After switching cars on the freeway with a clean title one, the team made their way back to the capital of Algeria for the death anniversary of Zayn's mother. Volkan and Soraya had fallen asleep during the hour drive after Zayn took over the steering wheel. Peaceful. He enjoyed night drives.
The death anniversary had been reserved in a wealthy neighborhood called Hydra, at the same white, three-story rental building for the past fifteen years. Volkan parked down the street alongside the sidewalk, behind a white Audi S5 and a row of cars leading to the end of the street ahead. Zayn opened his door, a cool breeze blowing into him as he glanced behind at the high beam colored fountain at the intersection, the water highlighted in colors of red, blue, white and green. People circled the fountain with ice creams in hand from the Gelato shop nearby while others ate shawarmas or pretzels, people out on dates, holding hands and laughing, with a few parents playing with their young daughters and sons.
Despite how many years passed, the dragging feeling of wishing Zayn could experience that same happiness and contentment as the families by fountain still reared its unwanted head.
"Let's go, Zayn," Soraya said, tapping his shoulder right outside his open door. She smiled and nodded.
He followed Soraya around the used black Peugeot 208 they all bought together by saving some of their money from each drug deal in a collective car fund. That night, the sky was cloudless, the stars bright, and the sounds of people laughing and talking echoed in the streets. All of the open and closed shops and businesses on the left side of the street had apartment buildings and houses built on top of them, while the stores and shops on the right of the street didn't. Zayn looked at a clothing store called Monero and saw the black dress he had wanted to buy for his younger sister. Eight hundred dollar price tag. Imane would've loved it, he thought.
Volkan entered through the two black doors of the building, followed by Soraya then Zayn. The building had a reception area which led to the main open space. A table draped in a black cloth by two large gray doors had water bottles, bottles of orange and mango juice, as well as pink almond cookies, white sugar coated almond diamond cookies and baklava.
"I love these," Zayn said, as he ate the white cookie, while Soraya who stood beside him ate a baklava.
"These are better," Volkan added, standing to the left of Soraya, enjoying the pink almond cookie. "Zayn, grab one. I know you like the pink ones more." He picked one up and stretched his arm out.
Zayn accepted the offer and ate. He needed the sugar rush. "Thanks."
"Let's get in there." Volkan opened the two gray doors to the right of the cookie table, as if the death anniversary was for his own mother.
As the doors opened, they could see twenty tables with white drapes organized in rows on the right and left of the large room, with four chairs available. The long table across the entrance by the wall had a dark red drape with candles and flowers. No pictures. And silver earrings owned by Zayn's mother, hung on a jewelry hook against a black leather backdrop.
"Zayn!" Imane ran over to him from one of the tables on the left. She wore a black dress, which covered her shoulders and her curly brown long swung against her lower back. "You finished work early?"
"A little bit." He smiled and patted his little sister's head. "Did you eat?"
She looked at him with attentive dark brown eyes. "Yeah, couscous. It was good."
"Any desert, Imane?" Volkan asked.
She laughed. "I think cookies, but I want crème brûlée after passing my test. 99%."
That brought a smile to Zayn. "Good job. That's what I like to hear."
"She's a genius in the making," Soraya said.
"Thanks, Soraya. I even tutored the people in my class yesterday. They all got Cs and Bs."
Zayn patted his sister's head again then made his way to his mother's earrings, nodding and waving at the local community members who had known Zayn's mother. He appreciated how they had always attended her death anniversary, though he had never spoken to them or asked how close they had been to his mother.
He remembered the note his mother had written for him before her passing. On his twentieth birthday, he was to visit his mother's friend and accept a gift from his late mother. Zayn never visited said friend. He was afraid to accept the gift, afraid to no longer have something to look forward to from his mother. But his time had come. An attendee of the death anniversary bumped into Zayn from his right side. She wore a dark green robe, with a scarf over half of her head. Her wrinkled caramel skin darkened when she leaned closer to Zayn. She smelled of date fruits and sand. The Sahara desert.
"It's time you take this." She pushed something into his chest. "A gift from your late mother." The woman turned and left Zayn with his mother's necklace in his hands.
"You know her?" Volkan asked.
"No," Zayn replied, feeling the coldness of the necklace in his palm. Abnormal. Frigid. As if the silver was in a freezer for years.
As the older women exited the room, the two gray doors kicked open before closing, and some of the guests shouted and gasped at the visitors. A group of eight young men and women stomped their way into the center of the room. They wore black or gray jackets with white shirts underneath, jeans and black boots, standing orchestrated in two rows, four in the back with four in the front. Some with black tattoos on their necks or their arms. The one in the center pointed at Zayn, a large man, likely over two hundred pounds, about six feet tall with a scar on his chin. A tank of a person whose cardio was nonexistent.
