"Have a drink," a woman who wore a gray suit with short brown hair said. She set a water bottle on the black table in the black room with a tinted black window. Her attention focused on the clipboard in her hand with documents. "Sit tight." She opened the door and left.
What had happened seemed a blur. For Zayn, for Volkan, for Soraya. For all of the guests in the villa. After Client 47 had suicided and panic unleashed, a stampede charged towards the front door, the kitchen, a few had actually ran towards the stairs, as if investigating what had happened with their phones, recording the deaths. Someone had made it to the top of the stairs; she shouted at the sight of Alfonso's dead body then somehow lost balance and stumbled down a few steps before grabbing a railing to regain control of her body. Her phone bounced down the steps to the marble white floor.
Silence for a moment in a house of murder. Murder. That's what it had been. No one knew it at the time. Not Roqaya, who stood as the sole person in the middle of the house's white, red-stained marble floor. Not Soraya nor Volkan who stood beside Zayn with their arms raised and palms against the wall.
Police had then barged in within minutes. Someone must've dialed 1548 to report a crime, the equivalent of 911 in America. And when police stomped in with their guns out ordering for everyone to step to the walls, Zayn and friends complied. They identified Roqaya and visibly treated her different, not restraining her arms, not forcing her to lean on a wall. One officer led Roqaya outside the villa to the flashing red and blue lights at the front of the house, his automatic rifle held ready to shoot.
As police had organized the crime scene, regained order and patted everyone for any weapons, the same four guys who wanted to fight Zayn in the backyard starting shouting.
"He did it!"
"The one in the black suit!"
"He killed him!"
And then Zayn and friends had been transported.
The black door of a small black room to the right of Zayn opened a few minutes after the previous officer left. Zayn planned to reach for the water bottle but stopped when the next officer entered. Zayn counted ten seconds before the first step into what he assumed to be his interrogation room. Dress shoes clicked around Zayn until he saw who stood on the other end of the table. The door closed. She wore a dark gray suit, a white blouse and her black hair was in a pony tail. Officer Samira nodded.
"Didn't expect to ever see you here under these circumstances," Officer Samira said. She opened her slim black binder which had paper, pens and a marker.
"Wish I could say the same," Zayn replied.
"So what happened in there?"
"Are you interviewing me actually believing I killed those two people? First off—"
"I know you didn't kill them, Zayn. It was suicide for one of them, and the other was shot. We can tell." Officer Samira wrote on her paper. "What I want to know is what happened. Details. Start with why you were there."
"Where are my friends? Volkan and Soraya."
"They're in their own rooms."
Zayn exhaled. "Let them go."
"Excuse me?" she asked, with a raised eyebrow.
"What I'll tell you will help you more than what they know or what anyone else in that villa knows. But I don't care about anyone else. Let my friends go. Show me they're set free, and I'll talk."
Officer Samira tapped her pen on the table six times. "Okay. I can do that."
She called someone and told them exactly what Zayn wanted. Within minutes, Volkan and Soraya were released from police custody, and an officer gave their phone to Soraya to confirm with Zayn. She verified that Volkan was also released and that they stood in the police building's lobby entrance.
"I'll see you guys outside," Zayn said before handing the cell phone back to Officer Samira.
Seconds after the phone swap ended, the door to the interrogation room opened, boots stomped in, chairs were kicked, orders to stand up given without anytime to fulfill the orders. Someone grabbed Zayn from the back of his shirt then flung him to the left wall. His knees slammed into each other before his palms hit the wall. Someone jabbed Zayn in his side, likely his ribs. Someone turned Zayn, and in that moment he saw two men who wore gray dress shirts, twice his size, with big shoulders and stood slightly taller, were the ones who attacked him.
Another fist punched his face. Blood. Cough. Spit. Then an additional barrage of punches collided with Zayn's abdominals, chest and jaw.
"Time," Officer Samira said.
