Burglarizing Robby's shitty Vogel trailer two months earlier had revealed his whole universe to me in a single photo. The grainy picture of Jade, and Jing wearing her world's-proudest-Mom grin, had hit me like a ton of bricks. Compared to Robby's entire universe my thirst to fund my vengeance had felt like the dumbest pettiest shit.
Crumpled on Mira al Assad's patterned tiles in a mess of tears and snot, right then my tunnel vision revealed my entire universe: Dante in the final seconds before I lost him forever.
"Please don't hurt him. Please don't hurt him." I'd sobbed the words so many times that I had no idea what they meant anymore. White-hot terror licking up my insides at the sight of her, of Zaki, of Dante with a gun to his neck, yet all I had in me was useless fucking tears. Afraid to move a single digit in case Zaki used it as an excuse to send Dante the same place he'd sent Steph, I sniveled on. "I'm begging you. I'll give you anything you want. Please don't hurt him. Please."
She glided toward me on light feet, acid avalanching through my guts with every inch she came closer. I'd always thought I'd be an avenging angel propelled by indignant fury on seeing her again, but my limbs dangled, leaden. Muscles ground against tendons with the need to punch, to shove, to fight. Nothing moved.
Instead, her icy hand on my cheek had me whimpering like a beaten dog. Long fingers trailed along my jaw, probed at my ear, and slid my earpiece out.
She held it to her lips and hissed, "Ya sharmouta," then tossed it to the floor, crushing it under a tiny boot.
Fuck.
For the first time in two months I didn't have Sylvia Payne mewling instructions or threats into my ear. Without my intel Sylvia would have to make the call when to send in the Marines. If at all.
Dante, Rayan and me were totally alone.
The thought occurred to me to strike some kinda bargain for Dante, but I dashed it to the tiles. She was not a woman who made bargains. Besides, even if I had something she wanted, it was probably worth about a millionth to her of what Dante was worth to me, and she knew that.
No other options left, I gave myself up to a fresh flurry of snot and tears. "Please let him go. You got Rayan. You got the American business deals you wanted. You won. You don't need him. Please let him go. I'm begging you."
She pointed a lazy finger across the room. "Who is he?"
Torture me, maim me, kill me. She'd never know anything about Dante's connection to Stephanie Grey. His life depended on it.
Like she could read my thoughts, she held aloft Dante's phone with a smile. "María Police Department." Of course, she didn't need to ask me who Dante was. She already knew everything. "They sent this boy to capture Rayan."
"No," I growled through my tears, "To save Rayan. From you."
She shrugged. "Americans."
Two guards materialized outta the shadowy doorways beyond the living room, AK-47s sighted on me.
"Rayan belongs here. As do you. The Demon has plans for you."
My fingers inched to my tattoo. "The Demon was nothing but poisoned ink. It doesn't exist."
"Doesn't it?"
Like it had heard my heresy, something sickly and rotten stirred in my gray matter.
"María PD will destroy you if you hurt Dante. They know about your plan to market unregulated medical equipment. You'll be put on trial by an international ethics court. No Demon can change that."
"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."
The Demon's hyphae began to breach my skull, their white-hot tips singeing me.
"You're a fucking monster!"
Another giggle. "You always did hate me. Yet you still followed me to bed."
"You'd have killed me if I'd refused!"
"You could have refused me, and died as a lion. Instead, you preferred to live as my dog. Don't pretend that you don't love to serve. That's why the Demon chose you."
"The Demon doesn't exist, Mira!"
She sniggered under her breath. "All those men you killed, and still you think I'm the worse of the two of us. We're the same. You're here to kill me now, are you not?"
"I don't want to kill you." I swiped at a new burst of tears. "I just want Dante and Rayan safe. You've gotten what you wanted. Kill me, enslave me. Whatever you want. But please let them go. Please grant me this one thing, and I'll serve you for however long you want me."
She leaned down, slim hands cradling my face. My skin crawled under her touch.
"When you first came to me, I fought you. I felt the strength of your fist. But when I watched you with my security men? They loved you. And you loved them. Your heart is so much bigger than your fist, Ahmar, and so easy to reach. I live by the sword. Rayan lives by his wits. But you? You live by your heart. I needed that for the Demon Star."
"Demon Star?"
"Through us the Demon Star has risen. We have created the Demon's true form."
She was crazy. I wasn't anything to do with Demon Star. She'd worked alone on that everlasting-youth shit for decades before I'd met her. And, the Demon was nothing but a neurotoxin, an excuse for her murderous self. She'd created a fucked-up demonic alter-ago to absolve her of guilt.
Where had the Demon fled to? I'd felt its sickly fingers pressing at my mind just moments earlier. Whatever my fate as her prisoner, I was running outta time for Dante.
"Please. I'll do anything you want. Just let Dante go."
Her lips parted a touch, letting out a breathy chuckle. "A police officer in love with a murderer? You can't possibly be so stupid to trust him, Ahmar. He's using you for evidence. He knows too much to stay alive."
My stomach spasmed, hot acid flooding my mouth. I'd just signed Dante's death sentence.
Mira tilted her head. Zaki nodded a reply, then pressed the barrel of his pistol hard against Dante's vertebra.
A glint of light caught my eye.
A spinning, whirring light emerged from the shadowy rooms beyond, like a shooting star careening across the night sky.
A throwing star.
Rayan's tracker-star.
The star sailed in a bright arc across the room, embedding itself between Zaki's eyes with a thud.
Zaki bellowed to the ceiling, his forehead erupting in a fountain of blood. The guards spun in circles, AKs flailing around them as Zaki mopped blood from his eyes with a sleeve.
A blur on legs, Dante sprang into a spinning kick that knocked Zaki off his feet.
I screamed, snatching a guard's AK before he had a chance to spring away. A kick to his ankle and he toppled, his gun firing shots into the wall that left my ears ringing.
The second guard threw himself in front of Mira to shield her from stray bullets and shrapnel. She leaped backward, snatching up a jambiya from a desk drawer, but I'd already made it to Dante.
Slashing at Dante's zip-ties with my kris, he lunged at Zaki before I could bundle him to safety, the two of them crashing through a windowpane and into the gloom of the gardens.
Dante needed me. He was a half-decent fighter, but Zaki was born to it. So close to leaping outta the window to Dante, a singing blade cut the air behind me. Mira's jambiya slashed at my back.
I twisted away before the blade could strike too deep, parrying her second blow at the last moment with my kris.
Too late. The two guards regrouped to flank Mira, AKs trained between my eyes.
Fuck.
I probed my thoughts, searching for the Demon.
Searching for myself.
Who was I?
The Red Demon. The child of an alcoholic mother, and a father who'd abandoned us. A pickpocket, a car thief, a gang member. A stupid brick, living like a dog, and dying like one. A man who stabbed his own boyfriend through the heart.
A murderer.
Something wicked.
Just like that, putrid black worms of unconsciousness slithered across my corneas. Like it could taste the chaos in the room, the Demon took me swiftly.
Muscles charged with bloodlust, every nerve cell in my brain scorched to fuck, I stepped toward Mira. My jaw hinged open like I was a possessed puppet, and from the depths of my belly came an earsplitting roar.
I was the Demon.
And the one thing that the Demon relished most was a big dirty fucking fight.
Translations
Ya sharmouta - Arabic, "whore"