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“I hope to god you’re right, if I have to listen to that Albanian motherfucker talk abut his time in the army ever again, I’m going to suck a tail pipe. Never knew someone could be so pompous over something that happened thirty years ago,” he replies, sitting further back as the whiskey begins to hit him.
“Yeah, that was pretty terrible,” I agree.
He coughs as he sips his whiskey. “I mean, I’d still rather deal with him than the Italians, obviously. Did you know they had to reset my nose in the ER?”
I can’t see much in the dark of the night, but the fire glows just bright enough to emphasize the amorphous, large bruise across his cheekbones and nose. He came close to losing some teeth, from what I heard.
“No, I didn’t know that. Did Remi ever figure out a reason for the attack? Why wouldn’t they go directly after him?” I ask.
“They’re just trying to bully him and make things difficult. Once that girl marries the Albanian’s son, the two families will be more unified against the Italians. There won’t be an alliance per se, but there will be one adversary instead of two.”
I’m reminded of Mika’s arranged marriage again, and my heart sinks. I haven’t told her about it yet, but I know she’ll be finding out sooner than later. Seeing the look in her eyes when she tried to seduce me has just solidified the fact that she’ll be unwilling to leave me.
“You really think forcing her to marry Izet is the right thing to do?” I ask him, genuinely shocked that he sees no moral conflict with the arrangement.
He scoffs, finishing his drink and grabbing the bottle to pour another. “No, why would I give a shit? If anything, I should be falling at that prick’s feet, thanking him for taking her away from here. There’s never been a moment of peace since she turned twelve, and it got even worse when her mom started having her issues.”
Hearing someone talk about Mika in a derogatory manner automatically makes me feel defensive, but he’s been here far longer than I have. Knowing Mika, she’s probably caused some major issues in the last few years. I wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t.
“What do you mean? What kinds of things was she doing?” I ask, bracing myself to learn some uncomfortable truths about Mika.
“God, what hasn’t she done? They tried to send her to a boarding school when she was fifteen, but the school needed a legitimate proof of income that Remi couldn’t provide without putting himself on the line for fraud. His wife was against it, but I knew he couldn’t take it anymore,” he replies.
I want to jump to her defense, but I need to temper my responses. “Damn, a boarding school? That seems a little intense, even for her.”
“You weren’t here back then, man. She was running around doing all kinds of risky shit. One time, she set her curtains on fire because she was pulled out of school.”
I take another pull off the bottle, this time more drawn out despite the burn. “Yeah, I guess I wasn’t.”
He turns himself towards me to look at me straight on. “Why do you care so much, anyway? If she’s gone, you can go back to your old job and won’t have to worry about chasing a girl around town.”
Feeling somewhat cornered, I grasp for a reason as to why I might be this involved in Mika’s life and future. I can’t find anything that wouldn’t reveal a veil of desire towards her. That’s something I can’t risk for any reason. This guy is smarter than Remi gives him credit for, and he would watch far more closely once he picked up on what’s going on.
“That’s probably why. I don’t know if Remi’s going to put me back in my old position or not. I’d rather just keep doing this than have to learn a new role.”
Easy. Keep it work-related.
He continues to stare at me, waiting for my true response. After I remain silent for a moment or two, he turns back towards the fire.
I’m about to elaborate about my imaginary worries when we both hear something drop out of a tree to the left of the courtyard. Both of us snap our necks towards the noise, ready to take on whoever might be spying on the house. We need to be prepared for the worst, and it’s our responsibility to subdue them.
Could someone have infiltrated the house during the party to spy on us?
I get up out of my chair and approach the direction of the noise with caution. The impulse to fight is starting to rise up in me, and I’m prepared for an immediate altercation once I’m close enough to the interloper.
As soon as I’m close enough to see though, I realize that the noise has come from Mika attempting to escape from her bedroom window. She’s hanging perilously from the ledge, one shoe missing as she attempts to regain her grip and pull herself back up.
“Mika, what the fuck are you doing?” I whisper, my voice harsh as I grow paranoid that she’ll get caught. The optics of this situation are already bad even if I have no idea what’s going on.
“Just wait!” she hisses back at me, looking down at the distance between her and the grass before she lets go of the window.
“Goddamn it!” I say through my teeth.
To my surprise, she landed the fall pretty well without assistance, and she rises to her feet with little issue once she regains her footing.
“My father is forcing me to marry Izet to settle some kind of dispute between him and Izet’s father. He won’t even tell me what the dispute is about!” she whines, her eyes glazing over as tears begin to form. From the tracks of mascara running down her face, it looks like this wouldn’t be the first outburst of tears from her tonight.
I feel my stomach drop. Now that he’s told her about the marriage, it must mean that it’s set in stone and likely to happen any day.
