Something Wicked 🏳️‍🌈 (bxb)

21: The end of the universe

"We are the Demon, Ahmar." She trailed a manicured nail across my cheek. "You and I."

My neurons began to tingle with haraam whispers. The Demon was listening.

"You're insane."

"Am I?" She raised a perfect eyebrow. "Why do you think I brought you and Rayan home?"

"You didn't bring me here!" My jaw clenched and unclenched, fists like dead weights. "You left me to die in Jeddah!"

"I left you in Jeddah to do your job."

"My...my job?"

What the fuck did she mean?

She'd left me to burn to ash. What job had I possibly been sent to do, other than protect my men from a fiery death at the hands of the Marines?

"You're so simple, Ahmar." She giggled like she was loving every second of showing me what a dumb fucking brick I was. "I needed the Marines to imprison you in María. You were the bait for Sylvia Payne. She would obviously try to milk you for evidence, and you would befriend her, and reveal my son's whereabouts."

Bullshit.

She was a meticulous planner. As if her strategy would be to rely on me befriending Sylvia and Rayan.

She was lying.

"I didn't do a job for you." But dread had my stomach turning, like my grasping fingers had missed a crenelation and I was about to plummet off the edge of the clock tower. "You killed my mother because I'd betrayed you to the police."

Her trill of laughter sliced through my frayed nerves. "You didn't betray me. You still serve me, even now."

"You're lying."

"Didn't you think it strange that the Marines received intelligence about your whereabouts out of the blue? Stranger still that I didn't protect my own Head of Security in Jeddah?"

Threads of poison began to trickle along my neurons; the Demon was mocking my stupidity. I could lie to myself, but the Demon knew what I'd done.

"No. It wasn't you. You'd never tip off the Marines about me. You'd never sacrifice our warehouse in Jeddah. The fire...so many men died...you wouldn't do that just to get me back to María."

"You infiltrated María PD, befriended Rayan, and then caused enough discord there that Rayan was revealed to Zaki. You brought my son back to me."

I'd always assumed I'd been betrayed by some rival gang whose henchmen had felt the sharp end of my kris. Who'd have thought that she herself had leaked my existence to the Marines? And who'd have thought that I would bring Rayan back to her after ten years? I'd never been her enemy. Even without knowing it, I'd always been her most loyal servant.

A brick. Dumb, predictable, nothing but a blunt object to be manipulated and thrown at enemies. That was all I'd ever been. It had been madness to think I'd waltz into Alcor and get Rayan back, when it had been me who'd helped to capture him.

The Demon whispered into my thoughts, mocking me in the voices of the men I'd murdered.

"If you'd wanted me to cooperate with María PD all along, why did you kill my mother? She was nothing to do with this!"

"I needed you to come back to me. Vengeance brought you back. It's no worse than how Hamish took my child from me."

"Hamish didn't kill anyone! You killed my mother!"

"She was a drunken whore, Ahmar. A disgrace. You think I don't know about your pitiful attempts to contact her for years? She didn't want anything to do with you. I did you a favor. Just like the people of Riyadh thanked me when I killed my father."