In a deserted lot, Kovács Dolma found the hatchback whose white paint had turned to the color of piss.
He buckled himself into the driver's seat and turned the key he received in the mail to his office earlier this week. The engine expectorated. He cursed under his breath the entire drive to the designated spot – a remote pier at an abandoned port.
Wait there – that was all the instruction he received. So he waited. He didn't quite understand why or what the purpose was. But with dinner still churning in his stomach, his reasoning paled in comparison to his survival instinct. He obeyed, not the command itself, but the primal fear for his life.
Twisted in his seat, he fidgeted, his fingers tapping the steering wheel while he hung his head between his arms. Desperate for a distraction, he pulled out the pad he brought with him.
Lightning cracked down the sky afar, followed by a roar of thunder.
Dolma bent to pick up the touch pen he dropped and hit his head. "Son of a bitch!" He banged a fist at the steering wheel, his pomaded hair fell over his eyes. Huffing a long breath to calm down, he leaned back, his mind going through all the many threads tangling into impossible skeins he wouldn't know where to begin.
And the beginning...
He shut his eyes, his shoulders sunk with a long hiss of sigh.
Nigh on seven years now since Mustafa first approached him with an invitation to the Eternal Project, a nonpartisan research on regenerating human parts with stem cells for organ replacement and rejuvenation that offered a glimpse of hope for eternal youth if not immortality. From what Dolma gathered, far beyond scientific research, the project had mutated into a political organization in its own rights, even a cult, so to speak, and when the supporting technology plateaued seven years ago, Mustafa sought alternatives. So long as they were young, fresh, and matching, they didn't need to be reproduced from the lab. To be able to traffic specimens from the Third World South and the Federal Tamen, he needed the Customs security to be… flexible.
Kovács Dolma struck dumb luck simply by being at the right place at the right time. Dumb luck indeed as he soon found himself among some of the most important names of the First World with a chance to stay young indefinitely. Never had he thought about the price that came with every gift in life. Too clueless to refuse, and too arrogant he overestimated his affordability. He wouldn't have reflected, let alone regret, not even with hindsight, had he not been knee-deep in shit.
Snapping his eyes open, he gasped at the lightning that struck again. Thunder boomed in its wake. A fat drop of rain splattered on the windshield, and another. The rain pelted down.
He flipped on the interior light, his eyes roaming over the file of Evan Ginsberg, the boy who got away under his watch.
It was Dolma's sweet plan that once they confirmed the boy's illegal status, he would turn him into a specimen. His age was perfect for the organ farm. And Mustafa would have been pleased
"You little shit," he muttered, biting his thumbnail.
Was it a coincidence the DEA chased the Phantom Lord to the Port on the same night the boy made his escape? A stretch perhaps, but it felt planned – as if the alleged Phantom Lord showed up to distract them. If it was indeed the case…
The ground shook beneath, and the hatchback trembled to a throaty honk.
Dolma stiffened at the sharp headlights that shone from the back through the pouring rain. He whipped his head behind. His eyes widened at a truck looming large. Fumbling to unbuckle, he found the seatbelt stuck.
"What the fuck!" he brayed, tugging and yanking to little avail. His eyes snapped to the steering wheel; his trembling hand found the key and turned, again, and again. The engine refused to even hawk.
"Work, you shit!" he cried, tears flooding down his cheeks. "C'mon! C'mon–"
A deafening clunk slammed into the back of the hatchback, sending it to a spin, and the blaze of the headlights buzzed out.
***
"Where exactly are we going?" asked Serhat, scowling at the soiled quarry truck.
"Just get on and drive," Zahid didn't spare him a glance as he settled in the shotgun seat. Weighing in at three hundred pounds give or take, the big man was far more agile than he looked.
"Oh, is that so?" Serhat snapped. "So you actually know I'm the one driving?" He climbed up behind the steering wheel, looking daggers at the other man. "How am I going to drive if I don't even fucking know where the fuck we're going?"
"I'll tell you where to turn," was all the reply.
"What the fuck?" Serhat slammed the door shut. "Why the fuck can't you just tell me the location?"
"Like you know how to get there even if I give you the address? Like it's a road trip that you can pound it in your GPS for the direction just to keep a record lest someone need dirt on us?" Zahid glared back, his voice snarky, those droopy pewter eyes harsh. "Do what you're asked, and keep your mouth shut. Have you learned nothing from the dinner, genius?"
