Warshon pulled up the flagstone driveway and glanced at the syringe in his hand.
The numbing pain in his shoulder had him veiled in a sheen of cold sweat. One jab, and it would go away. But he needed his pain to be bare for at least another half an hour if he could make it quick.
He put away the syringe and stepped out of the driver's seat. The wrought iron double door opened as Ezio Pagnotto came to greet him. The fluttering glow from the sconces that flanked the massive door threw his smiling face in a chiaroscuro.
"Your family awaited you," said the butler, whose smile faltered upon a closer look at Warshon. "Are you feeling alright, Sir?"
Warshon nodded, his breath heavy, as were his steps. Padding behind Pagnotto through the quaint peristyle stood sentry by solar lawn lights the shape of a thistle brazier, he heard women laughing from the distance. A sigh fled his lips. The short performance he had hoped might drag on even longer than usual.
"Warshon!" His sister scurried to him the moment he entered the opulently appointed dining hall where the massive chandelier hoovered upon everyone like a crown. She hugged him, her arms around his waist. "Why were you mean to Dila? And why do I never get to see you?"
"Yesfir!" Chiara scolded her. "How many times do I need to repeat that you aren't a little girl anymore? Let go of Warshon!"
She acquiesced, her lips pouting.
It puzzled Warshon no less profoundly than it did Chiara why Yesfir was so drawn to him. Being the only girl in House Qusbecq, everyone spoiled her. Warshon didn't know if he had agreed to everything she said on purpose, as though he were secretly rooting for the vain fool she was destined to become. That said, how he felt about his half-sister was beside the point so long as he could convince Chiara that he meant her children no harm.
"I'm here now, aren't I?" Warshon winked a smile.
"We meet again, Dr. Qusbecq," A coquettish voice turned his eyes. Behind his sister, Dila Cengiz made him a courtesy. "You sure you can't see me again for another appointment?"
A feral urge to hurt, to destroy, and to make quiet of the world, snarled from the pit of his stomach, his patience rubbed raw with the physical pain that worsened every second. Gnawing his bottom lip, he doubled his hands. "Like I've told you many times before, Lady Cengiz," he said, turning to Dila. "You're blessed with perfect health. But it's your money. Feel free to spend it however you see fit." Then, offering Yesfir his elbow, he led her back to the table like a princess before her friend.
"Father," He bowed his head. "Chiara."
"Take a seat, son," said Lord Qusbecq.
Warshon obliged, pulling out the chair across the table from Yilmaz. "Who's the young lady," he turned to his half-brother.
Leaning to a side on the armrest with his hand clenched next to his cheek, Yilmaz darted a furtive glance at his mother. "Your future sister-in-law," he replied, his smile mirthless. As the young lady rose to introduce herself, Yilmaz gripped her wrist and pulled her back in her seat.
Warshon only chuckled. Being the eldest son of Lord Qusbecq and his Lady Chiara, Yilmaz was the heir who shouldered the future of House Qusbecq. Just like Warshon whose feelings were beside the point, how Yilmaz saw Warshon didn't matter. They were never meant to be friendly, and perhaps never would. "Pleasure," he nodded in the young lady's direction.
The footman brought forward desserts. Creme brulee in a gilded ramekin topped with raspberries and white chocolate shaves.
"Where is Tezcan?" he asked, scooping out a raspberry.
"Boarding school, duh!" Yesfir replied, her eyes rolling, the dessert spon pressed on her bottom lip. "It's only Wednesday, Warshon!"
"How unfortunate," Feiging disappointed, he drew a game disk out from his pocket and threw it at Lord Qusbecq. "I got the golf practice game he always wanted to try. Maybe Father and I could have a go?"
A knowing smile hoisted the lord's lips but didn't reach those eyes forever watchful. He got to his feet.
"Can I also join?" Yesfir asked, the chair scraping under her as she saw Warshon rose. "Dila and I would –"
"Yesfir!" Lord Qusbecq shot her a glance, "Stay with your mother!" his voice final.
Yesfir grumbled under her breath but did as bid, knowing all too well when her father was serious.
Ascending the sweeping stair and into his study, Lord Qusbecq stopped before the window overlooking the lush lawn that sprawled his demesne. "That Cengiz girl seems to have taken quite a liking to you," he japed, tucking his chin to his shoulder as he looked back. "It's a good match. Maybe you should give it some thought."
"Is that what you had Yesfir call me here for?" Warshon closed the door.
