I scampered from the shade of willow tree to willow tree, sweating creases into Will's funeral shirt under the baking sun leading up to City Hall, hoping that the lawyers in the D.A.'s Office were equally as irritable and sweaty as me.
Eomma had squealed with pride when she'd seen me in a shirt in our morning videocall, as if starched cotton gave me superpowers. She'd continued her deification of Will for most of the call, adding gentlemanly style to the list of Will's attributes.
My excuses as to why Nuna and Eomma hadn't met Will were running thin. He was asleep. He'd gone next door. He'd gone for a walk on the beach. He'd flee the house the exact moment he heard rapid-fire Korean coming from the living room.
It wasn't his fault. There was no hope of mending things between us. I'd have to accept that Will had returned to being an acquaintance, a landlord, a visa guarantor. I hadn't even had a chance to tell him about the ransom, or about Eomma staying in the commune, and it looked like I wasn't gonna tell him about Lars Eriksen either. Perhaps we'd be friends again once I'd been in Korea for a while, when time, and nine thousand kilometers, could heal everything between us.
Charlotte's P.A. collected me from Security and walked me through air-conditioned antechambers, waiting rooms, more Security, open plan offices, and finally the central core of the District Attorney's Office.
Charlotte was sat reading notes to an assistant lawyer at one of three long desks, apparently set out for groups of attorneys to work together. It didn't seem like a haven of privacy, another lawyer marching in and rifling through a stack of boxes while Charlotte and her colleagues talked. Eventually the hive of activity calmed, and Charlotte and I were left alone.
"I wish you hadn't come, Zeph. We could have done this by phone. It's unsafe for you to be exposed here in the city."
"Relax. Nobody's gonna see me. I was going crazy at home anyways. I needed a walk."
Charlotte turned from her computer screen to look at me for long moments, as if she smelled her baby bro's pain all over me. Had Will told her what I'd done to him? "Well, there was no need to dress up," she said, tugging at my shirtsleeve.
"You kidding? I don't want your lawyer buddies to think that Sabrina's piano teacher is some sketchy Korean dude in sweatpants."
That pulled a giggle out of Charlotte, hopefully distracting her from the fact that I was the zephyr that had shipwrecked her brother's heart the night before.
"Your friend, Selena Perez, was very helpful about what she overheard Lars Eriksen say. She recalled it to the best of her ability, and is a very credible witness if needed."
"Witness for what?"
"The Walker Project was apparently the way that Lars Eriksen was planning to get FlowYoga out of debt. FlowYoga was registered in the States as a subsidiary company of Breeze L.L.C., and we discovered that FlowYoga is around four million dollars in debt."
"Holy sh-. I mean, wow. So Jules was gonna take on four million dollars of debt for Lars?"
"If the two companies had merged, then FlowYoga's debts and loans would have been taken on by West Coast Yoga."
I couldn't believe it. Jules must have had money to burn. Or she must have loved Lars that much. It explained why Jules was so secretive about buying FlowYoga; she'd planned to take on Lars's debt and knew that her parents and friends would have a huge fucking problem with that.
"My team also examined the past seven years of FlowYoga's tax records. They show that Eriksen or his company directors were trying to inflate FlowYoga's worth for loans against its value, and reduce its value for USA income tax purposes."
"Is that why he was at Arenosa P.D. last night?"
"Not exactly. As soon as the connection to Breeze L.L.C. was established, it needed to go through Sofi Borbón. Arenosa P.D. officers made the arrest, but Eriksen was taken into custody by Maria P.D. this morning."
Breeze L.L.C.. I dredged up the name from what I could remember from interviews with Sofi and Teresa. The evidence found on the printroom computers at Seven showed that Breeze had purchased Las Olas.
"Let me get this straight, Charlotte. Breeze L.L.C., and therefore FlowYoga, may be a Sigma company. Breeze purchased Las Olas, the restaurant that was raided as a coke den a couple of weeks back."
For the millionth time I wished that it had all been a mistake, and that Lars wasn't connected to Sigma. But of course he fucking was.
"Breeze may be innocent," Charlotte warned. "Shell companies are often used for real estate bank loans, and Breeze may have been an unconnected company that sold Las Olas to Sigma-affiliated parties later."
I didn't believe it for a second. We all knew that Breeze was gonna turn out to be a Sigma company.
"What did Lars go down for?"