Lightning struck, gilding the silhouette of the DEA commander. Serhat opened his mouth only to find lumps in his throat. A tremor of fear unbeknownst to him coursed down his spine at the thunder drumming from the sky. He balled his shaky hands and started the engine. No more exchange of words except Zahid's instruction, and the truck rumbled off the main road.
The wipers squeaked, flailing at full blast upon the windshield. Serhat squinted at the blur ahead, his neck craning. "Mustafa had to pick tonight with the storm?" he spat. "Can't we go some other time? What is it so urgent I have to do tonight?"
When the other remained quiet, he slapped the steering wheel. "Fine! No question! Had I known you're all more dull than the old Qusbecq, I wouldn't have bothered!"
"Turn left when you see the pier."
Serhat gnashed his teeth, rage flaring. A nobody commander who had made a botch of things for him now dared give him the orders! Zahid Abid – he cussed at the man in his head – you wait until I tear you into pieces! Hand on heart I'll make you rue the moment you crossed me!
The truck swerved, its wobbling a threat, throwing the other to his side. But the DEA commander remained impervious, whose hand casually hocked around the grab handle, and whose imperturbability only gnawed at Serhat, rubbing his patience raw.
Teetering on the cusp of a mental collapse, Serhat shot the other a sideways glance. For days he had not been able to sleep, imagining the consequences that awaited him, what Warshon would do to him, what he had already done. Mustafa was his only hope against the Qusbecqs. Long had he suffered their arrogance. Long had he endured the shame of being able to do nothing while Arslan Qusbecq took apart House Effendi piece by piece. It was his chance to bite back, to reclaim his birthright, to prove that he was so much more than just the Pimp of Konstinbul but the last standing Effendi his mother could count on, and the triumph should have been his! So engrossed in fury, he stepped on the gas despite the devouring darkness around, and the truck hurtled into the thick of the storm.
A glimmer of light wavered on the narrow drive ahead.
"Marvelous, finally some light!" Serhat barked, throwing his head to his shoulder. "Everything must be clandestine, fine, I get it, but a single, shitty lamp along the entire drive, really?"
The DEA commander didn't deign to reply, his eyes sharp, focusing on the road ahead. His hand around the grab handle tightened while his head tilted forward.
"Fuck you, Zahid!" Serhat tossed his head to the front. His eyes widened while the glimmer of light enlarged. "What the fuck?" Honking the horn, he scrabbled for the brake with his foot. "It isn't working!" he growled, his voice tearing his throat. "Why the fuck the brake isn't working?"
Then, in the split of a second, tires screeched in protest against a force so sudden and violent that Serhat felt the world had been yanked from under him. Metal crunched against metal in a bloom of shattering glass. Restrained only by the bruising snap of the seatbelt, his body lurched forth. He cried out of pain with his eyes shut, but his voice wouldn't come out. Adrenaline flooded his veins, his heart hammering, while his mind fought to catch up on everything that had unfolded all too quickly it froze, warping his sense of time.
Then, everything fell quiet, an eerie silence over cold dread. Serhat gasped, blinking his eyes open.
"You alright?" asked the other.
"Am I alright?" Serhat rasped in a shallow breath, his head bobbing. "Am I…" His voice hitched.
"The brake doesn't work because the real one is on my side," Zahid explained in a way he might as well not. "C'mon, we have work to do." He unbuckled himself and kicked open the door.
Serhat followed suit, clambering out of his seat. His eyes bulged despite the stinging rain. The truck barely suffered a scratch, but the target – whether a sedan or a small hatchback – had been reduced to a wadded mess beyond recognizable.
Circling from the back, Zahid went over the wreckage and pried at the door with a crowbar. As the crumpled sheet of metal came ajar, he yanked, his hands delved in with an army knife. He shot up a glare. "Well, don't just stand there!" He groaned. "Come over and give me a goddamn hand!"
Serhat nudged on his feet. With every inch closer, he could smell the stench of gore and flesh not much unlike the moment the silver lid was lifted to reveal the decapitated horse head, only more pungent this time with a roar of malice. He turned to the side road and vomited, his cashmere suit pants all wet and stained with muck, as were those new laced-up brogues of tanned alligator hide.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he espied Zahid hauling out a man's body, his hands balling around shaky knees. Before he could decide whether he should go back to vomiting, the DEA commander came to him first and snatched him by the collar.
