A/N: Alright, sorry that this chapter took so long to get up. I was trying to get it up yesterday, but the log in for the site wasn't working. And it's been a hard week as far as University goes. Plus, after going home for winter break, I find myself feeling more homesick every day that I am back. And I found out that writing about Taipei makes me miss the city even more!! Haha, well, enough with my excuses. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Why Why Love

Chapter 18

The plane landed and Sam and Jin got out without a hitch. So far, everything was going quite smoothly.

"Jin, we better get to customs," Sam said as they exited the terminal, "we want to beat all these people before the lines get too long"

"No need to worry," Jin said, looking around. He spotted a man in a black suit and waved him over. Sam cocked her head and looked at the man.

"Who is that?" she whispered to him.

"That's one of our family butlers," Jin said as the man approached them, "he'll take care of everything for us"

The man turned to Jin and smoke in rapid-fire Mandarin. Jin answered him back as Sam looked on in interest. This was the first time that she had heard Jin speak Chinese before. Even though he normally had an Irish accent when speaking English, his whole voice changed when he spoke in his mother tongue. It was much deeper and he seemed more in command than usual.

"He said that the car is already waiting for us outside," Jin said, tuning towards Sam, "we should get going"

"But… but what about customs? And our baggage?" Sam asked, following Jin as he started walking through the airport. She saw that they were being followed by a couple of men, who were also wearing black suits, "are these men your butlers as well?"

"My father commissioned this airport to be built," Jin said lazily, "it is essentially his. Everything will be taken care of"

Sam stared in wonder as people parted the way, looking at Jin with awed eyes, erupting into hushed whispers.

"Jin, it is like you are a rock star here!" Sam said, looking around her. She caught sight of a magazine stand and gasped as she saw Jin's face on one of the covers. Rushing over before Jin could stop her, she eagerly took the magazine off the shelf. The writing was in Chinese, but from the look of the publication—Sam could tell that it was some type of gossip rag.

"Sam, what are you looking at?" Jin asked, coming over. He saw the magazine and groaned.

"Don't bother with those, those are all a load of garbage," he said. The magazine vendor looked up at the two of them and let out a little yelp.

"This is a good picture of you!" Sam said, holding up the magazine. The boy just grabbed it from her and put it back on the shelf.

"Why are you so famous here, Jin?" Sam continued, looking up at the boy. Jin just shook his head and started to steer Sam away.

"Excuse me mister!" The vendor cried in heavily accented English, "what you do with Master Lai?"

Sam turned around and looked at the lady. Jin continued trying to steer her away.

"Is Master Lai very famous here?" Sam asked her, breaking free of Jin's grasp. The lady nodded her head vigorously.

"Lai family—very famous! Master Lai one of most famous bachelors in Taiwan!" the lady said. Sam looked up at Jin, grinning.

"One of the most famous bachelors, already? And to think you are only seventeen!" she said. Jin groaned once more and successfully steered Sam away from the stand and out of the airport. There was a very discreet looking black car waiting for them outside, and Jin gingerly led Sam into it.

"I thought your family was going to come greet us," Sam said, looking around the car. The windows were tinted in a way that nobody from the outside could look at the passengers.

"You saw how the people acted," Jin said, "and that was only with me. My mother was one of the most famous movie stars in all of Asia. Imagine the crowds that would be out if she were to show up"

"What about your father, then?" Sam asked, "is he this popular as well?"

"Even more so," Jin said, sighing and leaning back in his seat, "but he would be too busy to come, anyways. His business has almost tripled in the last five years. It's like magic or something".

Sam looked up at the boy, eyebrows raised, "magic?"

"I really can't think of any other way to describe it," Jin said as the car started to lurch forward, "father's business just started to grow rapidly three years ago, and he started getting weird calls all of the time".

"What do you weird calls? Like calls from suspicious people?" Sam asked, growing steadily more interested, and for some reason, steadily more anxious. Something didn't seem right here.

"Well," Jn said, leaning closer, "at first I thought that my father was getting involved with loan sharks or gangsters, so I started to listen to his phone calls"

"You did?" Sam asked, surprised. The Jin she knew was so carefree and laid back that she couldn't imagine him doing anything like that.

"I didn't want my father to put us at danger with his shady deals!" Jin said, defending himself. Sam just nodded her head.

"So what did you hear when you listened to the calls?" she asked.

