Damaged

Sophia

We land smoothly in Cairo in the early evening. The sun has already set. All that’s left of it is an orange tinge on the horizon.

We walk down the stairs onto the hot runway, where there’s a white Rolls Royce waiting for us. A big white man with a buzzcut is in the passenger seat. He wears a black suit and navy tie.

“, this is Brock, my head of security,” James says as we get into the car. “He’ll be joining us for the duration of our trip here.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say, but Brock just nods at me in the rearview mirror.

“We’re staying at the Golden Oasis,” James says. “Your suite is directly below mine. It goes without saying, don’t leave the hotel.”

“Oh. So, it’s just like home, neighbor.”

I can tell from James’s plain expression that he’s back to being icy. “Tomorrow morning, we’re going to Malik Karim’s estate. Have you heard of him?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“He’s the richest man in the country. One of the only old elites who kept his wealth after the Arab Spring, and his artifact collection rivals some museums. He has a specific set of items he would be willing to part with. Your job is simple. While he has his own team who will tell us the history and value, you will verify the artifact’s significance and potential price. Can you do that?”

I gulp. With a good internet connection, I can. But not from the top of my head. I know that’s not what James wants to hear. “Yes,” I say confidently. “I can do that.”

“Good.”

There are no more words and no hand to rest reassuringly on my leg. Something is bothering him, and I hope it’s not me.

I turn and look out the window to watch the foreign country bustle by.

I’m able to forget about James as I lose myself in where I am. I picture the lives and ancestors of all these people.

This place has so much history, it feels like another planet. The pyramids. Cleopatra. Caesar. Napoléon. There are enormous crocodiles, man-eating lizards the size of small buses, sleeping in the inky black water of the Nile.

But I can’t help but feel like I don’t belong here. Here I am, helping plunder this country of its artifacts. Buying them to resell to filthy rich tech bros. I wonder if this guilt is what has James so quiet, too, but I doubt it.

I have a feeling his mind is on business. I don’t need to hear his philosophy to know that he believes life is about survival of the fittest, not fairness.

So be it. It’s hard to challenge his beliefs when they’ve made him so successful. I know what he’d say—if we weren’t buying these artifacts, they’d simply go to another buyer in Beijing or Bahrain.

I still can’t help but feel dirty. We roll up to the hotel, and I stare out the window like a kid. There’s a fountain two stories high. The top of it is equal height to the bulbous heads of the palms that sway in the breeze.

It’s lit up in golden light along with the white facade of the hotel itself. A half dozen porters take our bags when we park, apparently knowing exactly who we are and where they need to go.

I get out of the car and stand a few feet behind James as who must be the hotel manager comes out and shakes his hand, gives him an envelope, and tells him no request is too much.

I follow James and Brock into the marble lobby, and the three of us walk to the elevators. Once the doors shut and we’re alone, James opens the envelope and hands me my key.

“Brock has been here for two days doing security. The hotel itself is safe, but we might not be once we’re seen leaving Karim’s estate. Foreigners with money are always going to be targets, especially if we’re suspected to have any of the artifacts in our possession.”

The elevator is quick and modern, and we’re already dinging at my floor before I can say anything. I feel like James is James Bond.

Suspected to have artifacts in our possession. I didn’t realize there was an element of danger to this trip. Of course there is. We’re going to be purchasing millions of dollars’ worth of art in a country that saw a revolution just a decade ago.

I’m sick of being nervous, and my guts twist for the umpteenth time this day.

“We’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.” James clarifies, sensing my nerves. “Get a good night’s sleep. The room service here is no joke, and neither are the Egyptian cotton sheets.”

“Okay. Thank you, James,” I say, stepping out of the elevator. I turn to get one last look at him, but the doors shut quickly. And I’m only able to catch a quick glimpse of those green eyes before they’re gone.

I stay still for a moment and check the number on the card slip—707.

I walk down the hall, find my door, and hold the card against the reader.

Click. Green light, and I’m inside. My bags are already here right by the door, but I didn’t see a porter in the hall and I thought we got here pretty quickly. Impressive.

It’s dark, but I can sense from the sound around me that this is not an average hotel room. There’s a hollowness in the air. The door echoes as it claps shut behind me. I put my hand on the wall and find a switch exactly where I expect to.

I flip it and stand, dumbfounded. The space in front of me is twice the size of my apartment. There’s a full kitchen and a living room recessed into the floor that has a long horseshoe of cushions.