"Grab his legs," he said, his voice flat against the pounding rain. "We need to move him to the back of the trunk."
"Don't touch me!" Serhat twisted, trying to wrench free. But the sturdy grip was unbreakable like a shackle. "Who the fuck you think you are?"
"Nobody," Zahid replied, in the same flat voice. "Only a tool to carry out what Mustafa demands, and so are you."
"Fuck you, Zahid!" He tried to pummel, but the big man kept him at arm's length. "Fuck you! You're a dead man, Zahid, I swear!"
"Try harder with your creative epithets," The commander sneered. "There are more men who want me dead than all the pretty cunts you have at that whore house of yours you call an agency. You think I care?" Then, dragging him to the body washed in the rain, he shoved him to the ground. "Now, get to work!"
Groveling on four, Serhat risked a glance at the face of the fractured body with the familiar chevron mustache. His gorge rose again. Shuddering as he got to his feet, he grabbed Kovács Dolma's legs while Zahid lifted the shoulders. They trudged to the back of the quarry truck, which opened after Zahid pounded in the passcode. The inside looked more medically equipped than an ambulance. Serhat gawked while they threw Dolma's body on the operating table, and the door closed behind them. Only then did he realize how cold it was inside. Other than an ambulance, it was a medically equipped freezer.
"Open the top drawer to your left," Zahid ordered. And, as if he could hear the grumble finding its way up Serhat's throat, he added, "Save your stupid why, just do it."
Serhat gritted his teeth but did as bid.
"The biggest scalpel," Zahid continued. "Hand it over"
"What the fuck, man?"
"That's a more vicious why but no less stupid."
"I don't fucking care!" Serhat lost it, his eyes sweeping between a drawer of knives and the man on the table.
Snapping on the vinyl gloves, Zahid shoved him out of his way. His fingers splayed and clutched the biggest scalpel he had demanded and slashed open Dolma's navy blue shirt stained with red.
A feeble groan took both men aback, even Zahid hesitated the second he saw Dolma blinking his eyes.
"Help, help me," he sputtered. "I, I, help, please…"
Clamping a hand to his brow, Serhat gasped for the air too dense, too cold, and too thick of blood to enter his lungs, his panic laid bare. "What the fuck, what the fuck should we do?"
"Get a grip," said Zahid, throwing isopropyl on the man's midriff, his eyes unrelenting without a trace of hesitation from only moments ago. The silver went in and came out red.
"Stop it!" Serhat cried. "What the fuck is this? Why the fuck are you doing this?"
Pivoting toward him, Zahid huffed a long sigh. "Your allegiance, your omertà, what do you think? What do you think really is this Eternal Project?"
When Serhat gulped, and his mind scrambled for words, the other continued, "You think all the many accidents are really just accidents? No, son, it's organ farming. And didn't you come to Mustafa to be in Mustafa's grace? Well, then, you must swear your allegiance. Here," he paused and snatched for Serhat's wrist as he made him hold the scalpel. "I've already cut him open for you. Now it's your turn. Go for the liver first."
"I don't even know what a fucking liver looks like!"
Zahid closed and rolled his eyes, his brows raising. He gripped Serhat's hand. Blood spewed and pooled in the backdrop of the dying man's plea.
"Can't we at least use some anesthesia?" Serhat screamed, his eyes blurred with tears.
"You don't want the drugs to go into the system," the DEA commander intoned matter-of-factly. "Once the organ is taken out of the body, it's dead, and won't be able to process out the substance. Anything that's in there, stay there. So no anesthesia for quality control." He plucked out a dark mass with Serhat's hand and chucked it into an ice container. "That's also why we leave the heart for the last, to keep them fresh longer. Here."
Holding the heart still thumping in his hand, Serhat braced the forearm arm on the wall behind him, his knees wobbling like jello.
"Put it in the other container at the head of the table."
So Serhat did. Deprived of strength to voice another protest, he galumphed across the damp floor.
A flash of limelight made him squint, followed by the whirring printer spitting out the picture of him holding the heart behind the grimace of a man who couldn't rest with his eyes bulging out like the decapitated stallion from hours ago.
He dropped Dolma's heart in the container and pounced for the picture. Seized by a feral instinct or sheer madness, he ripped the picture and ate the pieces. A long wail came rending his throat until he choked.
