by Camilla Monk
He seemed to understand.
But not in the way I thought.
Slowly, March lowered his gun. He then removed his jacket and folded it carefully before kneeling to place the garment and the gun on the ground. When he got up, there was an intensity in his eyes that gave me chills. Locking his gaze with Dries, his nostrils flaring, March said only three words.
“Soos Leeus, Dries.” Like Lions, Dries.
Dries smirked and shook his head. “As you like. Let’s end this like Lions.”
Oh God. Was this the best time for a bare-hands fight? I could understand March’s point. He had a history with Dries and didn’t want to kill him like some mere client, but I didn’t like the glint in Dries’s eyes. This was a terrible idea. Neither of them cared to consult me, though, and all I could do was watch as they prepared to fight.
I’m not a sports commenter, and I was on the ground, fingers still curled around the Cullinan, so I guess I won’t be able to explain what happened all that well, but I’ll try anyway. One might think that it wasn’t such a fair fight, since Dries seemed to be pushing fifty while March was thirty-two and in great physical condition—regardless of what the old prune had said back in Paris. Much like Madonna, however, Dries was still kicking. Not only that, but he had taught March his moves, and it showed.
I watched in fascinated horror as the men lunged at each other under the rain—a puppet braving its maker. Animalistic growls rose from their throats with each brutal strike, muscles rippling under the drenched fabric of their shirts, feet slamming against the concrete in an effort to brace themselves for the next hit. I understood then what March had tried to tell Dries, that the Lions were better left in the shadows to do the dirty work. In that moment, he and Dries hardly seemed human anymore.
When the first drops of blood splattered on the wet ground—March’s? Dries’s? I had no idea—I felt my stomach heave in fear and disgust. Part of me wanted to stop this, but I was petrified, too damn weak to do anything.
Strength-wise, March was a notch above Dries, and he landed a few nasty hits, especially one elbow kick that managed to make me feel bad for Dries. I think most of my internal organs would have burst like water balloons if I had been on the receiving end of that one. It wasn’t enough, though: unlike me, Dries could take a serious beating and remain standing. Once he was fully reacquainted with March’s style, it became easier for him to dodge each attack, his broad frame bending every time a leg or a fist threatened to ram into his flesh.
The rain helped Dries too, I think. March’s white shirt was drenched, exposing the bandages covering his bruises from the club, white areas on his stomach, side, and back that Dries started aiming at in priority. March sustained a few vicious blows, and I thought he could win until I realized that one swift jab aimed by Dries at the center of March’s chest had made him spit a little blood. For some reason, I thought of that horrible sorcerer in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the one who removes people’s hearts with his bare hand. I got scared that Dries was going to try that jab thing again and pull March’s heart out. My own heart jounced inside my rib cage as if it was going to burst out, and my breath started coming in short pants.
I didn’t think.
I know I should have, but I just didn’t think.
I got on my feet and took a few steps toward them, one of my hands still hugging the Cullinan against my chest, and the other raised defensively in front of me. As if I could break their fight by crabbing my way in between them.
March’s worried eyes darted to check on me, and the swift punch he had thrown missed Dries’s face. Carried by a powerful momentum, March’s entire body tilted forward, and before he could regain his balance, Dries grabbed his neck and held him in a headlock as he struck the large bandage on his stomach with his knee repeatedly.
March fell to the ground with a strangled groan, and I nearly cried when our eyes met. Was he even seeing me through all this rage? I could read the agony and determination distorting his features, the will to stand up and keep fighting, and the frustration that his body wouldn’t follow.
After a few seconds, he found the strength to overcome the pain and started to get up. Dries didn’t move at first, and I thought he was waiting for March to stand so he could finish him honorably, “like a Lion.” Instead, he took a step toward March, and his right leg flew to throw another vicious kick in his adversary’s stomach, to ensure March wouldn’t get up.
