Singapore in nothing but a little linen shift and bedroom sandals, and no one’s even noticing me.”
“I bet you’re wrong. I bet every guy on the street is thinking, who is that half-naked babe?”
Astrid laughed. “Oh Charlie, I love you. Even in the midst of all this craziness, you can make me laugh.”
“It’s important to laugh. Otherwise, we’re letting the fucker win.”
Astrid had circled back to her terrace house, and now she sat down on the little step that extended just a foot beyond her front gate. “Win, lose, how did this even become a battle? All I ever wanted was for us to be able to find happiness.”
Charlie sighed. “Well, it’s clear to me that Michael doesn’t want to be happy. Ever. He just wants to be in a constant state of war with you. That’s why he’s been stalking us at every turn and dragging his heels with the divorce negotiations.”
“You’re right, Charlie. He sent that video tonight because he wanted to scare us and drive us out of our own homes.”
“And he damn near succeeded. But you know what? We don’t scare so easily. We’re both going to go back into our homes now. We’re both going to lock our doors, and we’re never going to let him in again!”