**AMBYS 2022 WINNER** He'll never play piano again. That's what virtuoso pianist Zephyr has vowed to himself after escaping Sigma, the sprawling criminal organisation that once held him--and still holds his friends--captive in California's mega-city...
Will slept for the whole of Sunday morning while I cut through a dense thicket of piano lessons. Every time I poked my head around Will's bedroom door, he was fast asleep.
A call from Ruby's phone sent me running in panic onto the beach to pick it up, despite knowing that Will was sleeping like the dead and wasn't gonna overhear us. But he'd find out somehow. Just looking at my guilty face when I got back into the house was probably gonna be enough.
"Um...Zeph?" Miles's voice was little more than a whisper.
"Hey, bro. You doing OK at that place?"
"It's OK," he breathed.
"Is Teresa there today?"
"Yeah. She's in a meeting with the manager here. Did you hear anything about Raheem?"
"Dani Fuentes told Teresa that the main guy who took Raheem used to be in Sigma, but must be working for someone else now." I guessed that Miles already knew that.
"But why? Why did Dani just let them take him?" Miles sounded so scared and bewildered that I was so fucking tempted to get on a train to Maria to be with him. None of us had any idea what kinda guy Dani Fuentes was. All we knew was that he wasn't prepared to incriminate Jones, or anyone in Sigma, even if it meant the longest stretch in jail for coke-trafficking.
"He told Teresa that Jones sent a letter saying that he needed Raheem," I said, wondering what Miles would make of it.
"A letter? Jones doesn't write letters. Why didn't Jones call Dani? Or get one of his men to call him?"
"I don't know, man. What's Dani like? Did you see him at Las Olas?"
"He does a lot of coke. And he's loud. But he must know what he's doing. When the guy showed him the letter, he'd have asked him why Jones didn't call instead. Wouldn't he?" Maybe Miles was giving Dani too much credit. Like cokeheads were renowned for good judgement.
"If it's not Jones, who would want Raheem? Did any managers apart from Cal talk to him recently?"
"No, Zeph. Nobody ever talks to Raheem. You know that."
"Was Sigma planning any projects with Stella Maris? Anything where Raheem would be useful as a bargaining chip?"
"No. Raheem's dead to Stella Maris. And after the reset, nobody in Sigma would be dumb enough to involve Raheem in anything. Except Jones himself."
"I'm gonna talk to Teresa about this, OK? We'll get Raheem out."
"Who's we? You're so high up in the police now, Zeph?" The insult burned me. I was making promises to Miles that I couldn't keep. Offering help while hiding out three hundred kilometers away from Maria. "They're not doing any of this for us. Remember that, Zeph."
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Will refused lunch, but watched from the living room sofa as I launched into a brutal Chopin étude session, forcing both the piano and me to our limits. The Revolutionary Étude killed my left hand, Winter Wind killed my right, then Torrent killed both.
