Page 3 of The Pawn

Malek draws a breath in through narrowed nostrils and glares down at me before turning back to Rami. “Then find another. It’s not that fucking hard.”

There’s an infinitesimal twitch of Rami’s eye. “It’s not so easy. There’s…” he glances at me, clears his throat. “They’re afraid to go against him. Sir.”

Does Malek hear the contempt in Rami’ssir?

Malek turns to me. His jaw is clenched tight. “I said find another. He can fucking disappear after he’s done what I need him to do with the money I’ll be paying.”

“It’s impos?—”

“Fucking find someone!”

A beat passes. “Yes,” Rami says through clenched teeth before turning and walking back out the door.

Malek puts the glass of water down and pulls a chair over, turns it so the back is to me and straddles it.

“You trust him?” I ask, rubbing the bump on the back of my head.

“Of course not, but he is efficient. And merciless.”

I glance at the closed door Rami just left from. Panic begins to rise again. I know what’s beyond that door. The winding staircases that lead to the other one. To the dark hallway. The stairs that go down to the cellars. To that room.

But up here, this was where it happened.

Up here, this is where she lived her horror. Down there was where I lived mine and it was nothing. Nothing incomparison. I never witnessed her butchering. Only the aftermath. Only holding my trembling mother in my arms after they did what they did.

I suck in a breath, force the tears away, tell myself to breathe, to stay calm.

I’m alive. He needs me. That’s what I need to focus on.

“You remember this place,” Malek observes.

“I see it in my nightmares. But you must know that or you wouldn’t have brought me here,” I say, facing him again, taking in his dark, empty eyes. Dead eyes. I think of Cassian. Of his beautiful eyes the color of the Mediterranean Sea. I think of how Cassian looks at me.

How he looked at me the last time I saw him. What he almost did to me.

I grit my jaw. Men are monsters. All men. To believe otherwise is foolish.

“Why did you bring me here?” I ask Malek, infusing steel into my voice because if I think about the monsters, I won’t break down. I won’t melt into a puddle of fear like a good little victim. “What do you want from me?”

“Do you know why he chose this place?” Malek asks, standing, turning to take in the room before facing me again. Behind him the piano looms larger than life in the center of the space. It escaped the worst of the fire.

I don’t answer him. I remain silent because to answer his question would mean I know who he’s referring to. Would mean I know who her true killer was. That reality would be a step too far. It’s always been a step too far.

But not wanting to believe something doesn’t make it any less true.

He walks over to the piano, touches a few keys. It is shocking that it survived the fire. But the firedepartment was here more quickly than anyone counted on. I know that. The intention was to burn this house and the bodies in it to the ground. Burn it along with any memory of her. Erase it and her from the world. It didn’t work out that way, though. “She was a lovely pianist. Very talented. What you heard just now, well, that’s nothing.” He stands. “I couldn’t hold a candle to Sarah.”

Sarah.

My heart twists.

My mother. My mother who died a horrible death. My mother who should never have been a part of my father’s world.

Tears brim my eyes. If he sees them, he doesn’t mention it. “Were you aware I knew her before she was your father’s wife?”

My gaze shoots sharply to his.

He grins, clearly pleased by my reaction because no, I did not know. He leans against the wall then thinks better of it and straightens, brushing the dirt off the arm of his custom-made jacket. He leans against the piano and studies me.