Zahid watched him flopping on the floor, his cold face betraying nothing. "You couldn't possibly think it was the only proof of you being here, eh?" He shook his head, his brows raising in disbelief. "Look around," he whisked a forefinger at the four corners where cameras were implemented. "Plenty of footage, and your fingerprints everywhere, no less. You are Mustafa's dog now. If he asks you to stay quiet, you stay quiet; if he asks you to bark, you bark. Capeesch?" As his voice fell, he gave Serhat a light slap across the cheek and pulled him to his feet. "Out now, I still have business to take care of. Wait at the head of the pier. A black sedan will pick you up, plate number KL 6566A."
"Where am I going after this?"
The other man dragged him out of the back of the truck and shut the door before he went around to the front. "Not my problem," he drawled and climbed to the driver's seat.
***
Zahid Abid bent down to unfasten the brake, and the pedal slid back from the other side.
He straightened and restarted the engine. The truck nudged the wreckage into the tenebrous sea. A thunderous crash, and a throaty splash, which was soon engulfed by the silence of the depth, like red inks dropping onto a black canvas. The waves crashed in cacophony with the roaring storm while the sheet of rain swept away every speck of the violence.
As he backed up the truck, he turned it onto the road. His hands tightened around the wheel, his breath ragged, chafing his throat. He harrumphed, his frowning eyes dry and exhausted. Cussing at himself, he carefully picked up the speed.
For some reasons that eluded him, Mustafa wanted to keep Dolma's corpse, which saved him the trouble now he only needed to return the truck and take the organs to the hospital.
A bitter laugh slipped out of his parted lips.
Many times he got his hands red for Mustafa, and yet after all the many organs he had couriered, he still wouldn't be able to deliver the one to his wife. Now to add salt to the injury, he had to work with the idiot Serhat Qusbecq. He wiped his nose with the heel of a thumb, his arms shaking. Drawing a long breath, he steadied himself to think, to learn his exact place and determine how he could get from here to where he needed to be.
When Mustafa set him to capture the Phantom Lord, he had his qualms. Being the DEA commander, it was his job. But few remember that before the world came to learn of the Phantom Lord's existence, the scourge of drug abuse had been far worse in the Republic. The Enkerian cartel they busted two years ago wouldn't have been possible without the Phantom Lord's leads and assistance.
Zahid frowned, his jaw moving sideways as he remembered the night the man made his first appearance wearing the mask just to lure out the cartel boss, a risky move that nearly got him killed in the crossfires, one he didn't have to make. Zahid bit his lip, his brow furrowing. He wasn't stupid. He knew the Phantom Lord only used him and the DEA to exterminate his rivals. But an ineffable instinct also told him that perhaps, just perhaps, the man was playing a bigger game. Unlike any other cartel boss, the Phantom Lord, being his own distributor, was specific about his clients. His Ice, allegedly of the highest percentage of purity on the market, never went to drug dealers who retailed. The Phantom Lord dealt directly with rich patrons, and his client list, some suspected, was perhaps more wanted than the man himself. While he couldn't control what his clients would do with the Ice they bought from him, Ice had become far less available since he entered the game.
When Serhat yelled over the receptor, ordering him to shoot the man, he hesitated but obliged. He had no reason to go easy on the drug lord. But when the car exploded, he dispatched all his men to go after the explosion, knowing it might very well be a decoy. If the man they were after really was the Phantom Lord, he ought to be clever enough to get away within the time slot Zahid returned as a thank-you gift. But if it were only an imposter, caught or dead, or both, Zahid wouldn't feel a twinge of guilt, just like he didn't feel an itch when he plucked out the thumping heart with Serhat's hands.
Through the folds of roads that led to a nondescript quarry tucked in the foothills, he parked in the underground lot connected to a lab for bio-ink. He turned the key. The engine went out in a hiss of sigh, and the door creaked open. He climbed out and went to the back. Despite the freezing temperature, the metallic stench of blood still roared.
"Call Mustafa Agca." He put in the earpieces.
"Yes?"
"It's all done," Zahid intoned. "The truck is back at the quarry. I have the containers with me and will drop them next."
"You've kept our friend, I believe?"
Zahid permitted himself a quiet snort as he turned to Kovács Dolma lying still on the operating table with his belly cut open like a swine. "Oh, I'm with him right now. Too bad he can't say hi, but he has his eyes on you."
