Mohamad asks again.
"How much?"
Jason doesn't hesitate this time. "Five thousand."
"Not enough. Send more."
"In total, I've already sent nine today. She's a student on a full ride to Caltech—what could she—"
"Send more."
The line goes quiet.
Jason exhales, then complies.
----------------------
Everything the investigator uncovers is consistent. She needs money. That's why she's there. Like the rest of them.
----------------------
Mohamad's gaze lowers slightly.
No. She doesn't belong there. Too sharp. Too controlled. Too aware. Nothing about her fits.
His jaw tightens.
If she needs money—he'll remove the need.
No more rooms. No more men. No more choices.
His gaze shifts to the portrait. Black ink—harsh, deliberate scribbling forming her likeness. An angry expression, captured mid-glare. Accurate.
Min-Jun. Her younger brother created this five years ago.
Mohamad studies it in silence.
The lines are rough. Unpolished. But unmistakable.
He doesn't like it. The artist knows her. Intimately. And beneath the anger—
there's something else. Care.
His jaw tightens.
What are you looking for, Ace?
A pause. Then, quieter—more certain:
It won't be them.
###
Too many variables. I pace the length of my room again, forcing my thoughts to fall into order. My phone dings. Another payment. PayPal.
I stop. Jason Mason. Any doubt I had left is gone. Room Twenty-One. Jason. Mr. Silence.
All connected to Clara. But how?
My hand presses against my stomach as a cold thought takes hold.
What if—
What if Mr. Silence is Clara's secret boyfriend?
Worse—
What if he's the reason she disappeared?
No. I shake my head. That doesn't fit. I've reviewed the security footage four times.
That night—Mr. Silence and Jason both left early.
John stayed. Much later.
So why—why is he sending me money? And how am I supposed to continue this investigation… if I'm not even allowed in the club without him?
A dull ache builds behind my temples. I exhale slowly, forcing myself to reset. Think. Don't spiral.
I grab my clothes and change quickly. I need space. Air. Noise. Something that isn't him.
I head to my usual spot. Poly Bar. Even packed on a Saturday night, it's the only place where I can feel at ease. I slide into our group's designaged boot. My closest polyamorous friends all there: Valentina, Beth, Anat, James, and Valerie. Karla, our Mexican songwriter and singer, walks onto the 1920s stage in the middle of the dive bar. Normally, he bartends, but tonight he performs.
"Hello beautiful souls! Thank you so much for coming out tonight to allow me to enchant your soul and share this experience!" The bustling crowd cheers at Karla's intro. Karla's sassy voice continues, "Growing up, Tina Turner's 'What's Love Got to Do With It' made that song one of my all-time favorites. So I wrote one in a similar setting, but it's about jealousies. I called it 'Polyamorous Jealousies.' Here's 'Poly Jealousy.'" He finishes, waits for the cheering to quiet down, and then music surges through the speakers as he sings.
"You say jealousy's an emotion like all the rest,
But tell me, baby, what's it got to do with us?
You think it's a sign of love. Oh, how absurd,
But I can't help but wonder, what's jealousy got to do with it?
What's jealousy got to do, got to do with it?
The vibrating phone in my pants pocket can't be ignored. I hurry out of the bar to take the call. The caller ID reads: "Private: Jail." The operator says it's a collect call from jail for Min-Jun. Tilting my head to the heavens, I shake it while agreeing to accept the charges. What has my youngest brother done this time?
"Sis, please come get me. I don't want to be here. Please!" Min-Jun's shaken voice almost makes me falter. I suppress the onslaught of questions, knowing the line is recorded.
"What's your booking number?"
"The number they gave me?"
I sigh to the heavens, asking the universe for patience, and say as calmly as I can, "Yes, the number they gave you when they booked you."
I memorize the number while he keeps up his pleading until the one-and-a-half-minute time limit is up and the line disconnects automatically. Looking up the booking number, I almost smash my phone. Shoplifting! Shoplifting, that's what that boy's in jail for? I'm going to kill him... after I get him out of jail.
After thirty minutes on the phone with a bail bond company, the bail is posted, and he's released since it's a minor, first-time offense. I go back inside to hang out for another hour before I have to pick him up, as the jail release process takes an hour or two.
The stage's empty and the surrounding area are now filled with dancers as the live DJ takes over. I join Beth who's alone in our boot. Beth, our famous fashion designers friend, smiles at me. "Do you want to accompany me to an art exhibit?" she asks.
"When?"
"My friend Kimberly is finally exhibiting her art. As an Iranian lesbian, her artwork has the theme of abstract love and eroticism that I know you'll appreciate. I'll let you know about timing."
"That sounds amazing. Yes, count me in."
"Where did you go?" Anat asks coming back with a new drink in her hand.
"Min-June's in jail."
Anat rolls her eyes and says, "The black sheep done it again."
"What for?" James joins in.
"Shoplifting. I should go."
Waving as they wish me luck, I head outside again to wait for the Uber. It arrives in time as I hold the phone a little away from my ear while Wei yells on the other line.
"Why can't he grow up? He's twenty-two, for God's sake! What's wrong with that boy? Dropped out of high school, then college—"
I lower the volume on my phone to help soften his voice. We're only two years apart actually. Wei's two years older than me, but he sounds and acts like an old man. Min-Jun's two years younger but he's still practically a teenager, and I have issues of my own. I guess we're like any other family.
By the time I get to LA County jail, Wei has vented enough to be his normal self again, so I say, "I understand how you feel. But listen, we need to cover this up with the parents. They're old, retired, and should be enjoying their lives. They've had such a difficult, laborious life—it's our turn to protect and provide for them now."
"Got it." Wei's tired voice comes through.
"Okay, I'm gonna try not to kill him on the way home. You try not to kill him when we get there."
"Can't promise that." He hangs up.
I get out of the car, and Min-Jun runs to me. His clinging hug hasn't changed since we were kids. His soft sobbing makes me forget all the reasons I'm mad at him. I pat his back the way I always do whenever he needs comfort.
"Thank you for coming to get me," he murmurs into my shoulder.
"I'm glad you're okay." It's all I can say during the silent ride home.
With dropped shoulders, a sad face, tired eyes, and spiky hair, he looks like he needs a bath and a complete life makeover. Being an immigrant child was hardest for Min-Jun growing up.
Our parents were older, didn't know English, barely literate in Chinese and Korean, and uneducated. We learned English quickly—partially self-taught, teaching each other, and with the help of schooling. But they never did. In the end, we had to parent ourselves, each other, and even our own parents. My youngest brother had been forced to grow up too fast.
He was too young to remember his childhood in China before we came to the USA, but also too old to easily adapt to an entirely different culture and society. He was five years old when we came here. So he spent most of his childhood learning and assimilating. Wei had a clear memorable childhood, I had two because I remembered and continued to live the carefree, explorative freedom in America, but Min-June seems to have had none. I wonder if he's still looking for a childhood he didn't have.
Even his art reflects this search for innocence. He's drawing me again—a portrait of my half-smile in a colorful expressionist style, where the details of my face are less important than the colors in patches that convey the emotions he's trying to capture on his iPad.
"I sold You," he says.
"What?"
"The portrait of you I named You. I sold it yesterday."
"Oh... which one is that? Who bought?"