Lord Qusbecq offered a mirthless cackle. "So," he croaked. "How about you fill me in?"
"You have to be more specific." Sauntering over to the screen station, Warshon inserted the game disk. "Is there anything else you don't know already?"
"Why would you expose the vaccine scandal?"
"I didn't."
The lord scoffed. "Sure, like that weasel doctor would dare without your nudge –"
"A whole medical team on site was aware of the NGS results. It's only a matter of time before the scandal comes out. Why not avail of it? Besides," he took a loaded pause. "Whether it's with the Phantom Lord's client list, or the scandal, it'll give the Commonwealth enough of a headache. You've got what you want, Father. And when you get what you want, the how doesn't matter. You taught me so." He bore a smile, his gaze trailing the spry old man who had his back to him the whole time.
Moving away from the window, Lord Qusbecq picked up the golf clubs that stood sentry against the wall next to the screen station. When he turned, passing one to Warshon, his face betrayed nothing. "And what about the Pharmaceutical Plant?" he continued, positioning himself before the TV. "What exactly are you planning to do there?"
"To make more Ice," Warshon cut to the chase. "What else?"
The lord snorted. "And why did you find it necessary to keep it from me?"
"Did I?" A rhetorical question to set bait. "You found out anyway without me having to speak a word. So why bother speaking?" Now he knew his father had indeed implemented eyes around him, he needed to know whom.
"What's the game with you helping Telesphore Reyer?" Too cunning a fox, the old man asked in reply.
"He needs me to relocate his family wealth, and I need their investment. We have gone through this, and you approved."
"Yes," Lord Qusbecq swung the club. An imitated swooshing sound came over the sound system. His head shook at the par-3 hole. "But why must the investment come from the Reyers?"
Standing on one leg, Warshon leaned on the club. Pain scorched his shoulder. He bit his lip, swallowing a groan. "Why not?"
When Lord Qusbecq didn't answer, he positioned for his strike. The silver club scythed in the dimly lit room, drawing an arch.
Par-5.
Lord Qusbecq chortled. "Not bad. You've been practicing?" He swiveled back. A frown drew up his brows. "What's wrong with you?"
The pain made him lurch back a step. Bracing his arm against a wall, Warshon tugged his collar, revealing the bandage beneath. "Nothing," he panted, his eyes boring into his father. "Bullet scrape from last night."
Lord Qusbecq strode up to him. "Why didn't you leave with Nikita?"
"And let the DEA find nothing there?" he sneered. "What's the fun in that?"
"Does this look fun to you?" Arslan glared, jabbing a forefinger at his bandaged chest. "You may not care about your life that you find it funny to toy with it. What about my house, huh? And everything I've built? If you were shot dead, what should I do to explain your face under the goddamn mask?"
Warshon chuckled. The last trace of hope for a father laughed hard in his face. A beggar's hope. A grating laugh. Both manic and pathetic. He closed his eyes with a sigh. "If I left with Nikita, the DEA would busted the Plant and found nothing there. They'd issue an apology, and we'd all turn the page. So tedious I felt I was disrespecting whoever trying to have me framed. So, I upped the game." He opened his eyes, his brows lifting. "Like I've said to Dolma at the press conference already, anyone can put on the damn mask. Even if I was shot dead, it'd prove nothing else but that Warshon Qusbecq has a kink. So relax, old sport." Brushing off the lord's hands gripping his collar, he chuckled.
Arslan moved his jaw sideways, his gaze narrowing. "Humiliating the DEA will only backfire," he croaked at length. "Haven't you learned anything?"
"About them," he favored his old man with a smirk. "They went to my clinic today. It's on record I didn't cancel any sessions yesterday afternoon. My last appointment with Ms. Cavdect wrapped up around seven, and the old lady offered me a ride home because my car was at the store. Does it sound like the schedule of a drug lord who went on site and dispatched a kilo of Ice?" Another groan of pain put a lull between his words. "After today, no one in their sound mind will draw a connection between me and the Phantom masked freak again, not for a very long time at least."
Then, pivoting on his heel, he chucked away the golf club. "I've done my part," he rasped. "Your turn now to deal with the snitch."
"You're a doctor," the lord croaked when he was at the door, his voice softer, his tone uninflected. "You know how to take care of yourself, I take?"