"So snarky! So unique!" Mustafa guffawed. "I'll really miss you, old sport, should fate part our ways some days!"
"Glad I entertained, Mustafa." He cut the line.
Closing the back door behind him, he got into a sedan with the containers at his sides and drove into the storm again.
***
Arslan Qusbecq ran a hand through his hair and put the trilby back on.
He leaned to the railing along the gazebo, listening to Mustafa's mirthless guffaw while he watched the rain slice down, tormenting the wisteria clinging onto the trellis.
"Well, that's done," Mustafa mused, tugging out the earpieces with a pinky. "Congratulations, your stepson is officially enlisted, so to speak. More wine?"
Turning to his shoulder, Arslan regarded the other sitting at the table behind the decapitated horse head. "You didn't really kill the stallion, did you?" Arslan flicked his eyes at the salver, one brow jutting over the other.
"Please," Mustafa raised his glass to his lips, a smile sheening his hazel green eyes. "Like you, I'm a pragmatist, not a psychopath. What can I possibly gain from killing Winter Ghost?"
"So, what's up with the head?"
"Prop," he crowed. "Realistic, init?"
Arslan leaned close to survey the grisly details of the head. "Too realistic." He jabbed a forefinger at an eye, trying to scoop it out from behind the lids. "Not glass or crystal, they even feel real."
"Do they?"
"What are they made of?"
"Those are real eyes."
"Son of a bitch!" Swinging away from the table, Arslan shook his hand with force, his face contorting with disgust.
The other cachinnated, throwing back his head. "Oh, c'mon, Arslan, you know the trick. Any lie that holds requires some real substance."
Arslan extended the hand he used to jab at the eye into the rain, trying to wash it off, then wiped his hand on embroidered tablecloth the dinner host provided. A snort fled his throat. "You had the horse's eyes plucked out?"
"Gosh, no!" The other feigned shock, his brows drawing close. "Haven't I just told you I'm a pragmatist? What good is there in keeping a blind stallion? He failed, so I've put him out to pasture, literally. And the eyes are taken from the cow used to feed my guests, so as to make the most of his sacrifice." He stroked his cleft chin angling at Arslan, his mouth an arch.
"All the extra miles just to put out a show," Arslan let out a derisive chuckle as he pulled a chair and sat across the table. "And yet you call yourself a pragmatist."
"Now, now you're just sour because the trick got you, too," Mustafa glanced down at him along the tip of his nose and winked. "Appalled and shocked, you all let your emotion, be it fear or disgust, get the better of you so you overlook this and that you otherwise wouldn't have. Didn't you see how Kovács' face blanched?" he paused for another guffaw. "Fearing the horse's fate shall befall him too, he willingly raced for his doom. May him rest in peace now."
When Arslan didn't join him in his laugh, Mustafa rolled his eyes. "Oh, c'mon, old sport, where's your sense of humor?"
Arslan scoffed. Having decided that he had heard enough of the other man's gloat, he swept his eyes to where Zahid Abid had sat. "Don't you think there was something or someone you've overlooked too? Having let your thrill get the better of you, you had all your attention on your quarry, you forgot to measure the hunter set for the job." Taking a lull to mock, Arlsan reached for the decanter and poured himself a glass. "Commander Abid didn't seem too impressed with your artwork."
Mustafa glanced down, the corners of his mouth hoisting. "Dear old Zahid," he mused. "Of course he wasn't impressed. I doubt anything will ever impress him after everything he has done. But just because he saw through it, just because he knew I was putting on a show to make them fear, doesn't mean I don't keep him on the leash of his hope and fear."
"For how long though." Arslan took a sip of the wine and swirled the glass. "Little birds told me his wife fainted at Himkok just a days ago. She didn't drink, of course. All she did was sit there with friends. She isn't going to hang on very long – we all know it – and when she checks out, she'll burst Zahid's bubble of hope. Either you find the wife a transplant, or the leash of fear you have on him will snap. What do you propose to do with him then?"
Mustafa lifted his gaze, those hazel eyes aglow with a mirthless grin. "Oh, I was rooting for you to take care of him."
Arslan remained silent.
"When I set Zahid to capture the Phantom Lord, I thought, what if Serhat was telling the truth, the First World's most wanted man was indeed Dr. Warshon Qusbecq? What if Zahid hurt him during the operation, or killed him, God forbid? Will Arslan my old friend finally get up from his ass and take care of this little nuisance for me?"
