Page 13 of The Pawn
“What about Amal?” Jet asks.
I climb into the driver’s seat of one of the SUVs. Jet takes the passenger seat. Soldiers fill four more vehicles.
“Angelo says they were sighted at the Moore house. Allegra’s close with them. He’ll use them for leverage.”
“The Moores wouldn’t go up against you.”
I glance over at Jet. “How much do you know about them?”
He considers, forehead furrowing. “Enough to know they’re inconsequential. It’s a distraction, Cassian.”
I keep my eyes on the road. He could be right. It does seem very convenient.
“You know what he’s planning, don’t you?” Jet asks.
I pause at the intersection. “I think so,” I say, and decide. “Let’s go see Richard Moore.”
5
ALLEGRA
Idon’t know how long I’ve been down here. After that car drove off, another one followed, but I only heard soldiers. It’s been quiet for a while, and I’ve been nodding off. I’m leaning against the far wall clutching the neck of the bottle in my hand, ready. Ready for what, though? Rami? Because it won’t be Malek who comes to get me. He’ll send soldiers.
He wants me to admit it was my father who sanctioned our kidnapping. Who had my mother killed. Who ordered them to chop off my finger.
He wants me to say the words.
It was. I know. I know what I heard. My father losing his shit when she died. My father not upset that she’d been killed, that he was too late. No. He was angry that she’d died. That they’d killed her before he wanted her dead. He ordered them to burn down the house with all those dead soldiers inside it. The Maestro inside it. With my mother’s body inside it. I never got to see him, but I did see her. And the dead soldiers. I wish I hadn’t.
Why does he want me to admit it? To say it out loud? Why does it matter so much?
Something he said is still niggling at me.
And it was so easy. Just a whisper here, a whisper there.
I must doze again because my eyes snap open when the light beyond my door goes on. It’s followed by the key sliding into the lock, then metal scraping against the floor. I blink, rub my eyes, looking up to find a soldier I don’t recognize outside my door, another standing behind him. I scramble to shove the broken bottle into the corner. Nothing to see here. Just debris. Not a weapon. I won’t be able to take them both. One soldier if I catch him by surprise maybe. If I nick the right artery. But not two. And besides, I realize I don’t want to run. I want to find out what he knows. I want to find out how he was involved.
I want to know what he did.
And it was so easy. Just a whisper here, a whisper there.
“Don’t touch me,” I say when the soldier reaches for me.
“Then move.” The second one makes a sweeping gesture at the door and the instant I pass him, he shoves me so hard, I fall, just managing to catch myself before my face crashes against the stone stairs. My whole body feels bruised and for the first time, I look down at myself and see that it’s not in my head. I am bruised and cut all over, my arms black and blue, my dress torn and filthy.
Once I’m upstairs, the smell is the first thing I register, and I can’t decide the feeling that accompanies it. I stop, closing my eyes.
“Move,” a soldier says, shoving me again.
“Fuck you.” I tell him, but I keep moving.
It’s my father’s cigars. He loved them. I have alwayshated the smell of them. So did my mother. But in some strange way, they offered a sense of security. A line that couldn’t be crossed.
An illusion.
My own father crossed that line. I touch the back of my neck, feel those spots Cassian found. A prelude to what would come, punishing me to punish my mother. Michael picked up the habit.
Malek knew. He witnessed it multiple times and even tried to stop Michael once, but I now think it was an act. I think he enjoyed watching me suffer. Watching our family come apart.