There was the rain, its scent in the air, the blood on the humid concrete, Dries’s long, black, pointy oxfords, but all I really focused on, all I can still see before my eyes when I close them are March’s teeth. Gritted so hard I thought they would shatter, red trickles staining the white enamel. In that instant, I remember thinking that this was it; he had reached his limit. No matter how tenacious March was, Curly-prune had been right. He didn’t heal miraculously, and he couldn’t take any more hits on those horrible bruises, even less so if the ribs underneath had been cracked.
Taking in the sight of his former student kneeling on the ground and gasping for air, Dries shook his head, strode to where March had previously laid his gun and jacket, and took the black semiautomatic. March was still struggling to recover by the time Dries went back to his crouching form. I remembered Rislow and his men in the woods, the small brown gun, and the blood.
All the blood.
“Please stop! Please . . . please!” I screamed, my voice cracking into a sob.
Dries cast me a strange, sad look as he aimed at his “brother.”
I heard March’s voice, hoarse, almost pleading. “Island . . . don’t—”
Don’t—what, exactly? Don’t step in? It was already too late, and it was my fault if Dries had been given an opening to beat him anyway. Don’t give that evil douche the diamond? With March dead, I wouldn’t stand a chance against Dries. He wanted the stone? Let him have it. I lunged toward Dries, placing myself in front of the gun. It had worked for Antonio. Why wouldn’t it work again? Truth is, I could see many reasons why it wouldn’t, but I figured once Dries held the stone, he would forget about everything else, us included. I handed him the precious cargo, my gaze locked on his. A sun ray tore briefly between two dark clouds, casting the golden light of the late afternoon on me and the Cullinan. For an instant, soft colors reflected on the ground as light passed through the stone, creating faint rainbow-colored spots on the wet concrete. I ignored them to focus on Dries, who took the stone with his left hand, without ever detaching his gaze from March. Once he had the Cullinan, Dries flashed me a satisfied smile before looking at March over my shoulder. “I’m pleased to discover that she’s more reasonable than you or Léa.”
Behind me, March had managed to stand up, and he muttered a couple of words in Afrikaans between his teeth that I bet were anything but polite. Dries was still aiming the gun at me and March when a faint murmur echoed in the distance. Dries started backing away, and March tensed.
So that’s what Dries had been waiting for on that roof. Above our heads a big gray helicopter was approaching, preparing to land on top of the building. I had never seen a helicopter up close and was surprised by how much wind that rotor could create. Combined with the rain still pouring, it felt like we were standing in the middle of a hurricane.
I felt March move behind me and turned my back to Dries to face him instead. “It’ll be okay. I need you to trust me. Let him go,” I whispered, looking into his angry eyes. I hoped I was getting through to him, since March didn’t give up easily; if my hunch was correct, what we needed the most at the moment was for Dries to take off with his damn stone. As the helicopter slowly landed a few meters behind Dries, I wrapped my arms cautiously around March’s drenched torso in an effort to hold him back. I couldn’t imagine a worse ending to our adventure than for him to be shot by his mentor.
I looked at said mentor, who was backing toward the helicopter with the Cullinan, gun still aimed at us. Through the aircraft’s tinted windows I could make out more men,
probably armed as well, and I prayed that my fricking asshole of a father felt safe and confident enough to make his escape without shooting us. My fingers fisted the wet material of March’s shirt, his warmth easing my fears. “Let him go. Please, please don’t move, March,” I begged.
I felt one of his arms drape over my shoulders and pull me close. I could feel how mad, how frustrated he was. With each strong beat of March’s heart, I could tell how much he wanted to lunge at Dries and kill him or die trying.
Dries reached the helicopter, and its side door opened to reveal several men clad in black military attire and carrying rifles. I shifted even closer to March. Dries climbed in while one of his men aimed at us. Before the door slid shut, Dries’s gaze met mine, and I caught that same flicker of sadness I had seen there before.
I figured he wasn’t going to kill us.
