Page 37 of Iblis' Affliction
“Why?” Slater’s head snapped to the other side.
“You…” Darkness swallowed the corners of Talha’s vision as the need to regain control overwhelmed. Fists itching to smash this beautiful face bloody, he crushed the joint in his hand, got up, and stepped forward, but caught the surprised, curious gaze of his younger brother. Ejder looked entertained, rather than worried. Not willing to amuse him, Talha leashed his feelings and said as clear as possible, “Stay in the room and wait for the doctor. I can’t deal with you right now. We will talk later.”
Slater’s face paled, eyes frosted over, lips disappeared in a white slash as he straightened up and raised his chin. “As you please, Master.”
Slater strolled away, and Ejder gasped. “WOW! Have you seen his back?”
“Ejder!” Talha warned, but the words didn’t seem to disturb Slater.
Watching the ripper approach the door and slip into the corridor, Talha expected the all-consuming shame to lift from his chest, but instead, it aggravated.
“What are you going to do, Abi?”
“I don’t know…” Talha automatically replied, giving in to despair for a second. Slater’s appearance robbed him of the desire to smoke, and he tossed the crumpled joint on the table.
“You slept with a man.”
“Really? Thank you, I wouldn’t have noticed without your help. Ugh, Ejder! What the fuck is wrong with you?” Succumbing to the rage, Talha kicked the table. His toes collided with the edge of the table leg, and Talha hissed as all his nerves shrieked in agony. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
“If people knew, they wouldn’t only stop following you, they would kill you, ya know?”
“Then fucking keep your mouth shut!” Talha yelled, then pushed the air out of his lungs, trying to calm down. Hammers of pain pounding in his brain, he said, “Remove everybody from the house until I sort it all out. Arrange a doctor for him. If he has any kind of diseases, I want to know. Stay at your girlfriend’s for now. If he kills me, kill him, then return to Mardin. He won’t let those who know who he is live.”
Ejder didn’t listen. His eyes lit up with mischief. “How did it feel? Did you… or did he…”
Unable to believe his ears, Talha felt as if the blood vessels in his brain burst. “Are you for real? Get the fuck out!”
“It’s only as serious as you let it be, Abi. So what if you fucked his ass. Shit happens!” He giggled, happy with his joke, but Talha didn’t listen. Grabbing Ejder’s arm, he dragged him to the door and shoved him out of the office.
“Ugh! Unbelievable!”
HIS HOUSE EMPTIEDwithin half an hour. No footfalls, no rustles of long abayas sounded in the air; dead silence fell over his never sleeping mansion. Talha’s neurotic fingers tapped the polished wood of the armrest as he rested against the soft leather of the cowhide sofa. Holding the morning paper in his other hand, he tried to concentrate on reading, but the meaning eluded him. When he was about to give up, a soft knocking reached his ears a second before the door creaked open.
Serious brown eyes fixed on Talha’s face from behind thin silver glasses as the middle-aged doctor gave him a quick nod and a ghost of a smile. Even on hot summer days like this, the doctor wore a dark blue suit; the same blue bloomed on his forehead as a prayer mark. Closing the door behind his back, he clasped his hands in front of his hips. “No one answered the door, so I let myself in. Is everything alright, Reis?”
“Yes, everything is fine, Miraç. Come on in.” Tossing the paper to the coffee table, Talha got up, straightened his black button-up shirt, before offering the doctor his hand. “You know why you’re here?”
“Yes, Reis.” Soft, velvet notes in Miraç’s calm voice wrapped around Talha, releasing the tension from his shoulders. The doctor’s glasses flared green as he gave Talha a firm nod. “Ejder updated me. You want a whole body check-up of your new asset.”
Calm and controlled, Miraç feared no one but Allah, and Talha thought that if anyone could deal with Slater, it would be him. The peaceful aura around Miraç never failed to make people relax and instantly trust him. “The second door on the left. I’m not sure how I’m going to use him yet, but if he has any kind of diseases, I would like to know.”
“Yes, Reis.” Turning on his heel, the doctor opened the door, picked up a beige medical chest, which stood behind, and disappeared from view. His quiet footfalls moved away, until the sound of the door being opened and closed completely muffled them out.
Leaning against the wooden surface of the windowsill, Talha watched the white featherlike clouds rush toward the horizon. The blinding sun hurt his eyes, yet he couldn’t look away from the endless sky. The pressure of waiting weighed him down, as he strained his ears for any sounds from Slater’s room. Fifteen minutes stretched into eternity, exhausting his patience. He was about to follow Miraç, when the soft click of a closing door disturbed the quiet. Talha pushed himself off the windowsill, facing the noise.
Putting the medical chest on the floor in the corridor, Miraç entered the room, and after glancing in the direction he had come from, he shut the door. Brushing his salt and pepper hair off his forehead with a casual hand, the doctor offered Talha a tight smile.
“I changed his bandages and left him antibiotics. Though the wound isn’t dangerous and is healing well, he should rest for at least another week. I took some blood samples as well.” The doctor’s masculine features tightened as his eyes searched the ceiling, then the floor, before reaching Talha’s face again. “I was unable to collect all the samples for STDs as Ejder requested.”
The doctor cleared his throat, adjusting his blue tie.
Talha frowned. “Why?”
Miraç spread his arms, then lifted his shoulders. “Let me quote. ‘If you touch my ass, old man, I’ll cut off your hands and feed them to dogs. If Master wants to push fingers up my ass, Master should come and do it himself.’ I’m sorry, Reis, but he didn’t look like he was joking.”
“Son of a bitch…” Blood, rushing to Talha’s head, made his vision murky. Pressure, pulsing in his temples and the back of his head, threatened to push his eyeballs out of their sockets. His fists clenched, teeth ground, as he stormed toward the door, but Miraç shifting left, blocked his way.
“There is a reason why there are no people around today, is that right? I saw the autopsy reports of the Asani family, and I just saw a knife in the hands of your new‘asset’, that could be the murder weapon. Please correct me if I’m making the wrong conclusions.”