"I really don't know," Jin said, leaning back, "they kept using code names for everything. They just called themselves 'The People' and kept saying that they lived somewhere called 'Underground'."

Sam looked at Jin, eyes widened. The People? Underground?

"I am pretty sure they were gangsters," Jin said, sighing. Sam turned towards the window, not knowing what to say. Chairman Lai hadn't been working with gangsters; he had been working with faeries. She drummed her fingers on the side of her legs, turning around to look at the car behind them, hoping—wishing—that it would be Artemis and Killian. The frustrated face of a Taiwanese businessman late for work started back at her.

Without a sound, Sam slumped back down in her seat, wondering where the two boys were. If Chairman Lai was working with the fairies, not against them, then what was this whole mission about? Surely Killian would be able to explain everything…

Artemis and Killian landed without much trouble either. The airport that Butler had chosen to land the jet in was fairly quiet. Of course, it was impossible to find an uncrowded airport in Taiwan, especially near Taipei—but the one they had landed in was as close to deserted as they could have hoped for.

The only downside to it all was that the location of the airport was further away from Taipei, and therefore, further away from Sam and Jin.

Artemis leaned against a pillar in front of the airport, looking at the cars that drove past them.

"Butler has only been gone for three minutes," Killian said, "it will take him a little bit longer to bring the car over, don't be so impatient"

"I am not being impatient," Artemis said, his eyes never leaving the steadily line of cars.

"You're eyes have been glued to the cars coming into the terminal from the second Butler left," Killian countered with a lazy grin.

"A person always has to be on guard." Artemis said, "you keep telling us how dangerous Chairman Lai is. And if he is as well informed as you say he is, then he should already know that something suspicious is happening".

Killian looked away at the boy's statement. He frowned slightly and turned towards Artemis.

"Artemis, what if this all was just a…"

"Oh, look, there's the car! I am glad they got the model right, and that the windows are tinted properly" Artemis said as a black vehicle with heavily tinted windows swept into the terminal. Killian bit his lip, wondering what he would have said if the boy hadn't interrupted him.

What is wrong with me, Killian wondered as they put their bags into the car. The vamp just shook his head and slid into the backseat.

Artemis quickly sat in the front seat.

"Alright Butler, we have to hurry. Sam and Jin landed almost fifteen minutes ago and we are further away from Taipei then they are…"

Artemis turned to face his bodyguard and gasped. The person sitting in the driver's seat wasn't Butler at all.

"You… what are…" and suddenly Artemis felt a damp cloth being pressed against his face. Everything slid into black.

Holly and Trouble landed in Taipei scant seconds after Artemis and Killian. Of course, their entrance into the city was much more secretive and a bit more rushed.

"Holly, you still haven't given me the details about everything," Trouble said as he watched the elf in front power up her Neutrino 2000.

"You do know that is a rather dangerous weapon, don't you?' he continued, eyeing the gun warily as it started to emit a green glow. Holly just looked at him, both eyebrows raised high.

"I think I have earned my right to play with big boy toys," she said. She unclipped a sort of stick from her belt and tossed it as Trouble, "here, catch this!"

Trouble quickly reached out and grasped the stick, feeling a sickening shock going through his body as soon as his fingers made contact with him.

"Holly!" he screamed as he let the stick drop to the ground. Holly smiled at him.

"Buzz Baton in fine working condition," she said lightly, deactivating the weapon and clipping it back to her belt.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Trouble asked nursing his stinging hand.

"Not you," Holly said darkly, "but there are a few people that I would love to get my hands on.

Sam gasped as the car that was carrying them pulled up in front of the biggest and grandest house she had ever seen. Not even seeing the elegant architecture of SB for the past months had prepared Sam for the majesty that was the Lai house. The pathway that led up to the house was neatly kept, with flowers brightly trimming the driveway. The path led up to a circular driveway with the largest fountain Sam had ever seen in the middle. From the fountain, a noble golden lion sprouted water from his mouth. The house itself was built in the manner of a large English manor—complete with stonewalls, crawling ivy, and stained glass windows.

"Jin… this is your house?" Sam whispered. Jin looked up at it and nodded, as though it was nothing new to him, which, Sam thought, it really wasn't. This was the place that Jin had grown up and had lived in his whole life. Of course he wouldn't be awestruck by it.

