“Our mission is to get as much information on Jin Corp as we can—and you’ll be our link to the inside,” Lingyi said. “The yous are a small group in Taipei, and the ones near our age have even tighter cliques. You’re fresh blood. They’ll be intrigued by you.”

Arun swiped his Palm and the projection wall lit up once more. “Jin has one child, a seventeen-year-old daughter named Daiyu. She’s been shielded from media attention thanks to her father and keeps a really low profile. No wild parties or media blasts of bad behavior from her.”

I tipped my cup and sloshed hot tea over my fingers. Wincing, I glanced up at the wall to see an image of Daiyu looking back at me, dressed formally in a red evening gown, her black hair swept up to expose the graceful column of her neck. I felt all the blood drain from my face.

“Befriend her,” Lingyi said. “She’s our best access to Jin Corp directly.”

“I recognize her,” Iris said. “I’ve seen her coming in and out of Jin Corp. She’s chauffeured in a white limo.”

“Jin is divorced from Daiyu’s mother, Liwen, Cambridge graduate and model–turned–variety show hostess.” Arun’s deft fingers worked his Palm screen, and an image of Jin and his ex-wife appeared on the wall: beautiful and dazzling in their wealth.

I leaped out of the armchair. “I can’t. That’s her.”

I felt all eyes turn to me.

“What?”

“What do you mean?”

I stumbled away from everyone to stand before the wall screen so I wouldn’t have to see the images behind me. “Daiyu was the one I kidnapped.”

The chamber erupted in exclamations.

“It was Jin’s thugs who were looking for you,” Victor said. “Of course you had to kidnap his daughter.”

“But if it was Jin’s daughter, wouldn’t it have been all over the news?” Arun asked.

That’s what I had assumed too. Foolish me. “I had . . . her call her father first.” I couldn’t bring myself to say her name. “He never even picked up.”

I had never told the group the name of the girl I had taken for ransom. Although the kidnapping was core to our operation, it seemed a personal affair. I had volunteered to do it alone, and the less my friends knew, the better. There had been no need to divulge Daiyu’s identity. The ransom had been deposited anonymously from Taipei Bank into the account Lingyi set up. Daiyu had been gone for less than twenty-four hours.

I didn’t share her name because I didn’t want her, in my mind, to suffer the indignity.

I didn’t share it because I wanted the memory of our short time together to be my own. As twisted as that was.

I didn’t share it because I didn’t want to think about her anymore.