10. Deniz
Chapter 10
Deniz
T he velvet box sits heavy in my pocket, like a grenade ready to be pulled live. I thought about shopping for a ring to avoid giving Clara a family heirloom—it’s not like money is any object. I walked into jewelry stores dozens of times over the past six weeks, their window displays transitioning from Christmas greens and golds to New Year silver and black, but each time it felt wrong. Besides, as twisted as it may be, Clara will likely be the first and last person I ever propose to. I’m not na?ve enough to believe I will survive bringing down The Syndicate of Fate. Might as well make my mother happy, seeing her ancestral ring on the next generation.
If she had a daughter, my mother would have passed it to her. It may not be traditional, but the little gold band has been worn, alone or nestled against a ring provided by her spouse, by every generation of women in my mother’s family for as long as they can remember. She would give anything to see it on her own daughter’s hand. And Clara is the closest she will ever get.
Clara’s hand slips into mine as we walk toward the boardwalk, the smell of brine and sea air sticking to our skin. Rickety wood planks stand strong against the onslaught of the waves as seabirds dive for their dinners. The sun is setting, the bitter sea wind no longer buffeted by the warmth of the day. The murky ocean may not compare to the clear depths of the Mediterranean, but southern California waters still have their own charm.
There are times where I watch Clara work, in person or through cameras, and I have some sort of understanding of her life, her mission. I think back to how easy it was to tell her to kill Terry and wonder how many of those yeses it took to evoke the vitriol that got my brother killed.
And then guilt crawls its way through my veins, poison burning my lungs and making it impossible to breathe. Kerem’s face, covered in ash and blood, swims through my vision as I refortify myself. It’s a betrayal of him to do anything other than kill her. I should be using her to eviscerate every person involved, even tangentially, in my brother’s death, and then uproot her family from this planet like a dying tree.
I hate that I have to rely on her. That no matter how much I searched, I couldn’t find any evidence of the person who actually ordered Lucia’s assassination. And that even if I could figure out who sparked the flame, knowing the crowd circling the Costa family, it would be unlikely I could get to the perpetrator without the help of The Syndicate. Self-hatred and inadequacy twine with guilt to choke me in my weakest moments.
The whiplash of emotions alone would drive me mad, but there’s another undercurrent between us. It sings of sweet moans and cries of pleasure. Clara doesn’t trust me, and her blackmail makes her believe I don’t trust her, which is true enough. We don’t touch, but we can’t stop ourselves from looking. We feel the heat of each other’s gaze while we pretend to read reports or sit at our computers. It’s impossible to ignore, and it deepens my shame.
The only reason her hand is in mine now is because we’re putting on a show. Clara has enemies far beyond my simple vengeance, and they will look for any crack in her story to plant seeds of doubt in the ranks of The Syndicate. No one needs to be fooled into believing we’re in love, but there must be at least the facade of a unified front.
“You were right, we should have done this at a restaurant,” Clara mumbles, spitting her hair out of her mouth once again as the wind kicks her curls up around her face. The long pale green dress she’s wearing also floats and twists in the wind, and it’s a wonder she doesn’t trip over it, especially in the heeled sandals she’s wearing.
I reach into my inner jacket pocket and pull out one of the spider-looking clips that she leaves all over the apartment. Her eyes flash with surprise as I hand it to her, but she doesn’t say anything as she drops my hand to wrap half her hair in its clutches.
I’m making it worse, but I can’t help it. Even before my single-minded focus on avenging Kerem, there was little intimacy in my life. My work is my first love, mostly because I found that knowing everything about everyone brought me a sense of peace I’d never felt before. That kind of dedication to one’s craft doesn’t leave a lot of room for romance.
And the space in my life that wasn’t taken up by work was left for the platonic relationships that always kept me fulfilled. My friendships, my parents, Kerem. Baseball games with my family, evenings reminiscing with my closest confidants aboard Chase’s yacht in the Mediterranean, helping Kerem apply for college. I’ve never felt a sense of emptiness without a romantic partner, like others describe. A few casual encounters were enough to stave off any carnal needs, but I never craved anything more.