I find my bedroom and see a king mattress with golden sheets and pillowcases. A placard resting on top of it reads: Welcome .

I’m a little less nervous now. This room must cost thousands a night.

So, this is why people sell out. This view. These sheets. A Michelin star–quality menu on the nightstand. I walk to the window to look out at Cairo.

There are a few sailboats on the river. The water glistens in the many lights of the city. It’s only seven, and my body time is only a handful of hours behind. I’m going to be awake for a while.

I don’t order food. I don’t feel like eating. I pull out my laptop and sit cross-legged on the cushions.

For the next four hours, I hardly move as I dive into Egyptology. The subject is an entire college major and not something I can master in a single night.

If anything, by the time I shut my laptop, I feel like I know less. I opened so many doors to halls that I know nothing about. It’s an ocean of information. I remind myself even doctors google symptoms to diagnose patients.

I’ll essentially be doing the same. The internet is my best friend when it comes to my expertise here. But it doesn’t help with the imposter syndrome. I can picture Jessica shaking her head at me. Her perfect notes. Tape recorders.

I’m not a straight-A student. I don’t deserve to be here.

I need a drink. I may be in Egypt, but being that I’m in a western hotel, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find some alcohol.

I debate ordering a bottle of wine up to the room but decide to check out the bar. I put on jeans and a blazer before I go. I’m somewhat insecure in a hotel full of foreign businessmen, and I want to give bad business bitch vibes.

The last thing I want is to be at the bar in a pretty dress.

The bar and restaurant are on the third floor, and it’s as chic as I thought it would be. There are live palm fronds potted in bejeweled planters and a goddamn waterfall flowing behind the blue-lit shelves of liquor bottles. And here I thought it might be tricky to find a drink.

There’s even a ladder to reach the highest shelves of the bar.

I sit down and order something fancier than a gin and tonic. I order a drink called an Anubis. It’s a delicious mixture of vodka and tart juices the color of dark blood.

I’m on my second when I see him.

James.

He’s been here the whole time, I realize, alone on the balcony. Elbows on the railing. He’s staring out at the city with a forlorn gaze.

I wonder what’s on his mind. Whatever it is, it looks heavy.

He doesn’t look like he’d appreciate being disturbed, and I have no intention of going out on the balcony patio and joining him.

Something else gets my attention. The drinks have numbed my nerves somewhat, but now my hairs are standing on end. I have a feeling like I’m being…

I glance halfway over my left shoulder to see a man in a black suit and black T-shirt sitting alone at a table.

Watched.

He has tattoos crawling up his neck and down his sleeves, where I can see them on the backs of his hands.

He’s bald and his cheekbones are wide, and when I meet his eye, I see he’s staring directly back at me. He doesn’t look away, and I turn back to the bar a little too quickly—it’s obvious that I caught him staring and didn’t like it.

The man’s thick neck and wide-set eyes give him a shark-like appearance. He looks like he’s no stranger to brutal violence.

I glance back at my drink and hope he doesn’t approach me. A part of me wants to leave, but with James nearby, I don’t feel too scared. By the time I order a third drink, I steal another glance in the mobster’s direction. He’s not looking at me anymore. His legs are spread wide, and he’s texting on his phone.

I’m suddenly wondering what James meant by security threats. Maybe he meant that it’s not just locals we need to be on the lookout for. This man’s reason for staring might not be that he’s attracted to me.

I might be his target.

Ten minutes pass since I first noticed him, and James is still staring out at the city in thought.

I look at the tattooed man again and gulp. He’s looking at me again and not trying to hide it. His eyes are dark and unblinking. I get up off my stool with my drink in my hand. I don’t even think about it. Suddenly I’m walking around the bar to the balcony door and opening it. This upper patio is huge. It’s fifty feet across, but James is the only one out here.

He doesn’t lift his arms off the railing when I step a few feet outside. He doesn’t turn at all.

“Hey, snowflake.”

I frown. How the hell did he know it was me? I glance back inside, but it’s too dark for him to have seen me at the bar. “How could you tell?”

“Your footsteps. They’re light.”

This man has senses like a tiger. “How’re you tonight?” I say, walking closer. It comes out clumsy and fast, but I don’t know what else to say.

“Fine.”

My throat constricts anxiously. He doesn’t ask me how I am. He doesn’t want me out here.

I set my elbows on the railing and stare out at the city with him. The hotel’s garden is below, and there’s a wedding reception taking place. The sound of music and indistinct conversation drifts up through the string-lit palms.