He only chortled and left. Leaning on the banister of gold filigree, he went down the stairs to the back door to avoid seeing anyone and circled to the front. Back in his car, he fumbled for the syringe. A biting chill spread and made him wince. He huffed, his head hanging between both arms dangling upon the steering wheel. Pushing himself up, he turned the key, and the engine rumbled.
On the drive home, a message from Telesphore Reyer popped out on the main interface of the dashboard.
We need to talk.
"Can't catch a break," muttering to himself, he huffed a sigh and leaned to the windowsill, the back of his hand propping against his cheek. He stepped on the gas and put on a piano piece recovered from the prehistoric time. Once Upon A December, it was called. Indulging himself in the chords, Warshon brooded over the throbbing plexus of time that concatenated this age to the one from eons ago, as if an endless stripe flowing in the space of infinity only to return to the start. He felt out of his depth, helpless even, and yet immensely free. Free, because nothing mattered in the end, what he had ever done or would couldn't have the slightest impact on such fatality, that from womb to tomb, he was but a speck of dust, gyrating into the lapse of memory.
The pair of scrollwork iron gates opened to a smooth asphalt driveway winding through groomed hedgerows and rows of oaks. He parked in his driveway but didn't go inside as he stepped out of the car.
"Call Telesphore Reyer," he said, putting in the earpieces. White breath spiraled, dispersing into the night.
"What the fuck, man?" the other man let rip. "What the fuck were the DEA doing at the Plant?"
"You have all the reasons to be mad."
"That's it?" His voice was a boom of fury so loud that Warshon plucked out an earpiece. "I know I have all the fucking reasons to be mad!"
"Listen to me, man. I meant what I said."
"And you said you want to develop rehabilitation drugs! To help us rid of our drug problems! That's how the Commonwealth government allowed us to relocate our money for the investment! So you tell me, how the fuck did you attract the DEA?"
He sighed, smacking his lips.
"Well?"
"You know the pledge of omertà?"
"What?"
"How do you make the boss trust you with his dirtiest secret?" Before Telesphore fired another fusillade of cusses, he went forth, "You red your hand for him."
A pause long enough to spawn and tangle many thoughts. "So developing rehabilitation drug was just to pull wool over my eyes, eh? I should have known." Telesphore huffed a dry cackle.
"I wasn't lying," Warshon replied, his voice measured, devoured by the night. "The wool I've pulled was never meant to be over your eyes. And everything I've promised, I mean to deliver. It's just…"
"Just what?"
"It will have to come with some by-products, if you will." The irony packed a punch now that he heard the words coming out of his own mouth. Knowing his father all too well, he knew that once Lord Qusbecq suspected something, he wouldn't stop until he found the proof. He wielded Washond as a weapon because of what this weapon could do, and yet the fear also coiled inside him that the weapon might claim autonomy one day. Convinced by the suspicion he couldn't prove, he had Warshon watched, and should Warshon try to explain himself, it would only come across as an assault on the Lord's conviction. So he didn't. He went along with it. Turning the Plant into his new lab, he first increased the production of Ice to expand his client list and his own influence beyond the Lord's reach. A motive enough to warrant his father's suspicion would suffice to dissemble his true intent with the rehabilitation drugs, which he had confided in Telesphore, and a good excuse for the Reyers to use before the Commonwealth government so they could move their assets overseas. But who would believe him? Should their situation reverse, he, too, would tell Reyer to go fuck himself. People always demand the truth. Few believe it. Truth seldom comes with the evidence culled purposefully if not fabricated entirely to support a lie.
"Teddy," he continued. "I don't expect you to understand. But I've helped you relocate more than half of your family's assets here to the Republic. And all these years we've known each other, have I failed you before?" When the other didn't reply, he pressed on by backing a step, "Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking you to trust me. Keep your doubts about me because there are things I keep from you. And god forbid, should anything happen to me, you remain innocent because hand on heart, you don't know anything you shouldn't."
"That's the problem!" the other snapped. "I want to trust you! Like you've said, all these years we've known each other! After all these years! You still don't trust me?"
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"I do!"
"I'm tired, Teddy," Warshon huffed a long sigh. "The DEA raided us, yes, but found nothing. Everything at the Plant is fine. Come and see for yourself next month."
"That'll have to wait," Telesphore hesitated. "Dad needs me to wrap up the business here. I'll be in Konstinbul by new year."
"I'll see you then."
"Warshon, I…" He heaved a sigh. "Never mind." He cut the line.