A butler immediately opened the car doors and escorted Sam out. Sam quickly thanked the butler and made her way over to Jin, who was starting to walk up the driveway to the grand front doors. Sam looked over at the boy next to her, wondering how somebody who had grown up in this type of environment had turned out as loveable and as unpretentious as Jin had. She was tempted to say that it was his parents that raised him well, but with everything she had built up in her mind about Chairman Lai, she really couldn't see him as being the caring father type.

They reached the door and Jin knocked on it firmly. Sam stood where she was, nervously fingering the hem of her shirt. Not only was she nervous about meeting Jin's family, she was even more nervous because they all probably thought that she was Jin's gay lover.

There was a loud noise behind the door and it was slowly open. Sam cocked her head to see who was on the other side. Her eyes fell upon the person that had open the door and she gasped loudly.

Standing before her was a boy, a few years younger than both her and Jin. He was extremely handsome, blessed with a very noble features and a tall build. His clothes were very formal and fit him perfectly, and his hair had been carefully and perfectly styled to frame his handsome face.

"Zheng!" Jin cried happily, embracing the boy quickly. Zheng's eyes widened a bit and he awkwardly hugged Jin back. It was obvious that the boy wasn't as overemotional and carefree and his older brother.

"Jin… this is your brother?" Sam cried. Jin turned around and smiled at her, and she could see some resemblances. Even though Jin's hair was messy and dyed a bright golden, the two brothers had the same dignified features.

"Is this the boy that you told mother about?" Zheng asked Jin, looking over at Sam with an unreadable expression. Jin nodded his head happily, while Sam frowned at him. Wasn't Jin going to explain everything?

"I think that there had been a mix up, though," Sam said quickly, "Jin spoke to your mother without really thinking and told her nonsense things. He doesn't really love me. He even has a girlfriend!"

"That is for the better then," Zheng said, just as formally. Sam started to wonder if this proper and reserved attitude was just the boy's normal manner.

"Where is mum?" Jin asked, looking around.

"She is in the parlor," Zheng said, "she had some magazine shoots earlier today so she is a bit tired".

"Ah, well I will go and introduce Sam to her then," Jin said, happily grabbing Sam on the shoulder. Zheng nodded his head politely.

"I will tell the staff that you have arrived. I believe they have already prepared a room for you," he said, looking at Sam once more. Sam gave the boy a nervous smile. Though he was younger than her, she felt as though she was talking to some sort of professor or respected elder.

"Thank you," she said quickly. Zheng just nodded once again and made his way out of the foyer. Sam turned to Jin.

"How come you and your brother are so different?" she asked him as he led her to the parlor, "It seems very odd that the both of you would be so different".

"Zheng was raised by my aunt and uncle mostly," Jin said as they walked, "when Zheng turned eight, my father started to become more successful and my mother had started to act part time, so they felt like they didn't have time to properly raise Zheng. He just moved back into the house a year ago".

"So you were raised by your parents, then?" Sam asked. Jin nodded his head.

"The first time I had ever left Taipei for an extended period of time was when I went to SB," Jin answered. Sam frowned and looked straight ahead. So Jin's parents had raised him after all. But everybody was saying that Chairman Lai was some sort of ruthless and terrible person. How could he have possibly raised a son like Jin, especially in this type of extravagant environment?

The two teens entered the parlor, and Sam looked around, trying not to gasp. She was sure that three of her houses in Boston could fit into the Lai parlor. But even though the space was so expansive, it was tastefully filled with all sorts of furniture and decorations.

"Mum!" Jin cried happily, rushing over to a woman who was lounging on a couch on the other side of the room. Sam looked up, and this time she couldn't stifle her gasp. The lady on the couch was one of the most elegant people she had ever seen. Sam could see why Jin's mother was such a famous movie actress. The lady was beautiful—though while beautiful women were usually intimidating and unapproachable, Jin's mother had such bright, sparkling eyes that Sam couldn't help but feel happy when she saw her.

The lady looked up and smiled widely when she saw her son.

"Jin!" she said happily, raising her hands to embrace her son. "It is so good to have you back home. I always worry whenever you go off to school. Ireland is much too far away! And look at you, why have you gotten so thin? Do you not like the food in Ireland? Do you want mother to send you food?"

"Mum, don't embarrass me so much. I am not a little kid anymore," Jin mumbled, though his smile was wide and bright as well when he embraced his mother.