I imagine, if things were different, I would crave Clara in her absence. Not necessarily in an erotic, passionate way, though it would likely be a component. But because of that casual intimacy, the sense that someone is moving in tandem with you without direction. I would miss the sound of her breaths as she turned the pages of her book at night, sitting on the couch. Or the feeling of her eyes finding me when she entered a room.
But things are not different, and more than likely, one of us will end up killing the other. So I push away the strange sensation of longing for someone who is standing right next to me and keep us moving toward the beach.
“I’m pretty sure my sister-in-law hired a photographer,” she mutters, tilting her head toward an older gentleman surreptitiously taking photos of the water with a professional-grade camera, his eyes darting toward us every few seconds.
“Did she think she would be able to surprise you?” I ask, letting her lean her weight on me more as our feet meet the sand. She rolls her eyes and scoffs.
“No, but she probably thought I would like a memory of the occasion. My brother has an odd taste in soulmates.”
A strange way to speak about her family, but there’s no doubt the Costas and their chosen spouses are outside the norm in more ways than their careers.
“My mom will like the pictures,” I say without thinking, and she looks up at me with her eyebrows raised. “She thinks I’m rushing into things with you. I wonder what gave her that impression.” That almost gets a laugh out of her. “She’d enjoy something that feels more genuine and traditional.”
Clara’s jaw clenches, the first real sign of any emotion related to her blackmail. I had wondered if she cared at all. If I was anyone else, someone who had a life and hopes and dreams, would she feel bad for unraveling all of that? Or does the familial sense of moral superiority trump any guilt?
“Do you want me to meet them? Your parents? Before the wedding, I mean,” she asks, her voice contrite. Maybe this is her form of a concession.
“They moved to wine country a few years ago,” I reply simply, letting the reason stand on its own.
“Lucky for me, I own a plane,” she says, bumping her shoulder against mine as we reach the berm. The high tide line is still a few feet away, waterlogged sand dark under the fading sunset.
“We have work,” I argue. Her brow pinches, not in confusion, but frustration.
“If you haven’t noticed, my job is remote. And yours can be too.” She slips her hand from mine and crosses her arms over her chest, the muscle of her biceps rippling with the movement.
“Let’s discuss this another time.” She opens her mouth to argue, but I cut her off with a tilt of my head toward the street. “You’ll look angry in the photos.”
She takes a long breath, relaxing her shoulders and shaking out her hands. I expect her to plaster on one of the eerie, fake smiles she gave me in the Pasadena restaurant, but instead, her expression is almost neutral. There’s a flicker of something remorseful in her eyes, and I wonder if she’s also realizing I’m the only person she’ll ever marry, too. Does she mourn a love she’ll never have? Does she feel that emptiness?
I drop down onto one knee, pulling the little black box from my pocket. It’s faded in the corners, the velvet nearly worn down completely. Despite the faint clicking of a camera in the distance, the sounds around us seem to hollow out when I look at Clara. She seems so sad, so resolute, so beautiful. I pop the top of the faded black box, and one corner of her lips lifts in a soft, surprised smile.
“It was my mother’s and has been passed down through the women of her family for generations,” I say, taking the gold band out of its nestled home. There’s no central stone, but instead the gold is engraved with tiny leaves, inlaid with the smallest diamonds I’ve ever seen. It makes the etchings look like rivers filled with moonlight, like constellations in a gilded sky.
“This union isn’t what I imagined for myself, and I believe the same applies to you.” I take her left hand and slip the ring onto her finger. It’s slightly too large, and she instinctively turns it against her skin with her thumb. “But perhaps we can move forward knowing we are cut from the same cloth, that we burn with the same fire. Perhaps this marriage can be about taking on one another’s enemies. Fighting on the same side of the battles we face. Perhaps we can go to war together.”
I don’t know where the words came from. They will only make the inevitable end, the betrayal, so much worse. But there’s something inside of me that wishes they could be true, that she and her family were also simply victims, and not responsible for the path they laid for both of us. Because when I look in her eyes as she shakes her head yes, I don’t see the woman I want to kill. I see someone I would kill for. And that is so much worse.