Releasing a dry cackle, Arslan held up the wine, his knuckles white gripping his knee under the table. How dare the man accuse him of sitting on his ass while he had done so much and risked even more to hold their ground? Who else, if it wasn't him, had maneuvered behind all the closed doors while Mustafa took center stage, hogging all the limelight as a protégé, the rising star in Republican politics? Hell, he had even sacrificed his own son! From the outset, the first day he brought the boy home from his mother, he realized what Warshon was capable of. But a talent like that was never to be tamed, and father or not, Arslan knew he couldn't make his son do anything for him. So, he put out his own show.
To cleanse the Tamen out of him – what a lousy excuse when he had the boy stationed in the north? Warshon could be half a beast for all Arslan would care. But he had Warshon enlisted anyway, to suffer and to be humiliated, so he'd see the cruelty of the world as it was. So he would learn hate, which would spawn in him such ugly self-righteousness, with which he'd feel right doing the wrong, and his crimes his means to mete out justice.
Did Mustafa really think they would have come this far without their most important pawn he had done so much to mold and recruit? Could he think of anyone else who could execute the role of the drug lord so bloody beautifully? Who, without Arslan having to explain or give the orders, was already going after Keiren Zaman?
But he gulped down the words gushing up his throat. Engaging with the questions meaning to slight would only cost him the initiative. So, he said instead, "Well, too bad he did neither and let the Phantom Lord get away," his smile mocking.
Mustafa returned a smile.
"Speaking of Warshon," Arslan continued, his voice measured and uninflected. "He is a doctor, and quite a good one, too. Maybe he can take a look at the Commander's wife and keep the hope alive a bit longer for us all."
"Well, don't work your son too hard," the other mused, straightening from the chair while he braced his elbows on the table. "A doctor and a drug lord, that's a lot to juggle. We wouldn't want him to break, would we?"
"No way I can convince you that Warshon isn't involved in this now, I see."
"I'm not an idiot like your stepson."
Arslan chuckled, raising his brows. A crack of lightning crepitated over the drape of the night behind the other man, limning the contour of his square face.
"All these years you've kept him a secret from me, I get it," Mustafa continued, his fingers interlacing under his cleft chin, his hazel eyes lifting across the table. "I'd do the same if he were my son. But knowing this, you and I are the ones who call the shots here. The Project calls the shots. Despite his brilliance and how marvelously you've deployed it, we don't have his allegiance, and I doubt we ever will."
Arslan glowered. It's not like he didn't take precautions. He ordered Warshon to release the Phantom Lord's client list of all the big names in the Commonwealth to spew chaos that would guarantee Kieren Zaman's victory. But more importantly, it would have made the Phantom Lord enemies, so he would require allies should the day come and vengeance knock on his door. That was the plan to keep his loyalty. And it would have worked had it not been for Serhat the good-for-nothing! Arslan wished he could put his own hands around the idiot's neck and watch his life gutter out from his eyes. But what's done was done. No point in bringing it up now. He should be proud, thankful, or both, that not only had Warshon disassociated himself from the allegation but turned every opportunity to his advantage and exposed the vaccine scandal that caused no less damage.
"I've kept tabs on him," Arslan said tersely, a smirk straining his face. "If that's what you're stressing about."
"Sure, you do." The other shrugged, his lips pouting. "But hear this, with all the details Serhat provided about his whereabouts, he still managed to get away, and not from anyone but the legendary DEA Commander Zahid Abid," he paused as if waiting for his words to register. "If he wished to turn his back on you, on us, he could. And given what Serhat just did, I doubt loyalty runs deep in House Qusbecq." He smirked, adding salt to the injury.
Arslan put down the wine. Detesting every word that had slipped off the other's glib tongue, he could deny none. "If it comes to the day he shall betray me," he clipped. "I'll sever the chord and deny everything. He'd not be my son. Everything he did as the Phantom Lord was on him. He had no evidence to implicate me. I've made sure of that. But I doubt he'll be that stupid to go against me. And you can let it rest now."
"Good to know," Mustafa threw his arms as he leaned back in the chair again, hissing with a long sigh that flared his nostrils. "What about Serhat, though?" he added, his brows furrowing. "Will you go home and talk to him?"
