I ignored him as if he hadn’t said a word and stared directly at Mr. Woo for his response.
“Immediately. You and Nina can start making decisions now.”
I nodded. “Great. One of my Associate lawyers will stay to wrap things up. By the way, I’m putting everyone in this room on notice that Woo and Associates will be relieved of their duties after the paperwork is completed.”
“W–what? What do you mean?” Mr. Woo honestly had a look of surprise on his face.
“I’ll explain this in the simplest of terms. You’re fired. My lawyers will take over handling the Chang Lee-Xiou Trust immediately.” I glared at Nina and her team. “Any Lee-Xiou business will be dealt with by my legal team.”
Nina pushed herself back from the table and stood forcefully. “You can’t do that!” She pointed her finger at me then back to herself. “We have to agree.”
I turned steely eyes on her. “As far as the Chinese government is concerned, you’re still dead. You’re a ghost. You don’t even exist. The only reason you’re standing in front of me is because I’m deciding how I’m going to handle this situation. You get one warning . . . be careful little sister. You don’t really want to go head to head with me. You won’t win.”
I started to walk out of the office but needed to make one more thing clear. “You go near Cecily, and I promise you . . . there won’t be any doubt whose corpse they lower into the ground.”
As we left the room, my attorney nervously rubbed his jaw. “You can’t go around making public threats like that. It can make things difficult for you.”
“I’m not worried about that. I pay you very well to make my problems go away.”
He hid his sigh underneath his breath. “It won’t take Nina long to reestablish her life with the Chinese government. The will is clear. Nina is entitled to half of everything. Whatever your family problems, you will have to make decisions together.”
There was a time when that would have been music to my ears but not today. “I know. I’ll figure something out about that. In the meantime, we don’t have long to get our house in order. First things first, I need to get to the United States. We’ve got to take care of this RICO mess.”
Chapter 9
I sat in the backseat of my limo with my head thrown back against the headrest. If I could just close my eyes for a moment maybe the burning sensation would go away. Briefly, I let them flutter closed. I was exhausted and just needed to rest them for a moment.
The twenty-three-hour flight from China to Washington, DC was brutal, and not taking so much as a fifteen-minute nap in-between to prep for this hearing was even worse. Add to it a sister returning from the dead, and anyone would understand why I hadn’t slept since Nina showed up for the reading of Chang’s Will. They should probably give me an award for not massacring anyone standing within five feet of me.
I still hadn’t been able to process it. She was alive—alive. Yet, Nina was so different from the vibrant young woman I’d grown up with. The girl who wanted to save the world and didn’t want any part of Chang or his money had come back for . . . the money? It just didn’t add up. It would make more sense if someone cloned her from alien and demon DNA.
The Nina I knew wouldn’t stay away from her daughter or husband for fifteen years, only to return asking for the one thing she claimed she never wanted. None of it made any sense. My head was spinning trying to make heads or tails of it.
A drink would be fantastic, but probably not the best idea this early in the morning and right before the hearing. I needed to focus and get my mind right.
The chirping of my phone caused me to open my eyes. It was a unique ring I’d programmed into it. As the screen lit up, I traced the image of Cecily Manchetti’s beautiful face. Her big brown eyes had so much life and hope in them. They hadn’t been tainted by us. Her smile was still sweet, innocent, and it actually reached her eyes. While she had the Manchetti name Cecily was the spitting image of Nina and me. The billowy hair not wanting to be contained in that rubber-band, the caramel complexion, even the curvature of her oval-shaped face. That was all Laurette.
It was emotionally difficult having to keep up with my niece’s life through text alerts and bribing people. The most recent bribe went to the Assistant Principal at her school for providing me with pictures and information. Ever since she was a little girl, I’d always received updates about what was going on in her life.
My lips curved into a bit of a smile knowing last semester Cecily had gotten all A’s in her classes. I couldn’t be more proud than if she were my own daughter. Unfortunately, I had to love her from afar. That’s just how it had to be. Knowing she was loved and cared for made it a little easier to deal with. I would always keep my eyes open to make sure that never changed.
The small smile spread broadly across my face as I gazed at the image coming through my phone. Cecily was shaking Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s hand at some empowerment summit in New York.
