Half-Past Dawn (24 page)

Suresh took a moment, gathering his wits, and stepped from the bathroom, surprising the man. They stared at each other a moment.

“Who the hell are you?” Suresh finally demanded.

“Ah.” The man turned, momentarily startled. He flashed a smile, but Suresh saw his eyes; there was no smile within them. “My name is Raj, Rajeev Sapre. You must be Suresh.”

Suresh’s caution escalated. Beyond Nadia, no one outside of his world knew his name.

“Making dinner for Nadia?” Rajeev asked, pointing to the pot of boiling oil, the fresh vegetables and fish.

Suresh remained silent and assessed the man before him. His tailored clothes projected a superior air, which momentarily distracted him before he recalled the words from his youth:
no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

“The door was open—”

“And you just figured you’d walk in?” Suresh said in an accusatory tone.

“I’m a friend of Nadia’s.”

“She never mentioned you.”

“Nadia fashions herself a woman of mystery, but believe me, the mystery doesn’t run very deep.”

“I think you should leave,” Suresh said.

“Did she get you with the lost-child story?”

“This is her home now. I’m not going to ask you again.”

Raj looked around the small, cramped apartment, his eyes unable to hide his disgust.

“I’ve known Nadia for most of her life, and I can assure you, she does not consider this her home.”

“Then you don’t know her very well.”

“She tell you she ran away, traveled fifteen hundred miles on her own? Bet she failed to mention her father’s palatial estate not two miles from here in the foothills of the Parshia Mountains. How do you think she has kept that beautiful head of hair of hers so perfect? Certainly not with a bar of soap and tap water. My people have been watching her, every day when she goes for her run. She grabs a cab, goes to the estate which is vacant during this season, takes a real shower, indulges the needs she proclaims are beneath her, that are vainglorious and shallow. She usually grabs a bite to eat, watches a little television, before coming back here to play the martyr, to be a free spirit.”

“This is bullshit—”

“No bullshit. She was rebelling, using you to insult her father.” Raj pulled an envelope full of photographs from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and threw them down onto the table. They were intimate and revealed Suresh and Nadia in the throes of passion. “She sent them not only to him and her mother but also to the tabloids, like some American reality-TV star. She really wanted to piss her dad off, embarrass him, show him she didn’t need his money or power … reject his wealth to be a free spirit,” Raj said.

“She doesn’t care about money.”

“Really?” Raj smiled. “
You
don’t know her very well.”

Suresh tried to contain his growing anger.

“Nadia is not who you think she is, Suresh. In fact, do you even know her real name? You were her bad-boy fantasy; in you, she found danger, romance. You allowed her to explore her base needs,
her sexuality. You were just a pawn, like all of us, used by a spoiled child. But like so many before, when she is done with you, she casts you away.”

“Get out.” Suresh raised his voice as he took a step forward. “You’re not taking her away from here.”

“You don’t understand. We didn’t track her down.” Raj paused. “She called us.”

Confusion ran through Suresh. There were too many thoughts to process. He knew she loved him. He saw his love reflected in her eyes, in her heart.

“On her twentieth birthday,” Raj continued, “Nadia is to receive the first installment of her trust, fifty million dollars, with the proviso that she fulfills one criterion.”

Suresh’s head was spinning. “What are you talking about?”

“She receives her trust, provided she marries …” Raj paused, and a knowing smile creased his face. “Provided she marries me.”

Lies. This man was lying to him. He was there to take her away, just as the men tried to snatch her back three months earlier. This man was playing his emotions to the extreme.

Raj picked up the camera from the table, turned it on, and thumbed through pictures of Suresh and Nadia. Shaking his head, he pulled out the memory stick and snapped it in two. “These last six months of her life will be erased from all memory.”

“Those men in the alley.” Suresh spoke slowly as the realization formed in his mind. “They worked for you.”

Raj just stared.

“They weren’t there to mug me, were they?”