"Hell, no." Arslan took off the trilby and tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. "Let forty-year-old toddler galumph to his mother and snivel. Why else do you think I'm spending the night here with you?" He rolled his eyes and donned the trilby again.
"Look at that!" Mustafa laughed. "The humor is back!" He clapped his hands, motioning the servants to bring out the cigars.
Arlsan cocked a brow. "Perchance you should ask them to remove the damn head first?" He shifted his eyes to the table. "Prop or not, it stinks."
"Sure," Mustafa shrugged, waggling his hand at the head. As the servants put the lid back on, he ordered them to destroy it before discarding it. "We don't want the cops to come for nothing!"
Arslan shook his head as he struck the match.
"What?" Mustafa held out his hands with palms facing up. "It's a legit concern!"
"It amazes me how you've kept your inner child, that's all." Toasting the foot of the cigar, Arslan took a draft. "Prank props, really?" Tendrils of smoke rambled in the air between them.
Mustafa huffed a laugh. "But it worked well, didn't it?" He too struck a match. "And tell you what, I did learn the trick from a child." A meaningful smile limned his features with shadows.
"Oh?"
"A long time ago, her parents sent her to the Sunday dance school, you know those places where kids like yours attended to learn social dancing?" When Arslan snorted with a nod, the other continued, "Well, a little tomboy she was, she dreaded every second of it. She knew her mother would try to convince her to go back again, so guess what she did?"
Arslan shrugged, "She worked on the teacher?"
"Yes, but how?"
Only a shake of the head this time.
Mustafa went on, "She had a very expensive pair of dance shoes her father's friend bought her, and she spun a yarn about the shoes being some heirloom passed on to her by Yelena Nikolaeva, a well-known dance legend in the Commonwealth. Claiming herself as the direct descendent of Nikolaeva, she dared her teacher to keep her in the classroom, for she'd tell her grandmother everything, and should the old woman dislike anything she heard, she'd be sure that the school went out of business. Intimidated, or just couldn't bother, the poor teacher let her do whatever she wished. Her parents didn't find out until a year later. She had a severe asthma attack at a video game tournament that turned into a brawl."
"Some girl," Huffing a sigh, Arslan shook his head. "Didn't the teacher double-check if this Yelena or whatever had a granddaughter?"
"Nikolaeva certainly had a granddaughter, but she passed away from congenital heart disease."
"How did you know?"
"After the granddaughter's funeral, the heartbroken granny held an auction. Among the items sold was this new pair of shoes never worn. I bought them." Mustafa puffed on the cigar.
Arslan followed suit, his brows furrowed. "You and the girl," he observed at last, a smirk playing on his lips. "Seemed quite a match."
The other chortled. "I'm twenty years older, Arslan. Twisted as I may seem to some, I'm not like those creeps your stepson took as clients. However," he paused, taking his time with the smoke ring he blew as if an alabaster to chisel. "I think Warshon might have swooned over her had she lived."
Arslan lowered his head, his eyes a wary squint. "Do I by any chance know this girl you speak so fondly of?"
"You've kept her father's violin after the accident," the other mused, his voice measured if not deliberately slow. "Oh, don't think I didn't know what you did on the trip we took to the Commonwealth? While I was exhausting my means to adopt the girl and failed, you played your sleight of hand and got what you wanted." A wry chuckle put a lull between his words. "You see, Arslan, men like us really are the same. We stop at nothing to get what we want because it will haunt us for life if we don't have it. Too bad I didn't get to adopt the girl. Or she would have lived. And now she haunts my thoughts."
Arslan stiffened in his seat, recalling the news on Reynold Barca, former Secretary of the State of the Commonwealth, and the girl he adopted all the many years ago. The muscles on his back tautened while the hand resting on his lap coiled into a fist. Through the veil of smoke, his eyes landed on the other. Silence fell as heavily as the dead of the night, choking him of breath.
"What you do with your family is none of my business, Arslan," Mustafa continued, blowing another smoke ring to the woods. "But we're a team, you and I, and I need to be sure that family of yours, or whoever you recruit, won't stand in our way or go behind our back. A man's heart only goes after his treasure. Our interest shapes our stance. Brilliant a man as Warshon, you'd better be sure where his heart goes."
The smoke ring stretched and pulled, as if it got snagged on the branches before bursting into indigo threads. Like banners rising from the underworld, they billowed in the sweeping wind of the night.