“That’s sweet,” I say.

He scoffs. “What’s sweet about it?”

“Oh, come on… Do you seriously hate weddings?”

“What’s to like about them? A whole evening for a crappy dinner and mediocre drinks, and then you listen to the same thirty songs they’ve been playing at weddings for the last fifteen years. And it costs some poor young couple fifty-thousand dollars to do it. It’s pathetic.”

“I highly doubt they’ll be playing ‘Apple Bottom Jeans’ tonight.”

“You’d be surprised.”

We watch the reception for several seconds before I speak again. “Weddings aren’t about the crappy food and drinks, James. They’re about love.”

“Oh, don’t give me that.”

“Ah. I see. You don’t like love either?”

“No. I don’t believe in it. There is oxytocin—a chemical in the brain that makes you feel affection for a mate in order to reproduce. It often gets confused with this cupid bullshit that corporations promote to sell books and movies and clothing. And… very expensive weddings.”

“Suddenly it makes sense why you’re so gloomy all the time. So what if it’s just oxytocin? A chemical in the brain. Isn’t everything? Ambition. Success. Pleasure… It’s all just chemicals.”

Got him. James is quiet and gives a little shrug. “Fair enough. I’m just smart enough to avoid the chemical that doesn’t get me anything in return.”

“Have you felt it?” A warm wind suddenly blows. It blinds me for a moment and ruffles the thick hair on James’s head. When I clear my hair from my eyes, I can see his green eyes looking at me, as bright as the lights of the city.

“Love?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“No. Like I said…” He taps his temple. “Too smart.”

“Too smart for love. Wow, you’re some genius.”

“You don’t have a billion dollars to protect.”

“You sound like a dragon sitting on a pile of gold.”

“Unlike a dragon, I can spend it. But what has love ever gotten you? You speak pretty highly of it, but you’re single, so every romantic love you’ve ever had didn’t work out in one way or another.”

I recoil my head in offense. “Screw you, smart guy,” I tease, but James is right. I’ve always defended love, even after what Jake did to me. I promised myself not to let my heartbreak turn me into some love-hating bitter woman.

I’m not going to let the deceit of one loser forever alter my view of love. But what James just said does hurt, because it’s true. So far, all the love in my life has been a failure. It’s gotten me nothing.

I’d be better off without it.

“It’s nothing but a trick,” James says, looking down at the wedding. “Your biology trying to make more babies. And most of the world falls for it.”

“You should go down there and give that speech. But you don’t know the bride and groom. You don’t know how they look at each other. How they think of each other. Haven’t you seen those couples with a love so bright you can’t keep your eyes off it?”

“I’ve seen fools walking towards the edge of a cliff, sure.”

I shake my head, and we both stare out in silence. There’s something about the noise of the city and the wedding that doesn’t make it awkward. We just stand next to each other, looking and listening to the world as the wind plays with our hair.

It seems like James’s vendetta against love isn’t just because he’s a grouch. There’s something else to it, like he’s been scorned himself. It’s hard to picture, but maybe it was when he was younger.

There’s an intimacy in this moment. I feel kind of close with him after the events of the day. His hand on my leg in the car. His arm around my waist on the plane. I know there’s a tenderness to him. This tiger isn’t going to rip my face off, and my curiosity won’t let me be quiet.

“So, what has love done to you to make you hate it so much? Or can you just not stand weddings?”

James doesn’t react right away to my words. He keeps his eyes on the city. “It’s not what did to me, but what it did to someone close.”

“You hate love by-proxy?”

James looks at me again. There’s a seriousness in his expression that makes me regret my choice of words.

“When I was eight, my life fell apart. My parents died. I had to go live with my uncle in an apartment complex with one hundred other families in northeast Philadelphia.”

He pauses, but I don’t fill the air.

“He was a cold bastard. Took me in out of duty, when really, I might’ve been better off in the foster system. But I found myself some warmth. A big sister, so to speak. I was a cute kid, you see?” He smiles briefly before his face goes dark again. “Her name was Sabrina. She was probably only eighteen.”

I don’t dare say a word. James Callaway is telling me a story . My heart beats anxiously as I watch him collect his thoughts.

“We had a lot of fun together. Sabrina was smart, too, going to community college and planning to transfer to Penn State. She helped me with my homework. With my dreams. She was a big sister, I suppose. But she had this boyfriend… Dominic.”

His tone darkens. He looks at his hands as he speaks. And my breaths begin to shorten.