Call it intuition, or maybe a leap of faith, but I had the feeling that seeing me face-to-face had affected an itsy bitsy chunk of his rotten soul. Throwing me into Creepy-hat’s claws when I had been nothing but a memory? He could do that. Kill the man he had trained himself, for the sake of fulfilling a greater goal? He could do that too. But killing his own child standing in front of him? Now, that might be where a guy like him drew the line. Despite all that had happened, even if he had never been there for me, Dries was my father.
He wouldn’t shoot me, and wouldn’t order someone else to do it either.
With this certainty, I pressed myself closer to March, shielding his body with my own. I turned my head to look at the helicopter as it slowly took off, watching Dries through the dark glass. I felt March’s arms squeeze me a little harder in response, his presence soothing me amid the chaos of the rain, the wind, and the roar of the aircraft’s rotor.
The helicopter flew away into the darkening sky until all that was left of it was a distant buzz.
THIRTY-TWO
The Kimchi
“Angelihannah tore Rick’s boxer shorts with desperate moans, eager to feel all of him. He was the condiment without which her life had no taste, no meaning.”
—Madelline Chandelier, Captive Enchantress
I looked at March, at the bruises, the blood on his shirt, the water running in rivulets all over his body, washing away more blood from a wound on his brow. Part of me wanted to yell that he would have caught Dries if he had been less of a testosterone-stuffed idiot and handled the situation in a calm and responsible manner, instead of trying to kill his father figure in a fistfight. But I had been the one to distract him, nearly getting him killed in the process.
We had both acted like idiots, and I realized it didn’t matter. In that moment, only one thing mattered.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” I said, lacing my fingers with his.
“Thank you,” he murmured, avoiding my eyes. Then he seemed to remember something, and life returned to those weary sapphires, along with an accusing gleam. “I told you not to come up. You could have gotten yourself killed.”
I stiffened. “Seriously? I saved your ass, and here I am, trying to cheer you up, about to tell you that you didn’t need to prove anything to Dries, that you’re in a league of your own, and you’re going all nitpicky-rule-bookey on me?”
His dimples creased, an impish smile replacing his stern expression. “In a league of my own?”
I looked away to conceal my embarrassment at having unconsciously returned the sweet compliment he had given me in Paris. “Slip of the tongue.”
His right hand rose to cup my cheek, wiping the dirt there. “I’ll find him, and I’ll get that diamond back. Not for myself or the Board, but for you.”
I felt an uncontrollable grin spread on my lips and lift my cheeks up. “Maybe you won’t have to—but I need to call Masaharu!”
March gave me a surprised look but walked to his jacket, retrieved his smartphone from his inner pocket, and handed me the device.
The former love of my life picked up after a few rings, and when he heard my voice, he sounded relieved. Skipping small talk, I jumped to the point. “Masaharu-kun, is our old house in Sumiyoshi still there?”
He answered with an uncertain voice. “Yes, but it’s been turned into a co-rental for Korean students.”
“Did they modify the building?”
“No, you know how Watanabe-san is. He doesn’t spend much on his properties.”
“Okay! Thank you so much, for everything. I’ve always loved you!” After I had hung up before leaving Masaharu a chance to confirm that we weren’t meant to be, I raised a victorious fist to the sky.
Upon witnessing my joy, March turned all business. “Island . . . what’s going on?”
“Okay, the good news first. I think the Cullinan Dries took off with was a decoy too. I noticed the way it reflected the light when the clouds dissipated: a real diamond wouldn’t allow that kind of refraction,” I explained.
March’s brow furrowed. “We did a scratch test, back at the bank.”
“It could be moissanite, synthetic corundum, or even cubic zirconia. All these could beat your ceramic knife on the Mohs scale of hardness, and you didn’t press the blade very hard.” I shrugged.
“So there’s a third stone? The real one?”
“I think so. You said it yourself. It’s not really a shell game if there are only two shells,” I reminded him.
“Where do you think it is?”
I hopped on my feet, electrified. “At first, I really thought my mom had meant to leave me that book as a souvenir, but then I connected the dots.”