Raj reached into his jacket and pulled out a Browning pistol. Suresh could see the worn butt of the gun. It was this man’s personal weapon, one that he had had for a long time. Despite his polished appearance, Suresh knew he was up against someone familiar with violence. But no fear arose in Suresh, only concern for Nadia, and no one was going to take her.

In a snap move, Suresh tossed the coins he clutched in his hands at Raj, the cloud of metal causing the man to flinch and allowing Suresh to dive left.

But Raj’s distraction was short-lived, and he quickly fired, hitting Suresh in the right arm, the echo of the gun reverberating off the small walls. But Suresh’s momentum was not deterred; his left arm was already in motion, swinging upward as his hand wrapped the barrel, twisting it from the man’s grasp, while his right fist caught the man upside the head.

Suresh continued moving forward, tackling Raj backward over the chair, crashing onto him. Raj rolled right, countering Suresh’s move, driving his elbow into Suresh’s wounded arm, stunning him.

But Suresh compartmentalized the pain, continuing his attack. And while Raj may have had military training, it was no match for Suresh’s skills, which had been honed not only throughout his lifetime but by his ancestors for decades before.

With a sudden movement, Raj was wrapped in a choke hold. But this time, there would be no mercy like he had shown the pack of thieves on the street. Raj had awakened a rage in Suresh, a kind that he had never tasted before. Suresh hadn’t realized that his attackers from earlier in the evening were there to kill him, but he was not making that mistake again. If he allowed Raj to live, he would surely be back with a much larger team to correct his mistake.

Suresh tightened his grip. Raj struggled beneath him, his tailored suit torn, fear in his eyes, knowing that his neck was about to be snapped.

Without warning, the boiling oil from the stove hit Suresh’s skin. Like molten lava, it oozed down his side. He turned with disbelieving eyes to see Nadia standing there, pot in hand, her eyes filled with tears. He released his grip on Raj and tried to ignore the excruciating pain as the skin on his torso bubbled and rolled up. The blood of the bullet wound washed away while the fresh blood that poured from the wound congealed upon meeting the boiling liquid.

Raj kicked, scooting away from Suresh, gasping for breath.

Suresh didn’t move. He did not break his stare at Nadia, standing there with a tear-streaked face.

“What are you doing?” Her voice cracked in anguish as she looked back and forth between the two men.

As she put down the pot, her questioning eyes turned sympathetic, and she took a step forward, crouched down …

And took Raj in her arms.

It all became clear. Raj’s words were true, and Suresh was nothing but a pawn. He had opened his heart and turned his back on his previous life for love.

But before Suresh could utter a word or a question of why, Raj struggled to his feet and stood above him with hate-filled eyes. He reached to the window and picked up the kerosene lamp, removing the fuel cap.

“Here, let me cool those burns,” Raj said as he poured the fuel on Suresh’s chest.

And in ceremony, Raj held a match in his hand, struck it on its pack, and dropped it on the scalding oil that covered Suresh’s chest. With a low whoosh, the flame leaped around Suresh’s torso; the oil on his skin sizzled, charring his already burned flesh as clouds of thick smoke coiled up to the ceiling.

As he looked up, he saw Nadia’s pure face, her warm eyes staring down at him. There was no sympathy, no regret or revulsion at seeing the man she had shared a bed with for six months burning to death.

S
URESH AWOKE, BLINDED
by the antiseptic white of the room. He found himself in a hospital bed, tubes and wires running into and around his body, the low chimes and beeps of the monitors confirming that he was alive. Outside his private room, nurses and doctors scurried in the halls, tending to the sick. A sudden confusion filled his mind as he realized that with no money and ID, he should have been dead or at least in the ward with the poor.

He burned with a hatred far stronger than the pain from his injuries. His mind filled with thoughts of vengeance.

Two men stepped into the room. The taller one moved to the corner and remained silent as the shorter, overweight man moved to his bedside.

“My name is William Riley,” the man said with a southern American accent. “So glad you’re finally awake. Do you know where you are?”

Suresh nodded.

“You’ve been in a medically induced coma for close to a week now. The burns were third-degree. Your recovery will be slow, but they will do everything to minimize the pain.” Riley took a seat beside the bed. “Do you have family you would like me to contact?”

