Page 46 of The Devil Wears Orange
“And how was the relationship?”
“Hmmm. It’s the only one where I had control of the TV remote. I suppose I should have married him.”
“Is that your standard for spending a lifetime with someone?” he says, smiling at me. I read it as teasing.
There’s definitely some flirtation on his part. And I’ve probably batted my eyes at him a million times, so I’m giving as much as I’m receiving. Butplayingthe game and gettingtrappedin my own game are very different. Yet, there’s something in Rashid’s gaze and in the softness of his voice that gives my heartbeat a little thump, and I have to remind myself I’m only playing a part. Still, I don’t look away as we stare longingly into one another’s eyes. Damn Rashid and his symmetrical face.
Rashid draws in closer. His eyes scan my lips. By all accounts, it is a perfect moment for a first kiss, but someone behind Rashid captivates me, and I break our gaze.
“Don’t turn around, but there’s a man staring at us. He’s wearing a navy suit, and his hair is pulled back in a ponytail, andtwo very muscular men flank him. They look like bodybuilders. Are you supposed to marry his daughters, too?”
Rashid catches the eye of someone moving past, greets him, and turns to glance at the man I pointed out. Rashid’s jaw tightens.
Chapter 24
When Rashid’s eyes meetLevan’s, he’s unable to hide his surprise and anger. The other night when his man, Raheem, arrived, bloodied with three fingers and two ribs broken, he knew that Levan would pose a problem. And now he dares to show himself at Rashid’s family’s event. The look on Levan’s face seems to mock, a threat written in the lines of his smile: “I can get to you anywhere.”
Rashid can’t say he hadn’t been warned about getting involved with him.
Immediately, he excuses himself from Charlotte, mutters something about a business meeting, and walks past the uninvited guest. Levan follows, and together they escape to a private room overlooking the races, with Levan’s men close.
Rashid sits, his eyes scan the crowd for spies, contemplating if others recognize Levan enough to report to his father. Levan takes the chair next to him, a cigar in one hand, scotch in theother. He puffs at the disgusting cigar, the smell wafts to Rashid, and he wrinkles his nose instinctively.
A smile jumps to Levan’s face; he shrugs and rests the cigar on the edge of a plate on the table between them, the nasty odor lingering. Rashid wants to hurry, cut this meeting short but he spots Levan stir his drink in a slow motion with an index finger, like a man who believes the world waits for him. Finally, he takes a swig.
“Did I ever tell you the meaning behind my name?” says Levan.
Rashid doesn’t respond.
“Lion,” he says and follows with the sound of a lion’s roar. “King of the Jungle. My parents named me well. I am my namesake.” Levan casually crosses his legs. “Certainly, there was a time when I had failed them. Yes, when I think back a few decades to the moment I hid in the hull of a ship, a stowaway on a boat run by bandits, I feel shame.”
“Why are you here?” Rashid can’t bring himself to look at him and keeps his gaze squarely on the crowd below. There, he sees Charlotte, who has a perfect view of the private box, stare in their direction.
Levan ignores the question and continues with his story. “I should go back a little to explain why I was on the boat. I was a small thing, skinny, but strong and smart. My parents sent me to the best school in Georgia; they had the money to do that until that little coup happened. My father was a writer who wrote favorably about the government, and my mother a homemaker, but she inherited a large sum from her father. When they heard the rumblings–“
Facing him, Rashid interrupts “–Levan, why...”
Levan holds up his hand to silence Rashid. Continuing, he says, “... the rumblings of civil war, my father wrote in support of our President. I attended university at the time, and sometimesI was in class, sometimes I joined rallies. Education no longer mattered because the university supported the opposition. Things changed, power was exchanged, and eventually, my father disappeared. My mother searched for him, hearing a rumor he had been picked up in a sweep. She never returned. It was how do they say ‘Tit for Tat’? Our President kept political prisoners, so now the Zviadists, his loyalists, were imprisoned. I was too involved myself, a young student who thought he understood everything. They’d look for me eventually, so I ran. I paid what little money I had to stow away on a ship I thought was heading for Europe. I trusted the wrong smuggler. Instead, the ship sailed for Oman.
“So, I’m on the boat. Three others hid with me, crouching, quiet. But they didn’t hide as well as I did. One snuck out for food, and I heard the commotion when they captured him. Then I heard his screams when they chopped off his hands and tossed him over the side into shark-infested water. I heard everything. The crew was thrilled to watch the sharks circle him then–” Levan chomps down on air, laughing. “Even after what they heard, the other foolish men snuck out, thinking they’d never get caught. But they were. They caught me, too. Dragged me out from the darkness. I was so frightened I pissed my pants. One of them came at me with a machete, but I ducked out of the way. Remember, I was lithe and quick, quick, quick. Oh, he was mad, but the other men laughed, delighted with the entertainment. He grew angrier. Each time he swung, I managed to slip past his machete until it became lodged into a wooden pole, and while he busied himself yanking it out, I grabbed a machete from another and hacked his fighting arm off.”
Rashid turns away, grimacing. Down below, he can see Charlotte straining for a better view at them.
“The men were riled up, so I chopped the other arm off. I threw him overboard and proved I was just like them. Everyonehas a story about how they were made. I was made there on that boat.” Levan swirls the glass in his hand. “Now, we have some business between us that’s unsettled. I trust your man, Raheem, explained matters to you? Yes?”
Silence fills the space between them as Rashid fights to control his anger at Levan for what he did to Raheem, for renegotiating their deal, for showing up here of all places with his men. There is nothing they can do to one another in public, though Rashid envisions retaliation for putting Raheem in the hospital.
“The new lower price stands. Understand it is the cost of doing shoddy business. How can I unload that painting now? You promised it would be practically unnoticeable. Do you call a police chase through the streets of Paris unnoticeable? Do you consider their capture of one of your team unnoticeable? It’s only a matter of time before Miss Milton talks.”
Rashid jumps up from his chair, fists clenched. Levan’s bodyguards step forward, but Levan waves them off.
“Sit down,” Levan says in a calm voice. “Please, there is no need for theatrics. We don’t wish to give onlookers the wrong impression.”
Rashid looks to Levan’s men. If they tried anything, his family’s men would arrive in mere seconds to protect him, but it would bring questions from his father, and he can’t risk that. Begrudgingly, he takes his seat next to Levan.
“She knows nothing.” Rashid eyes Charlotte as she moves through the crowd below. It’s bad enough that the French police suspect her, but now that he’s brought her to Dubai in a weak attempt to make amends, it appears that there’s more to her involvement as far as Levan is concerned. Rashid should have considered this. “She’s nothing but a scapegoat. I brought her here to determine what she knows, and I guarantee you, it is absolutely nothing.”
“She will lead them to you, and then you to me,” says Levan. “I can’t draw attention to myself, have the police knock down doors, draw the ire of other criminal organizations my way. Law enforcement has the resources to bear down on me, and my business, and that woman will sing to them. She’s not like us. This isn’t personal. It’s just facts. Next time, you’ll be more careful, yes?”