The gang leader and Zayn stared at each other, not the first time they had met but the first time they invaded an important, personal gathering.
"You baited our members to the cops, Zayn. They're arrested."
"You were the 'new' client, Ramzi?" Zayn laughed. "You lied just to get some product?" Imane had jogged over to her brother and hid behind him instead of going to an older woman who called her name. The guests sat motionless, fear in the eyes of the older generation. "Don't blame me for the cops."
"I got the product, Zayn, but I lost three members that I trusted. You set us up!" Ramzi shouted and pointed at Zayn with his black tattooed index finger, of which had a large black ring, along with all of his other fingers accessorized in gold and diamond rings. His voice forced Imane to grip her brother's suit and tuck her head into Zayn's lower back.
"Lower your voice." Zayn saw red, and by red, that meant blood in the water and the rising urge to shut Ramzi up for scaring his younger sister.
Soraya held on to Imane with both arms around her shoulders. She nodded at Zayn who glanced at him before walking across the spectacle of death anniversary. The guests who came in honor of his mother, his mother's old friends, and even his father's friends, all of them recognized that Ramzi was some sort of gang member or leader, so none of them dared to open their mouths or even threaten to call the police.
After escorting Imane to an older woman who sat at the closest table to them, Soraya and Volkan stood beside Zayn. She to his right and Volkan to his left. They all faced Ramzi and his seven gang members. The odds weren't in their favor but that didn't scare them. No. There was a sort of adrenaline rush to not only slap Ramzi across the face but to make a point that interrupting a death anniversary was not acceptable.
"Someone set us both up," Zayn whispered, "and now they're laughing because you're the big bad clown who barged in here looking for a fight without using that small head of yours. We had to lose the police in Blida just to get here."
Ramzi let out a big smile that immediately filled with anger. His acne-scarred, knife-cut face flushed red. His large ears wiggled as he bit his lower lip. "You love running that mouth of yours. I should smash your teeth out and cut your tongue."
"Everybody thinks they can do something like that," Zayn replied. "I'll let you in on a secret." He leaned forward, close enough to speak in Ramzi's ears so only he could hear. "Size doesn't make a leader; and money doesn't make a man. The sooner you figure that out, the more likely you'll live a long and healthy life . . . you clown."
Ramzi pushed Zayn enough to create space but not fall to the ground. He lifted his black hoodie and revealed a black pistol strapped on his left waist and a long blade as well with a red handle.
Soraya and Volkan stepped forward with clenched fists. Zayn waved them off.
"You carry, Zayn? I could've killed you already with how close you were," Ramzi spoke with a grin and a deep voice.
"No." Zayn looked right at Volkan then left at Soraya. "But they do."
Both Volkan and Soraya opened their black blazer jackets which they had switched into when they were on the freeway. Volkan had one magnum in a holster on both sides of his ribs with two short glistening blades attached to his belt. Soraya had a small sub machine gun against the right of her ribs, strapped to a brown shoulder holder.
The rest of Ramzi's gang members stepped back while their leader stood frozen, perhaps biting his tongue for speaking or cursing at himself for pushing his threat too far. Even he wasn't idiotic enough to cause a shootout in the wealthy neighborhood of Hydra where police would react to a call within minutes. And his entire gang likely didn't have an automatic rifle on hand ready to use.
Then the entrance doors of the building barged echoed, as if someone kicked them. Everyone heard the loud bang in the silence of the room. Soraya, Volkan, Ramzi and his members all hid their weapons.
"Zayn! Zayn Raiz!" someone yelled. She stepped into the room. The death anniversary of his mother had become a fiesta that night with the police in attendance. The officer and her partner, dressed in a light green police uniform, walked across and nodded at all the guests, unknowingly giving everyone peace of mind that law enforcement had just stopped a potential gun fight.
"Yes," Zayn said.
"Didn't think I'd have to see you again tonight on your mother's death anniversary, " Officer Samira Yousra said. She had light brown hair tied in a ponytail, seemed to be in her late twenties and had several encounters with Zayn because of his work as a busy delivery driver.
"Good to see you, Officer Samira," Zayn said.
Imane ran over to her brother and grabbed his left hand from behind, in between him and Soraya. "My brother didn't do anything bad, officer. We're here to see my mom."
"Hi, Imane." Officer Samira smiled, genuine happiness in her light brown eyes. "I'm glad you're doing well. How has school been?"
"It's been easy. You know I'm a genius." Imane nodded. "I could be an officer if I wanted."