“She loved him with her whole heart. Even though he beat the shit out of her. But she would never leave him. It seemed simple to me then, and it does to me now, but I guess love makes everything more complicated. Clouds your judgement. Your mind. Never ever , she’d say when I told her to dump him. One winter evening, I knock on her door to study, and no one answers. I go home and wake up later to all the emergency lights out my window. The sound of heavy boots in the hall. Dead,” he whispers. Like it still hurts to say that fact any louder.

A strong gust of wind blows. It makes it so it would be impossible to hear James if he did keep talking, but that seems like the end of the story. Dominic killed her.

“I’m sorry,” I say when the wind calms. It makes my story with Jake sound like a high school breakup. I don’t know what else to say to James. I want to thank him for telling me, but it would come out weird.

He’d just nod. But I can’t stay silent. I put my hand on top of his a little awkwardly.

He stares at my hand, and his expression goes from tortured to amused. I wasn’t smooth, but at least I distracted him.

“Did they find him guilty?”

“What?” James says sharply, like he’s been in a trance.

“Dominic. Did they catch him?”

James pauses for a moment. He licks his lips quickly and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, they caught him.”

I suddenly remember the incident that Alana told me with the brick. James has a heightened disgust towards domestic violence. If he saw something like that happening in real time…

I realize it’s probably not a rumor that revolves around a billionaire. He likely did kill that man in the alley. I take my hand off his.

Tender but dangerous. I don’t know what to think of him.

Suddenly the patio door opens, and I glance over my shoulder to see the tattooed man walking out with a cigarette in his lips. He walks to the far side of the balcony, where he’s out of earshot. He leans on the railing facing away from us and smokes.

“That man was watching me at the bar.”

“He was probably going to make a move.”

“There’s something about him that’s… off.”

James looks at him. “He’s Russian.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw him earlier,” he says, realizing this. “He was in the lobby when we came in. I recognize the ridiculous loafers.”

I look at the Russian’s feet. He’s wearing what look to be Gucci loafers, but I don’t get the best look in the dark out here.

“Do you still think he’s into me or following us?”

“I need to try to find that out. Can you help me?” James meets my eye. I don’t exactly know what his plan is, but I trust him. His tone is serious.

“Of course.”

An electricity starts at the base of my spine as he sets his strong hand there. He moves it down to my butt and holds it there.

“Is he still looking?”

I’m too busy inhaling a sharp breath to respond. My eyes are wide. “You tell me,” I finally manage to say.

“It doesn’t look like it,” James says with his voice of thick velvet.

His hand slides lower, right where I want it to go. He’s at the bottom of my butt, inches away from where I now ache.

I wish I wasn’t wearing jeans. Denim is too thick of a fabric, and I want his touch closer. For him to be able to stick his fingers in me on a whim.

Listen to me. I’m being insane. James is damaged. He may not be an asshole billionaire for no reason, but he’s still the kind of guy who would use me like a tissue.

He doesn’t get to both fire me and fuck me. That being said, I can’t stop the skin between my thighs from growing slick.

I’m dripping.

“I’d need a better look, but if they’re mob tattoos, we’d have a problem. Otherwise, he’s probably just the spoiled son of an oil oligarch. Nothing to worry about.”

James’s hand leaves, but the electricity lingers. “Come on. It’s late, and we should both try our best to sleep before tomorrow.”

I follow him back inside, and the Russian watches us again.

After we’re paid and out of the bar, James and I board the same elevator. I’m so delusional, I’m looking at the ceiling for cameras—none. Why am I looking?

Because I harbor the fantasy that James will hit the emergency stop button and tear my jeans open. Fuck me hard with those arms bulging with muscles and roped with veins.

The door opens onto my floor. Damn this thing is fast. I don’t move right away. I hesitate for a couple seconds before stepping forward.

“Goodnight, snowflake. Make sure to wear something so you don’t melt in this heat.”

I turn, and one of his green eyes vanishes for a fraction of a second before the elevator doors close.

He winked at me.

I stand there in sexual frustration. I don’t even have a man in my contacts that I can call for no-strings-attached sex when I’m back in New York. I realize how starved I am for touch.

James is simply the nearest man to me. I tell myself I’m still repulsed by the fact that he uses women for sex and cares only about making the next million.

But as I walk back to the room, I can’t get over what an idiot I am. I’m stuck for days with this Greek god of a man.

The least I could’ve done was pack my vibrator.