Chapter 33
WHEN SIMRAN WAKES the next day, her first thought is surprise that she fell asleep. Her phone tells her it’s noon. Practically early. And—she squints at her screen—she’s got several missed calls from a private number. Nick.
Well, the Lions will have to wait. She rolls onto her back again and stares at the ceiling. Spreads her arms out on her bed, which feels strangely empty without...him.
Memories of last night flood back. Her. Rajan. Kissing. No—more than that. The things she asked him to do...in the daylight, her cheeks burn. She tugs her pillow over her face. How can she ever look him in the eye again?
The pillow makes her bruised cheek smart, and she tosses it away.
Right. So much more than that happened yesterday.
She glances at her purse on the floor. She doesn’t know what possessed her to shove the last Ace ledger in her bag.
Well, actually, she does. She wanted to finish decoding it.
But having it in her room feels somewhat like having a grenade.
Her mom calls her name from downstairs.
“You’re going to be late!”
Late? For what? Simran changes quickly, braids her hair, and puts on her old glasses. They make her look fourteen and awkward. Oh well. She grabs her purse—she’s not letting that ledger leave her sight—and heads downstairs.
The smell of cooking wafts over, halting her on the last step. From here, she can see into the kitchen. Her mother’s back is turned, and she’s humming along to kirtan as she flips something on the stove. Paranthé, if the aroma is any indication. But...her mom hasn’t cooked in months.
And Simran had thought she’d never see it again. She draws closer, drinking in the sight.
Her mother turns. “There you are.”
She sounds chipper. Simran eyes her warily.
“For you.” She brandishes a plate piled with paranthé. “Eggs, too. Good for your brain.”
It’s like the interrogation yesterday never happened. Simran sinks into a chair. The parantha is delicious: warm, crisp, filled with layers of flavour. Hadn’t her mom once said she put blended daal in the dough? Simran doesn’t recall exactly.
She pauses mid-chew, the enjoyment flooding away, replaced with panic. What if she never learns? What if she loses this part of her mother? “Can you show me how to make these?”
“Really?” Her mom smiles, pleased. “You’ve never shown interest before.”
“Can you show me right now?”
She can’t stop the desperate edge entering her voice. Her mother raises a brow. “Aren’t you going to be late for Neetu?”
Neetu? Simran glances at the whiteboard. Under today’s date, she’d scribbled in kirtan practice with Neetu, a re-re-rebooking. “Right.” Her mom is once again paying attention to Simran’s schedule—more than Simran is. “Tomorrow, then. I have to learn.”
Her mother, oblivious to her inner turmoil, turns up the TV and tuts. “Look. Gangs are tearing up this city. This is the second time in two months. Almost as bad as Surrey.”
Simran pauses, her spoonful of dahi halfway to her mouth. On-screen is the Lion’s café. The next shot is the parking lot, surrounded by police cruisers and tape. The newscaster discusses a drug seizure. Illegal funds. Property damaged and people killed.
Simran could’ve been one of those people. If it wasn’t for Rajan, she would’ve been.
The parantha turns to chalk in her mouth. She has to talk to Nick. Now.
As she’s setting her spoon down, her father comes in and frowns. “Look at that bruise. You need to eat,” he says, as if that’s going to spontaneously clear the injury.
Her mom sniffs. “She’s sitting here chewing her lip instead of her food. Even though her practice is in fifteen minutes.” She whisks Simran’s plate away. “I’ll pack it.”
“I don’t need—”
“You’ll get hungry. You’ll see.” She loads it with chutney and wraps it neatly. Simran accepts the package and is turning for the door when her mother speaks again.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Her words hang in the air. Simran pivots slowly, to find her holding out Rajan’s hoodie. Newly washed and folded.
Simran accepts it. “Thanks.”
“Give Jassa my hello,” her mom adds.
“I will.”
She holds herself stiffly as she leaves, feeling her mother’s eyes on her back the whole way.
Nick picks up immediately when Simran calls on her way to the gurdwara. “Alive, are you?”
She merges onto the highway. “No thanks to the Lions.”
“That was a surprise ambush. We don’t know what they were looking for.”
“Yes, we do. Me.” His silence confirms it. “So much for your security.”
His voice becomes curt. “I’m not doing this over the phone. Where are you?”
“Meet me at the gurdwara in an hour.” She hangs up. She has to at least show her face at this kirtan practice first. She’s flaked on Neetu too many times.
Upon arriving at the gurdwara, she stuffs Rajan’s hoodie under her seat, taking a second to run her hand down the soft material.
She misses him already. But it feels vaguely incriminating to text him, especially after the near disaster last night with her mom.
Her parents aren’t the type to snoop through her phone, but still—with everything going on, maybe it’s best to lie low for now. She’ll ask Nick about him instead.
