Then, as if he could sense my horror through the phone, he’d added, Don’t worry. We won’t cause him physical harm in any way, and when the time comes, we’ll release him on our own. What we need is merely for Mr. Oh’s son to go missing during a vital time in his campaign, long enough to distract him, upset him, severely affect his everyday performance. Then the promotions will be announced, and Mr. Oh will have lost but miraculously won his son back, and everyone will be happy.

“Did he actually say that?” Henry asks, incredulity lifting his brows. “That everyone will be happy?”

I nod.

“Good god,” he says on a drawn breath. He’s silent for a while, processing, though his eyes still flicker to the door every few seconds. “Was there anything else?”

“No. Nothing,” I lie quickly. What I don’t tell him is that by some awful coincidence, or maybe some twisted sign from the universe, Mama had messaged me right after Andrew did. She’d received Airington’s reminder email about the change in prices too, having missed the first one.

Have you made your decision yet? she’d asked, then attached three brochures for cheap, low-tier local schools near our compound, as well as one for a school in Maine. If not, it’s time to start thinking about next step. Airington’s fee deadline is in one week. After that, you’ll automatically be un-enrolled from school.

In other words: I need to somehow make over 100,000 RMB in the next seven days, or accept that I’m screwed and start cleaning out my school lockers. But where am I supposed to get that sort of money? Where else, if not from Andrew?

As I fight off another wave of panic, Henry’s voice breaks through my thoughts.

“You know, I always figured Andrew She was a bit of a snake.”

I frown at him. “Really? But the guy’s so...so nice and scared of everything all the time. He looked close to wetting himself when Mr. Chen called on him in class the other day.”

Henry just nods as if I’m helping him prove a point. “Makes sense. It’s usually the cowards who resort to such crude, extreme tactics.”

Or the desperate, I add in my head, but don’t say.

“Well, coward or not, he’s definitely not messing around.” I walk over to his bed and show him the last message Andrew sent me. “He’s offering us one million RMB for this task alone.” When I first saw it, the number didn’t even seem real. It still doesn’t. “One million.”

“Wait.” Henry turns his full attention to me, and I can’t help but shift under the weight of it. “You’re not really considering this, are you? The plan is absurd. And we both know Andrew isn’t very bright.”

But he’s rich, which is what matters.

“I mean, I’m not saying I’d be thrilled to get involved in a toxic decade-long intercompany rivalry and kidnap a minor—”

“That’s a really great way to start a sentence,” Henry says drily.