Page 116 of The Kingpin's Call Girl

“Do you think Alteo knew it was you who destroyed that place?”

“It’s hard to say. The official story was a rebel militia attacked the place. That story was more convenient to the authorities from a propaganda standpoint, and it certainly worked for us. Most of us were presumed dead.”

“So you killed your brother to avenge Sara.”

I give her a level look. “Is that really what you want to ask?”

She slides a finger down the foggy side of her glass and back up again before meeting my gaze. “Why did you poke out his eyes?”

I gaze out the window. What I did to my brother is not something I like to talk about or even remember, but I find that I want to tell her. I want to know her. I want to be known by her.

I say, “This part is just for you.”

“Okay.”

I pick up a toothpick with a bright little bit of cellophane on one end and twirl it back and forth. “If Orton were to tell it, he’d say that an unseen force moved my hand, that it was predetermined rather than a decision.”

“But it was a decision?”

“I got him out on a boat. I had to trick him to get him out there.”

“Do you think he knew you wanted to kill him?”

“Once we were out there, he did, but by then, it was too late. I was battle-hardened on every possible level, and he’d spent the past two decades smoking cigars and ordering people around.”

She picks out another strawberry. It comes to me that she’s hungry. “You need some real food.”

“I need the rest of your story. I need to know.”

“You like to know the bloody things.”

“I like to know the real things. The true things. A lot of them just happen to be bloody.”

“Like medieval invasions.”

“Yeah, we know why you think I study that.”

I settle in on the stool next to her. “I wasn’t going to kill Alteo like that. I don’t have any interest in making people think prophecies come true. People believe enough bullshit as it is. My only goal was to make him suffer. But then he told me something when we were out there. He said that I’m not a real Zogaj, that my mother had had an affair, and that’s why I was sent away. He said my father had paid one of the crones in the old country to invent the prophecy about me putting out his eyes so that he’d have an excuse for sending me away.”

“So he isn’t your real father?”

“Who knows? The idea that I’m not a real Zogaj is the kind of thing my brother would invent. But it also makes sense in explaining why my father hated me. Ultimately, I don’t care. I wanted my brother to suffer and die for ordering her killing, I wanted the names of who else did the killing, and I wanted to make them sorry, too.”

She nods, rapt.

“Of course, my brother knew he was a dead man out on that boat, and he refused to tell who he’d hired to do the job on Sara. He meant to go to his death in silence, thereby ensuring I’d never learn the truth. Some people, you can inflict maximum pain on them, and they’ll pass out before they tell you anything. My brother, that’s how he would have been. Not out of bravery so much as spite. He’d always had so much spite toward me.”

I can see the wheels in her mind turning. Still not understanding. Of course, she’s an outsider.

“Here’s the thing you need to know about the Ghost Hound Clan or really any Albanian clan,” I say. “It’s a very secretive organization. When you’re outside of it, you’re nothing. But when you’re inside, you’re in the club. His talking about the prophecy gave me an idea. What if I were to kill him in a way that would align with the prophecy?”

“You blind him and become the promised king.”

“Exactly. They’ll obey their promised king because they believed in the lore.”

“So you forced yourself to put out his eyes,” she says. “To fulfill that prophecy and mark yourself as king.”

“The son will blind the kyre and ascend the throne. I pressed my hands to the sides of his face and gouged out his eyes with my thumbs—slowly—so that he knew what was happening. And then I broke his neck and threw his body near the shore so that everyone could see what had happened.”