When she enters the room where practice takes place, several elementary-school-age kids are already with Neetu in the corner. Neetu’s playing something in Raag Dhanasari on the harmonium but stops abruptly when she sees Simran. Her eyes widen; clearly, she hadn’t expected Simran to show.
She recovers quickly, though. “Simran! You made it! Could you take them through some scales? I have to use the washroom.”
Simran nods, feeling guilty. Neetu’s been overseeing these kirtan practices on her own for a while, and that can’t be easy with all the kids to supervise.
She takes her place in front of the harmonium and begins with the gentlest smile she can muster.
The kids are rambunctious and difficult to corral at first; they interrupt her lesson to ask what happened to her face.
She replies that her music instructor bashed her head into the harmonium. That gets them working.
For a while, the practice is uneventful. She’s taking them through renditions of sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni-sa when a loud sound erupts from outside. It sounds a lot like a gunshot.
Instantly, Simran freezes. Her fingers stumble on the keys, her voice dies in her throat, and without warning, she’s somewhere else.
Gunfire. In the dark, her cheek pressed against the ground. Immobilized by terror. Rajan ordering her to stay close—
“Simran Bhenji? Are you okay?”
She blinks, and she’s back. The kids stare at her with concern.
She releases her white-knuckled grip on the harmonium and glances out the window. Of course it wasn’t a gunshot—just someone dropping a recycling bin. Why’d she flinch? “Yes. I’m fine.”
She continues the lesson. Then Neetu returns and splits the kids into groups to teach them new shabads. At some point, Simran’s phone rings with a private number. She looks out the window again and spots an ice-cream truck at the curb.
Of course. She’s gone ten minutes over the hour she told Nick. She turns to Neetu, a few feet away. “I have to go. Can you finish here?”
She feels terrible asking, especially when Neetu’s smile dims, but it returns again. “Okay, but only if you do me a favour.”
Oh no. “What do you need?”
“Gurjeevan and his family are flying in tomorrow. We’re hosting a backyard party for them. I know you’re busy, but it’d mean a lot if you came. Bring your family, too.”
How polite of her to say Simran is busy instead of the truth, which is that she’s flaky. “Okay.”
Neetu lights up. “Really?”
Her enthusiasm makes Simran feel even worse. “Yes. I wouldn’t miss it.”
She leaves, telling herself she won’t.
The ice-cream truck is idling one street over. Simran eats her parantha on the way; her mother was right; she did get hungry.
When Simran gets in, Zohra’s in the driver’s seat. Nick, who’s lounging against one of the coolers, says, “Nice glasses.”
Simran ignores this. “We need to talk.”
“What, not done your tantrum yet?”
Tantrum? As if her reaction was disproportionate? “I almost died. I have a right to be angry.”
“We got you out.”
“Rajan got me out.”
Nick scoffs. “How do you think he knew you were there? He was with me when I got the call.”
Simran blinks. She hadn’t...even thought to ask why Rajan was there yesterday.
But she won’t let Nick distract her. “I’ve paid Rajan’s debts a thousand times over. I’m leaving. For good.”
“Not this again.” Nick tears into a Drumstick. “How many times do I have to tell you and Rajan, I don’t control that?”
She only catches one part of that answer. “You spoke to Rajan?”
“I called that little asshole like ten times last night and he only called back to bite my head off.” She nods mutely, relieved. At least he’s okay. Nick goes on. “I’ll tell you what I told him. This is beyond us now.”
“But we had an agreement.”
Nick gives her an almost-pitying look. Zohra speaks up from the driver’s seat, her eyes filling the rearview mirror.
“It’s not personal, Simran. Say we let you off the hook—someone else will bring you back. The Lions can’t afford to lose you. If you walk, a lot of money and information walks with you.”
Simran shakes her head and begins pacing. She refuses to believe this. “There has to be a way. People must leave.”
Nick tosses his wrapper behind him. “Yeah, people leave. All the time. Kids who move drugs for us, whose parents find out—they get their asses whooped, they don’t come back, we don’t care.
” He rolls his eyes. “Mid-tier, like Rajan, they know stuff about us. We’ll try to keep them, but people still leave.
They can move cities—that’s what Rajan tried, by coming back here from Surrey.
Might’ve worked if...” He exhales. “Well, anyway. But people as valuable as you don’t leave. They die, or go to prison.”
Rajan had said the same. But...“Who decides I’m valuable?”
“People paid a lot more than me.”
“You mean people like Manny Khullar,” she says, and both Zohra and Nick shift on the spot, like a chill has picked up in the small space.
“Manny’s not the biggest fish in the pond,” Zohra says.
Earlier she said he was part of the crime family that built the Lions. So now she’s downplaying it. Interesting. “But he’s the biggest fish in Kelowna. Right?”
Nick eyes her wearily. “What are you saying, Simran?”
Simran stops pacing. “I want to meet him.”