Suresh shook his head. He had left that world behind. If they were to find out how weak he had become, how he was fooled by the woman he loved, he would crumble.

“Where do you live?”

Suresh was a man without a home. “I live nowhere.”

The man nodded in sympathy. “Do you know who did this to you?”

Suresh nodded.

“You’re lucky to be alive. I understand Raj Sapre dispatched a street gang after you and you handled them like swatting flies.”

And Suresh remembered that the attack in the alleyway was not a random mugging, that they were there to kill him. But his heart had blinded him to the obvious truth. Self loathing rose; he was angry at himself for letting them live, thinking them to be nothing more than lost souls looking to steal a few dollars.

But it was at Raj and Nadia that his rage burned brightest.

“Raj Sapre, along with his girlfriend, tried to kill you themselves. As sad as this may sound, you’re lucky they set you on fire. It set off the smoke alarms, and the tenants came running to your aid.”

Hearing that Nadia did not love him, did not want to be with him, that she wanted him dead, filled him with emotions he couldn’t describe.

“Raj’s father is the prime minister of India.”

Suresh’s mind turned upside down at the revelation.

“You should know he sanctioned your death. An all-points bulletin has been issued for your arrest for the attempted murder of his son. It is why you are registered under an alias, Cristos. If you’re arrested, I can promise that you won’t live until trial. The PM is operating for himself. He was elected through voter fraud. He has made the country’s accounts his piggy bank and is willing to put this country into war with its neighbors if he can see a profit in it.

Suresh looked at the two men. While Riley did all of the talking, it was the taller man, the silent one, whose presence loomed larger. Despite his efforts to remain a nonentity in the room, it was clear that he was in charge,.

“Who are you?” Suresh said to the silent man.

The men exchanged a quick glance before Riley answered. “We are representatives sent here to assess you, to evaluate your worthiness.”

Suresh felt an icy chill run through his scorched body.

“We know where you’re from, we know of your unconventional training, your skills with weapons. We know how easily you wove yourself into the fabric of this community, losing yourself, living outside the system.” Riley paused. “And we know the hatred that burns in your veins.”

“We would like to make a proposition.” The silent man finally spoke with a deep American accent.

“What kind of proposition?”

“One that will serve us both. A proposition of vengeance.”

F
RIDAY
, 8:00
P.M
.

C
RISTOS SAT NEXT TO
Jack in the back of the Suburban, Aaron and Donal in the front seat, a man named Josh in the rear third seat. All were silent in deference to Cristos as they drove toward the city.

“So how did you know?” Cristos asked.

“How did I know what?” Jack said.

“That I was alive. You try to act so surprised, yet you taunted me with that note.”

Jack shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“The note that was inside the case we stole from you.” Cristos reached inside his pocket, pulled out the letter, and handed it to Jack. “Is that your signature?”

Jack stared at the envelope and quickly pulled out the letter. Just when he had started to think his memory was intact, this letter said otherwise.

“Who told you?” Cristos pressed him. “Or did you figure it out?”

Jack was speechless, his confusion impeding him from even hearing Cristos. Until he had received the call, he had no idea Cristos was alive. Nothing could have ever allowed him to surmise such an impossibility.
He had no memory of writing it. He had no memory of placing it in the box.

Yet here he was, staring at his own handwriting, his own signature.

The envelope had Cristos’s name on it. The personal stationery was Jack’s, given to him by Joy for his birthday. The message was written in blue ink, with thick, heavy strokes.

I killed you once
…
touch my family and I will kill you again. Jack Keeler

“N
OT REALLY WORDS
becoming of a district attorney.” Cristos took the letter from Jack, tucked it back into the envelope, and gave it back to him. “You go ahead and keep it, contemplate it later.”

Jack looked out the window of the Suburban, seeing that they were heading down the FDR, nearing their destination.

“So, Jack, before you
kill
me, you’re going to help me.”

Jack could hardly focus. Against all logic, it was as if he had written a letter to a ghost. His attention was pulled back as Cristos nudged him.