Charlotte snatched up the topmost sheet of paper from one of the many document stalagmites that littered the desk. "Bank fraud, tax fraud, embezzlement, money-laundering, and intent to commit insurance fraud. He's not been convicted of anything, but we need to assume that Lars Eriksen is probably a Sigma member, and his interest in yoga is a distraction from his real interest: financial crimes."
Lars Eriksen hadn't been begging Jules to pay his debt. He'd been planning to destroy her life. Lars Eriksen was in Sigma.
The baking heat in the office was forgotten as icy fingers crept around my neck, making my windpipe constrict and my heart hammer. Sigma's poisonous vines were gonna choke me before I ever fucking got to Korea.
Charlotte dashed to my side, fluttering around me while I drained the water jug on her desk with shaking hands.
"You're taking a huge bite out of Sigma, Zeph. You're an extraordinary witness. That's why it's so important that you stay hidden." Charlotte pressed a worried hand to my shoulder. "Whether blackmailee or gang operative, hopefully Eriksen will exchange information about Sigma for a lighter sentence."
My insides still swirling, I got my ass into a chair before I keeled over.
"Congratulations, by the way," Charlotte said, watching my face with caution.
"Congratulations?"
"You're finally going home. You must be so relieved." I must have looked anything but relieved because Charlotte's eyes dropped down to the papers at her desk, her hand snaking up to grasp at her pearls. "Will told me," she said. "If you don't mind waiting downstairs for a half-hour while I finish up here, I'll drive you home."
"I'll walk," I attempted weakly, knowing that I was too nauseous to decline a ride.
"You can't walk back, for your own safety. I need to talk to Will anyway. A buyer wants to purchase the Maria apartment from Lyons. Will needs to move Mozhgan's things out of the apartment before the sale."
"Will may not wanna go back there," I warned. Will seemed to have moved everything that he treasured to Santa Elena when we'd left Maria weeks earlier. He'd probably opt to leave Mozhgan's remaining stuff to crumble into dust than have to face that creepy apartment again.
"He has to, just this once."
I should have expected it really: Charlotte blundering through her relationship with Will again. Why couldn't she get the Lyons Estate assholes to throw Mozhgan's old sweaters in the trash while they were doing their removals? Perhaps Charlotte thought that emptying the apartment was the least that Will could do for Lyons, after being given the privilege of living in hell for sixteen years.
"I'll go sit in the waiting room." Perhaps I could go to Maria to clear out the apartment to save Will from more pain. Who was I kidding? Charlotte would never let me take the risk. Besides, the thought of going to Maria made the freezing tendrils of Sigma tighten around my throat again. Will would have to go.
"Zeph, wait." Charlotte pulled at my wrist, her expression pained, like when I'd first met her, and she'd been navigating the rocky terrain that was Will and me. "I was wondering...do you know what Will might like for his birthday?"
I was about to tell her that Will didn't need anything. He already had the ocean and the zephyrs and the forest. But money was no object for Charlotte. "His drill's broken. He's always using Clive's. You could get him an L.K. drill."
"I was thinking something less...practical. Something..."
It was true that Will didn't need anything, but what would make him smile? What would take all his hurt away? "He's always wanted to go to the Village Vanguard."
"What's that?"
"It's the oldest jazz club in New York." The more I thought about it, the more perfect a gift it sounded. "Mozhgan and her brother used to go there all the time when they were younger. He'd love to go there. Either there or Montreux."
"Montreux as in...Switzerland?"
"Yeah. There's an annual jazz festival there."
"Will likes jazz?"
My heart was suddenly flooded by memories of Will tapping his feet and nodding his head and singing along in his velvet bass-baritone rumble. "Like is an understatement."
"So flights to Switzerland, and hotels, and festival tickets, and money to spend and-"
"Charlotte. You can't buy him a trip to Switzerland. It's too much. He'd feel uncomfortable. New York flights and a hotel would be fine though. Maybe in Fall, when he's less busy at work?"
"That's a wonderful idea. Thanks so much, Zeph. It's a shame you're going home so soon. You and Will could have gone..."
Yeah. Perhaps in some other universe Will and I could have gone to New York together. We could have visited Kasra before a night at the Village Vanguard. Will would tap his feet through it, all bright eyes and wide smile, just like Mozhgan had been in the photo of her at the same club decades earlier. But I was in this universe where, in a couple of weeks, Will would be gone forever.
The P.A. led me back through offices and Security checkpoints to a bench-lined waiting room, empty save a woman idly flicking through Arenosa County planning and development literature.
Fuck this, Zeph.
"Couldn't have said it better myself, Jun-su."