Sam smiled as she looked on at the interaction between the two. It seemed as though Jin and his mother were very close.

"Is that my son I hear?"

Everybody in the room turned to see a man enter the parlor. Sam's eyes widened as she got her first glance at the infamous Chairman Lai.

"This is him?' she whispered to herself, not believing what she saw in front of her. In her mind she had made Chairman Lai out to be a huge, intimidating man with cruel eyes and a frowning face. What she did not expect was the small, kind faced man striding through the parlor.

Chairman Lai was a few inches shorter than Jin, with a head full of black hair speckled with gray. His features were very handsome and his eyes were gentle, and crinkled happily when he smiled—as he was doing at that moment. He was a good-looking man (Sam decided that looking good was a requirement for the Lai family), but he was not intimidating at the least.

"Father," Jin said, looking up at the man. Chairman Lai went to Jin and embraced him.

"I thought that you were going to be at work!" Jin said. Chairman Lai just waved away his son's words.

"My oldest son comes back home after months and you expect me not to come and welcome him?" he asked, "what kind of father do you think I am?"

Sam's mouth opened in surprise. This was the ruthless, heartless Chairman Lai that Killian had told her about? This was the man who was planning on exploiting the existence of fairies to humans?

"What is going on here?" she whispered to herself.

"Jin, is that Sam?"

Sam looked up quickly and saw the eyes of both of Jin's parents on her. She smiled widely and made her way over to them.

"Hello," she said, bowing lightly, "my name is Sam and Jin and I are not going out nor are in love in anyway"

Jin's mother gave off a surprised laugh and Chairman Lai's eyes crinkled even more with amusement.

"So that is the American brashness everybody speaks of," Jin's mother said, mirthfully.

"I can see how he stole your heart, Jin," Chairman Lai said jovially. Sam looked up and shook her head quickly.

"That was all a misunderstanding" she said quickly, "Jin and I…"

"Jin called yesterday and explained everything to us," Chairman Lai said, interrupting the girl's rant. Sam looked at Jin, surprised. She had never thought that the boy actually had tact.

"Oh…" Sam said, feeling a bit stupid.

"Why don't you show Sam to his room?" Chairman Lai to Jin, "he must be tired after the flight to here."

Sam looked up at the man in front of her. She could not see an evil bone in the man's body. What was going on?

Then it all clicked in her head. Chairman Lai wasn't evil. He wasn't trying to exploit the fairies. This was all a….

Suddenly, the lights in the parlor all turned off. Sam shrieked and jumped back, right into Jin. The boy clutched her tight to him.

"What is happening?" he asked as the inky darkness penetrated the room. A sickening laugh filled the room.

"Who are you?" Sam cried out, becoming increasingly nervous. What kind of madman's trap had they all fallen into?

"Who am I? That is a great question, little Sam," a woman's voice answered back. Sam stiffened a little. The voice sounded quite familiar. But from where? She had been surrounded by only boys for the past months—where in the world could she have possibly heard a woman's voice?

"I know you," Sam said softly. She knew the voice. She was certain of that.

"If you know me, then who am I?" the lady taunted. Sam stayed quiet, mind reeling. Where had she heard this voice before.

"How about this?" the lady said, "I will give you till the count of three to answer. If you don't, then I will shoot one of you at random"

"How can you see in this darkness?" Jin demanded, moving Sam behind him just in case.

"I can see just fine," the lady said lazily, "but enough with this. Shall we start counting? One…"

"What do you want from us?" Chairman Lai cried, "do you want money? I can give you whatever you like".

"I don't want your money," the lady said, "what I want has already been taken away from me—by those pesky elves and Artemis Fowl".

"What do you know about them?" Sam and Chairman Lai cried out at the same time. The lady just laughed.

"It seems as though your three seconds is up," she said happily. Let us see who gets it…"

"Stop right there!"

Suddenly the lights came back on. Sam looked and saw Holly standing near the doorway, gun raised high. There was another elf, a male one, standing near her.

"Holly," both her and Chairman Lai called out. Chairman Lai looked at Sam questioningly, but Sam was too busy following where Holly's gun was pointing. She looked up and gasped.

"Ross!" she cried as her eyes fell on the vamp agent that she had met a month before. The vamp looked the same as before, but now her eyes held a wild craze to them.

