“Yes, we didn’t see either of you at my reception celebrating your father’s life,” he replies sharply in English.

I grit my teeth just as Tai says sloppily, “We celebrated him in just the way he would’ve wanted.”

He blinks at me, his eyes two black holes that remind me of a Sartre quote: I’m going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become.

I break his gaze and scan the room for Teddy, the only person who could save us, but I find that the three of us are very much alone. Isolated, like the others have abandoned us. The only other familiar people in the room are oblivious and too distant to reach. Others watch and whisper from their cliques.

Hell is other people.

“So, girls, is this what your mother would have wanted?” he says, chilly disdain visible. At this, a group of strangers begins to gather around us, eavesdropping hungrily.

“She loved a party,” Tai says, raising her glass in mock cheers before taking a sip. I jab her discreetly in the side.

“Yes, she did,” he says, those three words loaded with condescension.

I am not a violent person, but I want nothing more than to stab him and watch as Tai, squealing, turns his guts into tacky red streamers in this overscented lavender room.

“I think we both agree she’d be shocked by how much everything has changed in the last ten years, no?” Tai says, in a lubricated Vilosh singsong. “You, the new CEO, chairing a party in her honor. My sister and I, finally learning some Vilosh and English.” She pauses and frowns. “Well, sort of. As long as we stick to four letter words and under.”

If I weren’t so terrified, I would burst out into laughter. The right corner of his mouth curls, its skin scaled yet vaguely wet in the light. One of the men near us chuckles.

“Enjoy the celebration,” he replies in frosty English, his shining pupils catching mine through his lenses. “She has been gone a very long time.”

As if this is a celebration of her disappearance. As if he’s just as elated, to this day, that she’s gone. I can feel his maliciousness seeping into my bones like a freezing draft. He despised her, and we remind him of her. I guzzle down the bulk of my water in one gulp, almost sloshing ice on myself. The thought sneaks up on me, plunges itself like a knife into my back: Our father was right to think that someone at Hero Pharm was involved in Mama’s disappearance. And maybe that someone is right in front of me, so close I can feel his eyes on my exposed slice of neck.

“Why even come?” Tai mumbles woozily, as he turns away.

“Tai,” I warn.

“Pardon me?” Nítuchí asks, facing me again.

I just smile flatly.