“And?”
“Have you ever heard of nightingale flooring?”
March scratched his head. “It’s an ancient Japanese defensive device, a wooden flooring that produces a specific whistling sound when you walk on it.”
“Exactly. In our house in Sumiyoshi, there was an area in my bedroom where the floorboard had moved a little, and it would squeak whenever I walked on it. My mom said that it was like having nightingale flooring.”
“You think the diamond might be there?”
“I can’t guarantee anything, but one thing is certain: she went through the trouble of hiding two decoys, and it fits the way she did things. My mom didn’t like simple.”
He flashed me a dimpled grin as he picked up his jacket. “Neither do you. Let’s check this.”
When we left the building, two police cars were already in front of the main entrance, and firemen could be heard coming in the distance, thanks to Antonio’s little stunt with the bazooka. We had to escape through a small window on the ground-floor ladies’ room—where a young woman drying her hands looked at March as if he were a rapist and scurried away in a panic.
We eventually made it out into a narrow back street, and from the looks of it, we weren’t the only ones to have risked sexual harassment charges in the restrooms. Down the street, Antonio had been patiently waiting for March, our brown SUV parked just far enough away to avoid raising any suspicion. When he saw us, he dangled the car keys with a smug grin.
“Your stuff is packed inside. Now that I’m done, Okinawa’s bikini babes are about to get a piece of . . . Antonio.”
He slicked his wavy black hair back, struck his little gun pose again, and I couldn’t help but applaud: Antonio was the epitome of badass.
March, however, seemed a little surprised by his colleague’s overzealous car valeting, and perhaps Antonio noticed it, because he deemed it necessary to justify himself. “When I do things, I do them well. Even for a psicópato like you.”
I snickered. “He called you a psychopath.”
March let out a long-suffering sigh. “I know what it means, Island, thank you.”
A deep laugh rose from Antonio’s throat as he threw the SUV’s keys to March. “My debt is paid. Next time you go after me, I kill you and feed your balls to my dogs, Sudafricano.”
March nodded with a faint smile and walked to the back of the car, opening the trunk to put away his magic suitcase that we had retrieved from the ruins
of Dries’s living room. He was about to close the trunk, but seemed to hesitate. I watched as he pressed his thumb against one of the case’s sides for a couple of seconds, and a faint click resounded. Fingerprint lock. Pretty cool. He picked up a tiny syringe from a perfectly organized first-aid kit, opened his dirty shirt, and casually stabbed his bruised stomach with the needle. Catching the look of horror on my face, he gave me a reassuring smile. “Light painkiller.”
I nodded and averted my eyes, feeling queasy. March cast Antonio a questioning glance, holding out the small plastic box where the syringe had been for him to see. It dawned on me that, while Antonio didn’t seem to be wounded, his suit was a little torn and crumpled, and there was a possibility that he had been hurt during their vigorous cleaning of Dries’s lair.
Antonio shook his head. “I have my own painkillers.” He then pulled out an elegant golden case from his pocket and opened it to reveal a row of red cigarettes. He took one and lit it up under March’s disapproving gaze.
“A very unhealthy habit,” March commented.
Antonio didn’t reply. He just glared at his “colleague” as the first curls of smoke escaped his lips before evaporating in the air. I guess it had to do with the fact that he had visited March’s trunk and therefore knew there are worse things for your health than weed. I watched him take a few steps to lean against the SUV, surrounded by his cigarette’s pungent fumes. He pulled it away from his lips and held it out for me with a smile.
My eyes darted to March. His eyebrows drew together. Nope. No pot for you, Island. I shook my head. “Thank you, I’m good.”
Antonio muttered something under his breath about March’s latent homosexuality and urgent need to loosen up. Behind me, I heard an aggravated huff, and I think March was about to give him a taste of the volcanic temper I had witnessed back on the roof, but he was interrupted by the faint tint of a bell, coming from Antonio’s front pocket.