Despite his brilliant mind, Telesphore Reyer was far better a chemist, too idealistic for the jungle law that dictated the talk at every cocktail bar from behind the twilight mask of civility. He was wasting his talent dealing with people who adorned their maggots infested hearts with gold. But if he chose his calling, he'd relinquish his rights to heirdom, for which his poor mother would have put her neck through a noose. Being able to relocate a large chunk of the family assets to the Republic had finally earned him some credit with his father, credit he desperately needed to remain in the race with all his step brothers or half-sisters.
Warshon dipped his head, his hands on the hips, his eyes lifting at the moonlight glimmering off the terracotta-tiled roof of the houses from the lower terrace afield. Interspersed with bursts of bougainvillea, the low stone retaining wall ran down the hillside, along which the landscape lighting merged with the city's night glow.
He helped the Reyers because of Telesphore. But while he was going through their finances, he uncovered the five-year tax relief the Reyers received after they slashed the price for the vaccine ingredients quota for the Commonwealth government. It could be the proof of the scandal he had Murong Kai implied at the press conference. But it would also damn the Reyers and himself now that he's a shareholder. Should he wield the Reyers, turning them into fodder, he ought to absolve Telesphore first, hence himself. And even so, he doubted dear Teddy would be too thrilled.
Disliking your siblings is one thing, shoving them to hell yourself is another. Not everyone can be Serhat in this regard, Telesphore least of all.
Sliding his hands into the pockets of his suit pants, he drew a long breath, the autumn air crisp. He headed inside.
In the kitchen, he found Erdem dozing off over the counter with an empty wine bottle. "What?" The young man jolted awake when he prodded him in the arm.
Warshon tugged a napkin off the dispenser. "Wipe your mouth."
Erdem took the napkin. "Sorry, boss."
"Looks like you had a slow night," he teased, propping on the heels of his palms against the marble counter.
"She's fine, I swear!" Erdem raised the remote monitor in his hand and tossed it over. "See? All good."
Snatching it with a swing of an arm, Warshon checked the numbers while his apprentice went on in a mumble, "It's not like I did nothing."
"Drinking and napping sure counts as doing something," Warshon teased him with a nod.
"Well, for one, I took off the ventilation mask after the oxygen therapy," the young man countered, slouching on the stool. "And two, I called off all our appointments at the clinic tomorrow and gave everyone a day off. You need to bring her in for a CT scan, right? It's all clear. Nobody will see her. And you can slack off a day, sort of."
Chewing on the inside of his cheeks, Warshon thought for a bit. "I suppose I could use a day off," he said. "But for the record, I have no intention to keep her a secret."
Erdem raised an incredulous brow. "Beg your pardon?"
"Well, I intend to keep her around. I could use another apprentice, and who knows, maybe you can teach her."
The young man gawked, throwing a thumb at himself. "You're joking."
"I don't joke." He shrugged. "Be excited. You're about to have your first student."
"Can we discuss this?"
Ignoring his request, Warshon glanced at his watch. "It's well past midnight. You can crash on the couch."
"You have a big house and no guest room?"
"I don't have guests."
The young man blinked helplessly behind those thick glasses when Warshon gave him another clap on the arm and retreated to his room upstairs.
Closing the door behind him without making a sound, he went over to his bed. Under the soft glow of a standing lamp Erdem had left on in the corner, the girl looked like a porcelain doll even with such a terrible haircut. Her long lashes flickered beside a pert nose; her breath wheezed through pouty lips parting as though a small cherry blossom in the winnowing air of spring. A restless sleeper, she twisted the linens in knots, as if her dreams had kept her running, her bare leg dangling from the edge of the bed.
He tucked her in, his hand gliding up to her cheek still hot from the fever. She mewled, her closed eyes frowning. Her body shook with a fit of cough. Warshon put her up, patting her on the back while she leaned on her side against him. He checked the time on the monitor.
"Sorry to wake you," he said, reaching for the pill bottles left on the nightstand next to a glass of water. "Time to take your medicine again." He held the pills to her lips and made her sip. She grumbled with another cough without opening her eyes.
"What's your name, baby girl? Or should I just call you baby girl?"
"Mira," she mewled, barely audible.
"Mira?" he crooned. "Mira." A smile rose in his eyes. "Where is your home, Mira?"
"I don't have one."
"Now that's a coincidence." His smile faltered as he looked at her. He looked at her for a long time, imbibing every bit. "Neither do I."