I flew outta City Hall toward the beach. I'd be back before Charlotte noticed.
My brilliant idea to run to Arenosa Beach and listen to the waves was overruled by the afternoon sun almost melting me onto the sidewalk. I sweated past stores and cafés in Arenosa's shady shopping district, creeping into a music store to steal their air-con for a few blissful moments.
The store was pretty-much empty, a lone store clerk chatting to a kid about guitar picks as I wandered back and forth between shelves. I was leafing through piano method books when a door opened in the corner of the store behind me. Brown tufts of hair flashed in my peripheral vision as someone flew through the doorway toward the store entrance, and was gone in an instant. I recognized that someone.
Luke.
I dumped the method books and tore after him, catching him up in a side street, pulling at his arm as he turned a corner.
"Luke!"
He squirmed in terror, stilling when he saw that it was me, as if not believing his senses.
"Zeph!" Luke threw himself at me, pulling me into a hug that threatened to squeeze all the air outta my lungs. "I thought you'd...in the fire."
"Did Cal hurt you? Does he know you're in Arenosa? Why did you run away from the safe-house?"
Stupid clueless baby bro. What the fuck was he doing?
"Zeph, calm down! I'm OK." Luke hugged me again, tears springing into his eyes, like I'd come back from the dead. "Cal doesn't know I'm here."
"We need to go somewhere quiet."
I led Luke into one of the airless little cafés that lined Arenosa's tangle of side-streets. I pressed Luke into a tired-looking booth in the corner, and sat opposite him. He was too thin, his skin papery and pale like when he'd first arrived at Sigma.
"Hey bro, I got money. Order whatever you want, OK?"
"Can you buy me lunch, Zeph?"
"Sure, anything." I pointed at the deli counter. "Get stuff for your dinner tonight too. It's on me."
The fucking idiot promptly ordered cheesecake and a liter of soda for his lunch.
"You look so good, man. Nice shirt." Luke's fork barely rested as he carved huge pieces of cheesecake off the slab in front of him. "How did you get outta Seven?"
"A guy came into Seven to look for trapped people. He took me to the police and then brought me to Arenosa."
"A firefighter?"
"No, just a guy. His name's Will. He's letting me stay at his place by the beach for a few weeks until I go back to Korea." I clutched at my little conch shell through my shirt. "Passport's arriving in a few days."
"Lucky, bro." Luke slurped soda while his eyes darted across my face, assessing me. "Beard looks good."
I didn't have time to talk about me. "You need to go back to the safe-house. Miles is so fucking worried."
"You saw Miles? Did they find Raheem?"
"No. But I'm working on it." I didn't have time to talk about the case either. I just needed Luke safe. "You're in so much danger, Luke. Seriously. Is there an apartment above that tiny music store? Is that where you're living?"
"Not going back to the safe-house." Luke cut away at his cheesecake. "Rafa and me are hiding out here."
"Who's Rafa?"
Luke put down his fork with a clatter and stared at me like I'd just spit on his lunch. "You know. Rafa." He relented when he saw my what the fuck? look. "He's my man, Zeph. You know? The One?"
Stupid clueless fucking predictable idiot baby bro. "Sigma is looking for him! He started the fire! Stay the fuck away from him!" Luke was Sigma's route to getting toThe One. And it wasn't gonna take Sigma long to find Luke. I'd found him without even fucking trying.
"Why the fuck do you think we're hiding out? And he did not start the fire. He told me so." Luke continued to eat, calm as anything while I near-tore my fucking hair out with worry for him. As usual.
"And you trust this Rafa guy?"
"I love him, Zeph."
"Fine," I sighed. "So you're hiding out in a one-room apartment above a music store. What about his mansions in Huertas and Napa and wherever the fuck else?"
Luke was gaunt and frail, his skin almost see-through. Rafa was clearly not showering him with champagne or mansions or Porsches. Or food, for that matter. But stupid baby bro just stared at me like I was the idiot. "He can't go there because everyone knows those places. And...he's kinda...in debt."
"Holy fucking Maria, Luke. Is he even this music industry bigshot, or is that all bullshit?"
"He is! He's just...having a bad spell."
Rafa had made it through a Sigma background check, so perhaps he'd been a decent music producer decades ago. But it looked like Rafa's current connection to the music industry was that he was living in a shitty apartment above a music store.
"How could Rafa have been in debt and still afford to book a rental asset for days on end?"
Luke took long slugs of soda. "Rafa was only supposed to be with me once. I was a sweetener for one of his business deals with Sigma," he sat up taller in his seat, eyes sparkling, "but he kept coming back to me."