Officer Samira laughed and so did her partner, who was a tall tanned man with a bald head and shaved face. "If that's what you end up liking. But I have to say, it's not for everyone. You have to be tough all the time until you get home."
"I can do that."
"Good good." Officer Samira turned to Zayn. "Let's make this quick, Zayn. We heard a report of someone running away from the cops in Blida. They caught the drug dealers but the other group escaped. Were you there?"
"I've been here at my mother's death anniversary," Zayn answered.
"That's what I thought." Officer Samira wrote notes on her small pad. "Let me check you, and I'll be out of here and you can continue this. I really didn't want to interrupt this." She nodded as she held eye contact with Zayn.
"Okay, go ahead."
Officer Samira patted Zayn down while brushing against Soraya and then Volkan, who were the real holders of weapons. "Thanks, Zayn. I had to verify. Orders. Enjoy the rest of your night." She then glanced at Ramzi, and so did her partner. "Is there a problem here?"
"No problem, officer," Ramzi answered. "Zayn just owes me some money that he promised."
"Just don't make it a problem and someone calls us. You brought seven people in here." Officer Samira looked at her partner. "We don't like having to come back to a place we just left."
Both officers left, and right after them, Ramzi's gang members decided to evacuate the area. They whispered to each other about not getting arrested and how stupid it was going there in the first place. One of them even said that's the last time he follows Ramzi's emotional orders.
Before leaving, too, Ramzi pointed at Zayn with a glare. "You don't break," Ramzi whispered. "But you will next time." He and his group left.
Within the next hour, the death anniversary night came to an end at 11:10PM, as Zayn thanked everyone who came, shaking hands and hugging the attendees. A few men, friends of Zayn's father, handed him envelopes of checks. Zayn wanted to deny the money in those white envelopes every year but came to understand that his father's friends probably felt like they had to provide something other than only attending the death anniversary then returning home to their own happy families. He understood, but it didn't make it any easier to accept the cash. Life never stopped moving, though, any money would always be needed.
Imane's hands trembled in excitement as she held four envelopes and gladly took the fifth one when Zayn gave it to her. She started grinning and mumbling to herself at how she would spend that money on buying a bulk of school supplies and selling them to her classmates and other students who always forgot their items at home. Reveling in her master plan to make more money, Imane whispered about pencils, erasers, notebooks, calculators and even copies of the notes she took in class.
"My notes would be best sellers!" she exclaimed.
"Definitely his sister," Soraya said, as she patted Imane's head and stepped past her.
"We're gonna head out, Zayn," Volkan added. He hit Zayn's upper back with an open palm. "May she rest in peace."
"Good night, guys. Thanks for everything." Zayn smiled at his friends and knew since the first year he had known them when they came to his mother's death anniversary and stayed the whole night, that Soraya and Volkan were special, maybe even sent to Zayn to keep him company.
Soraya pushed her brown hair behind her ear. A silver earring sparkled under the ceiling light. "We got you covered. As long as Volkan doesn't pull another Hydra."
"Ay! That was three years ago. You don't let things go?" he replied.
"You were being tailed and led the police right to us before the deal," Soraya repeated.
"Lucky none of us were carrying." Zayn grinned.
"If you got training for them like Officer Samira, why do you have to hide them if you had training?" Imane tilted her head as she spoke and stared at her older brother.
He couldn't tell his little sister that he and his friends were carrying weapons illegally, so he bent to one knee, locked eyes with his curious counterpart and tapped his forehead with her warm forehead. "Because we can't carry them everyone, Imane. So we gotta be smart when we take them for protection."
"Oh." She nodded. "Okay. But Zayn, I'm not giving you the money." Imane waved the envelopes in her left hand. "I might get some clothes for school but the rest is going into my school business."
Zayn laughed. "Keep it. I would never take it from you." He pinched her right cheek. "Let's go home." As he stood, he noticed all the guests had already made their way out of the building, with cookies, empty cups and paper towels leftover on the tables. "Good night, guys." He eyed Volkan and Soraya's blazers, specifically where there guns were. "Make it home safe and quick." He tossed the key to the car to Soraya.
"You sure?" she asked.
He nodded. After they left, Zayn turned and stared at his mother's fake silver necklace hanging on the black leather hook of the display stand on the red draped table. "It was fake all these years?" he asked himself. He then reached into his pocket to grab the necklace given to him by the older lady.
Still freezing to the touch. Pure silver. No designs. No carvings. It had an aura to it, as if it was a precious artifact, or made out of something much more expensive than silver. But Zayn didn't want to wear it that night. He swung the necklace around his index finger, clenched all of it then slid it into his suit pants.
"Let's go home," he said, glancing at his sister.