Both officers stepped away. They had bald heads, tanned, big noses, medium-sized hands, which when turned into fists looked strong and solid. Both of them exhaled, wiped their hands on black towels that they carried in the back pockets of their pants, then exited the room robotically without notice.
Zayn didn't force himself to move. He was aware if he moved, if he even tried to take one step forward off the wall he leaned on, he'd collapse from the beating he just survived. He didn't want Officer Samira who still sat in her seat to see him on the ground, or see him weak, or see him vulnerable. So, Zayn leaned against the wall, closed his eyes and breathed in and out, feeling every part of his lungs expand before releasing.
At least they got out, Zayn comforted himself.
"Your sacrifice for your friends is admirable," Omayra spoke in his head. "But if you don't erase your enemies, they will attack the ones you care for again and again. Until you watch all that you cherish perish."
"I'm not killing them," Zayn spoke out loud.
His words attracted Officer Samira and her investigation. Her eyes flickered in interest, her mouth opened as if asking a question, yet she stayed quiet with a pen in her hand, head tilted towards Zayn, watching him from her seat with a crossed leg under the black table.
"Did you actually kill those two men on the second floor?" she asked.
"That was suicide. Everyone saw it and knows that," Zayn said, breathing heavy. He kept his head against the wall behind him. Any kind of tilt could've sent Zayn falling forward because of his weakened body from all of those punches earlier. "Those guys are liars and—" Zayn coughed. "They should be charged for defamation. I want to press charges."
Officer Samira laughed. "Slow down there."
"No," Zayn replied. He inhaled, chest full of air, shoulders broad and back straight. "I'm pressing charges for defamation. You know it was suicide, so you've got a lot of work to do for me." He watched her sit straight with an unpleased look in her eyes. "Write down I'm requesting a defamation charge, officer. Do your job. I won't get a lawyer for those two who came in here and assaulted me. But," Zayn said, pointing at her. "You are going to tell me why they did that."
"Roqaya's father ordered it after hearing you were at the party," Officer Samira explained. "He got word of what those boys told the officers . . . that you were responsible." She set her pen on the table. "I know you're not based on the facts, but Roqaya's father . . . he wanted to send a message."
Zayn pushed himself forward to a black chair on the ground. He fixed it to upright then sat on it, right in front of the black table and across from Officer Samira.
"What did you mean when you said you 'wouldn't kill them' earlier?"
Zayn closed his eyes and remembered he accidently spoke out loud. "Just me talking to myself. They attacked me for no reason. It made me want to pay them back."
"With death?" Officer Samira asked, one eyebrow raised.
"Don't forget where I come from."
"Drug deals, right? The ones where you always come out clean? Okay, Zayn. Let's get this over with." Officer Samira clicked her pen. "Who was there at the party, why were you all there, what did you see and confirm the deaths. Officers at the scene were told that one man was shot while the other shot himself after."
"The military," Zayn corrected the officer. "I come from the military." Zayn repeated what had happened at the house. It took approximately ten minutes.
"Are you going to file a complaint on those officers?" she asked after closing her black notepad. "I'd like to know to prepare the documents and camera footage."
"You would help me?" Zayn asked, standing from his seat.
"I swore an oath to follow the path of justice. What they did was illegal, unjust and covered up by money and power." Officer Samira exhaled as she pushed herself off her chair. "Everything that I don't support."
"But you just watched them beat the hell out of me?" Zayn asked, with a raised eyebrow.
"You have to be smart enough to know when you can't do anything in a situation. They were bought and would've attacked me if I tried to stop them." She shrugged her shoulders. "With your military background, you should know what I'm talking about, then. Don't take battles you don't know you can win."
Zayn turned. "Agreed. Hopefully we don't run into each other again like this, Officer."
"I've been promoted, actually," she replied, as Zayn gripped the door nob of the interrogation room. "Detective now."
"Good to know, Detective." He walked out of the room and followed another green suited officer through the gray hallway.