"Sweetener for what? Can't you see how this makes no sense? Guys who are in debt don't get to ask for sweeteners in any deals. He's lying to you."
Luke lifted a bony shoulder. "He wouldn't lie to me. Can I get ice cream?" He strode over to the counter and chose whatever sickly purple shit passed for ice cream in his universe. He slid back into his seat and thrust a spoonful of ice cream millimeters from my nose. "Try some!"
"Thanks, but I'm vegan."
"Since when?"
My hand closed around the little conch shell through my shirt. "Since I've been living with Will." As happy as I was to find Luke, I'd forgotten that talking to him was like throwing myself headfirst down Arenosa Rocks. "What deal did Rafa do with Sigma?"
"I don't know, but I was definitely a sweetener for it," he said, jabbing his ice cream with a spoon. "Noah told me."
"Noah?" I should have fucking known. "Luke, please. Just tell me everything that happened."
"Nothing happened! Noah came to Seven and told me to get into a Porsche parked outside the lobby. He introduced me to Rafa. Said that Rafa was gonna come for a booking that night as part of a deal. So Rafa drove off and Noah took me back to the TV room, saying that Rafa was a music mogul and had a bunch of houses and a Caribbean island and a racehorse, and that I needed to take care of him because he was a seriously important client."
It was a fucking set-up. It was clearly designed to make Cal or Ollie think that Rafa was some flamboyant client, distracting them from something else happening in Seven. Noah was hiding something behind it all, but what?
"Can't you see what Noah was doing? Noah wanted you to brag about Rafa to everyone in Seven for some reason. Noah's done something. He's played Rafa, and you too."
Luke's face looked like thunder. "You're just jealous."
"Bro, I'm happy for you, but can't you see that Rafa's using you? Putting you in danger for his own shit?"
"Is he gay?" Luke's eyes narrowed, his ice cream forgotten. "That man who rescued you. Will. Is he gay?"
"Yeah," I replied, confused. "So what?"
Luke leaned forward and groped at my collarbone, dragging my necklace out from under my shirt collar, the conch shell swinging from his hand. "He gave you this?"
I shoved Luke's ice cream-sticky hand away and stowed the shell safely under my shirt again. "He made it for me."
"What else did he give you?"
"Nothing." I kicked out a foot. "Just a pair of Chuck Taylors. And he tried to give me his grand piano. He wanted to send it to Korea with me, but I said no."
"Are you fucking him?"
"What the hell, Luke? Of course not!" My cry startled other café-goers who briefly swiveled their eyes to our booth before losing interest.
"Are you gonna?"
"Shut the fuck up! What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Come on, Zeph." Luke shook his head at me, not in mock-exasperation as was Will's habit, but in pity. "Some gay guy helps a rental asset escape from right under a gang's roof, and does all that other nice romantic shit for you, and doesn't want anything back? Will's played you, Zeph."
No way. There was no fucking way that I'd ever let Luke insult Will. "Don't you fucking dare mention his name again," I whispered.
"I bet you're gonna fuck him, or have to do something you don't wanna do. He wants payback." Luke didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. Or perhaps he did. Perhaps this was all because Rafa had hurt him.
I reached out, my fingers enclosing Luke's skinny wrist. "Is that what happened with Rafa? Is he...making you do things?"
Luke dismissed my worries with the wave of a syrupy hand. "No, I can't get enough of him. And..." too long of a pause for me to not notice, "...he'd never do that."
"Luke, what's he doing?" I took his bony hand in mine. "Please tell me."
Luke looked down at the table, as if studying the patterns in the purple droplets of ice cream that had spilled there. Eventually he replied in the quietest voice I'd ever heard from him. "I'm still an asset."
I tried to keep my face still, calm. Anger would only make things worse. "Where? On the street?"
"Yeah."
"Who's managing your clients?"
"Rafa," he whispered.
I sucked in a breath, tasting acid as my guts swam. "You've replaced Cal with someone else."
"Rafa's nothing like Cal!" Luke clenched his fists, incensed. "It was my idea. He didn't want me to do it. We need the money!"
"And neither of you could think of one single job apart from that?"
Luke sneered at me over his ice cream. "Like you have a fucking job."
"I'm a piano teacher now," I murmured. After everything he'd told me, it just sounded like gloating.
"We can't all be privileged assholes like you, Zeph. My body is all I got."
"What's Rafa doing for work?"