"Do you think that your LEP weapons will work against me?" Ross cried out, laughing, "don't you know how powerful I am? Don't you know what I am fighting for?"

"What is going on?" Jin cried, looking at everything.

"What are those two little kids dong here and why does one of them have a gun?" Jin's mother asked. Sam and Chairman Lai looked sheepishly at the two of them.

"You two need to leave right now," Chairman Lai said to his son and his wife.

"There is no way I am leaving Sam in here with these madmen," Jin said, holding Sam closer to him, "Sam is my best friend. I can't just leave him like this"

"Jin it's not safe for your mother to be here," Sam said. Chairman Lai nodded.

"Take your mother and Zheng and go to the safe house," he whispered, prying a hesitant Jin off of Sam, "it's the only way to keep everybody safe"

Jin looked at his dad and nodded grudgingly. He grabbed his mother, and while Ross was occupied with Holly, he escaped quietly out of the back door.

"Alright," Sam said, walking up to Ross, "I want some answers now. How does Chairman Lai know about faries? Why did you bring us here? What do you want?"

"Chairman Lai works for us," Trouble said quickly, "he has been an ally of the fairies for almost three years now. We contract him for jobs, and in return he uses his immense power and resources to make sure that no one ever finds out about our existence"

"So this whole mission was fake," Sam said, looking up at Ross, "did Killian know it was fake all along?"

And then, almost if on cue, Killian walked into the door, dragging a semi-conscious Artemis behind him. Sam blanched when she saw this. She turned to Ross, livid.

"What did you do to him!" She yelled, "I swear, woman, if Artemis is not okay that I will kill you myself—whether I have to stick a steak through your heart or whatever!"

"It hurts, doesn't it?" Ross asked, snarling, "seeing someone you love suffering and in pain"

Killian drug Artemis over and dropped him at Ross' feet. Artemis looked up and saw Sam.

"I told you I would always find you," he croaked. Sam looked up at Killian, her eyes conveying her upset and her sense of betrayal.

"I trusted you," she whispered to him. Killian looked at Sam, surprised. For once in his life, he felt something a little like guilt.

"Nice work, little brother," Ross said. Sam looked up at them, gasping.

"Killian is your brother?" she asked. Ross nodded her head.

"He is my brother, and also the only person I have left in this world thanks to this boy," she said, kicking Artemis. The boy grunted and flipped over. Sam immediately knelt down to see if he was okay. Artemis just looked up at Ross.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Their mother," Holly said quickly, walking up to the boy's side, gun still raised high, "their mother was Opal Koboi"

"Opal Koboi was never married," Artemis grunted. Holly rolled her eyes.

"A person doesn't have to be married to have children. Artemis," she said, "you see a man and a wo…"

"That's enough," Artemis said, waving her comment away, "but Opal never seemed like the type to raise kids."

"We are vamps," Killian said, "we started training at the age of three, so we never needed any raising. Our mother is a vain and selfish woman, but she is also a foolish one. She fell for some elf that never wanted to be with her and only used her for her brains. She bore him two children and then he went off and married some other pixie"

"But our mother loved us," Ross said, "and she wanted us to be something. That is why she decided to let us be vamps. She might not have raised us, but she is still our mother—and now thanks to you, she is in a permanent coma!"

"She was evil," Trouble said, "she had to be stopped."

"You took away our mother," Ross said to Artemis, "now watch what happens when I take away what is most precious to you".

And suddenly, a heavy smoke filled the room. Artemis coughed and tried to sit up, but he was still a little groggy, and his side stung from where Ross had kicked him. Trouble cursed and tried to find a way to make the fog go away.

It was about five minutes before the smoke cleared away enough for them to see. Ross was gone, and Killian was standing where she had been, looking confused.

Artemis took a few deep breaths, trying to regain full consciousness. Suddenly Trouble's voice rang loud from amid the last of the smoke.

"Artemis, Holly and Sam are gone!"

A/N: Alright, so there it was. This was a tough chapter to write because a lot happens in it, but I felt like all of you deserved a longer chapter after this wait—especially since I left the last one off on such a big cliffhanger. Plus, writing two stories at once can get a little tiring (but it is so much fun), though I have this chapter up and will be posting the next chapter of "last One Standing" tomorrow—so I am happy with my writing schedule.

As always, please review and tell me what you thought. I appreciate all your comments. Gracias y besos!