Luke's spoon stilled at his lips. He set it back into his bowl carefully, eyes cast down. "Selling coke."
My arm shot out, grasping a handful of Luke's T-shirt, yanking him toward me across the table until his nose was millimeters from mine. "Are you clean?"
Luke shrank away from me, covering his face. "I swear I'm still clean. Just a little ganja sometimes. Nothing more, I promise."
I let go. Luke fell heavily into his seat, eyes wide and terrified, like during his first days in Sigma, when Cal would threaten him.
"Holy shit, Zeph!" He straightened his T-shirt and leaned back toward me with a smirk. "You're strong as fuck now!" he chuckled, pressing at my biceps through my shirt. "You should flaunt that shit, bro."
I put my head in my hands. I needed a fucking coffee. "Just get away from Rafa. He's gonna fuck your life up." Or maybe some soju.
Luke puffed up in his chair again. "I can't leave Rafa. He loves me. He can't bear to be away from me."
I prayed to Santa Maria to save me from whatever bullshit feelings passed for love in Luke's universe. "He's letting you fuck old men for money. He's filled your apartment with coke. He doesn't fucking love you, Luke. Open your eyes!"
Luke let out a trill of laughter. "Oh yeah, because you're so fucking wise! Like you know what the fuck love is! You're still hung up on Noah even after what he did to you."
He'd said those words before, so many times, in our more heated arguments in Seven. They'd cut me like a knife every single time, reopening the wounds that Noah had inflicted, making them slower to heal. But as the words rained down, I shrugged them off like water.
I was free of Noah. Perhaps I had been for weeks.
"I know exactly what love is. It's...what Raheem and Miles have. It's when..." I grasped my little shell through my shirt, whimpering through a sudden rush of tears, "...when you breathe, it's both of you breathing together."
The sight of me weeping had Luke scrambling for me. He'd never seen me cry before. It was usually Luke weeping furious tears while me and Raheem berated him for one thing or another.
"I'm sorry Zeph. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry." Luke squeezed into my side of the booth and slung an arm over my shoulder. "I didn't mean it, bro, I swear."
"Just go back to the police, Luke. Please. You don't have to tell them about Rafa, but please get away from him. They can put you somewhere safe."
Luke sat for long moments, like he was actually contemplating it. "I can't. Rafa's all I've got. He cares about me. I know you don't believe me, but he does. We just need enough money to get outta the State, somewhere safe."
"Then talk to Rafa. If he's in debt to Sigma the best option for him, and for you, is to become a witness against them. He can get a reduced sentence if he tells the police everything he knows."
"He's not in debt to Sigma," Luke replied in a whisper. "He's in debt to El Nube."
"El Nube? Then why is he talking to Noah?" I didn't get it.
But suddenly I did get it.
Shibal.
"Noah's blackmailing Rafa." I slid out of my seat, Luke gawping at me in panic. "I need to go. If you wanna be with Rafa, if you really do love him, talk to the police. Please."
Luke followed me to the café door, crowding me against the doorframe, terror-stricken. "Am I gonna see you again? Can I have your number?"
He grasped at my hands as if I'd slip away from him at any moment. He looked like such a baby then, so scared, lonely, hungry.
And I'd shattered his dream, his trust in Rafa taking the hardest blow. I wished I could take him with me. Fuck knew that Rafa wasn't capable of taking care of him.
"I'm going back to Korea in a couple of weeks. I'm under witness protection. I can't give you my number. I'm really sorry."
"Then take my number. Please call me before you leave, bro. Please. Just to say goodbye." Luke typed his number into my phone with shaking fingers. "He's crazy, you know?"
"Who?"
"Will. He's crazy to not be into you. You're the nicest guy ever."
My dumb baby bro's optimism drew a chuckle out of me. Like being nice ever got shit done. "It's...complicated, but he's always gonna be my friend."
"You'll find someone amazing in Korea. Someone perfect for you."
"Thanks, bro. Please take care of yourself. Please."
Luke wept on my shoulder for minutes on end in the quiet alleyway, before reluctantly turning back toward the music store.
My heart felt close to breaking as I retraced my steps back to City Hall. It was unlikely that I'd ever see Luke again. He'd escaped Sigma only to return to the poverty and neglect that he'd come from. Raheem was gone, possibly dead. Miles wouldn't last long without Raheem. In two weeks I'd be back in Busan, even less able to help them than I was now.
I'd spent the past weeks casting frightening thoughts from my mind, but seeing Luke had brought it home: I'd lost all three of my brothers.