CHAPTER TWO
The stone wall slid shut with a grinding, subterranean thud that vibrated through the soles of Zina’s shoes. As the mechanical latches engaged, sealing them inside the estate’s hidden arteries, darkness swallowed the narrow space.
For one terrible, suspended second, the adrenaline that had been holding Zina together threatened to shatter.
The phantom sound of the Italian’s revolver echoed in her ears.
Her father. Farzin. Rostam. The men who had been the pillars of her entire existence, the untouchable titans of the Kazan empire, were dead on the marble floor of their own home.
A physical pain, intense and agonizing, tore through her chest. She wanted to slide down the rough stone wall, press her hands to her face, and scream until her vocal cords shredded.
But she didn't. She couldn't.
Zina reached into the slit of her emerald dress, retrieved her phone, and turned on the flashlight.
The pale beam cut through the dust-choked air, illuminating the small, enclosed landing.
Meryam was slumped against the wall, her breath coming in shallow, frantic gasps, clutching Reza so tightly the boy was wincing.
Reza had buried his face in his grandmother’s neck, exhausted, terrified, and oblivious to the finality of what had just occurred above them.
Then, the beam of light caught Roxana.
Zina’s mother stood still. The elegant, commanding matriarch of the Kazan family looked at her daughter’s empty, blood-spattered hands. She looked at the door Zina had just sealed. And without Zina having to utter a single word, Roxana knew.
Roxana’s face did not contort. She did not scream.
Instead, a devastating, hollow realization washed over her features, aging her ten years in the span of a heartbeat.
She took a single, unsteady step forward, her trembling hand reaching out to touch her daughter’s cheek – wet with tears she refused to let fall.
Zina swallowed the razor-sharp lump in her throat. She met her mother’s eyes, locking her own grief away behind a fortress of sheer will. "They are gone."
Meryam let out a low, wounded sound, a whimper of pure agony that threatened to escalate into a wail.
"Please Maman-bozorg, be quiet," Zina commanded, her voice dropping to a harsh, urgent whisper as she stepped forward and gripped both her mother and grandmother by their shoulders.
"Listen to me. You have to stay quiet. They know Reza is alive.
They are tearing the estate apart right now looking for him.
If we make a sound, if we stop moving, they will find us, and they will kill him. Do you understand me?"
Roxana closed her eyes, a single tear cutting through the dust on her cheek. She placed her hand over Zina’s, squeezing tightly. "I understand."
"We cannot go to the city exits," Zina said, immediately shifting into the tactical mindset her father had drilled into her since childhood. "Half the guards betrayed us. The streets will be watched. We are taking the deep tunnel. To the harbor."
"The harbor is miles away, Zina," Roxana said, her voice shaking but finding its footing. "Your grandmother cannot walk that far in the dark."
"Then I will carry her," Zina said flatly. She crouched down, meeting her little brother’s terrified, wide eyes. "Reza, get on my back. Hold on tight and do not make a sound, no matter what you hear. Promise me."
Reza nodded mutely, wrapping his small arms around Zina’s neck as she hoisted him up.
They moved out. The air in the deep passages was freezing, smelling of ancient earth and damp brick.
Zina led them through the labyrinth, her free hand trailing along the wall to guide them through the winding darkness.
She knew these tunnels. Farzin had chased her down these exact corridors when they were children.
The memory threatened to break her focus, but she ruthlessly shoved it down. Keep moving. Keep them alive.
They had been walking for nearly twenty minutes when the sound reached them.
Crack. Crack.
Gunshots. Muffled by the stone, but unmistakable. They were echoing from the upper tiers of the passage system behind them.
Zina stopped dead. The attackers had breached the walls. They were in the tunnels.
"They found the entrance," Roxana whispered in the dark, panic bleeding into her composed tone. "They are coming."
Zina looked frantically around the dim tunnel.
A few yards ahead, the stone widened slightly, forming a recessed alcove where the structural supports had once been reinforced.
She grabbed her mother’s arm, pulling her and her grandmother into the shallow indentation.
She set Reza down, pushing him behind their mother.
"Stay here," Zina ordered, checking the magazine of her suppressed pistol. "Do not move."
Roxana grabbed Zina’s wrist with surprising, desperate strength. "No. No, Zina, you are not leaving us. I have already lost too much. I will not lose you as well. We stay together!"
"If we stay together, they will catch us," Zina whispered fiercely, leaning in until her forehead touched her mother’s. "They are tracking our footprints in the dust. I have to give them a ghost to chase. I need to make them think we split up and went toward the north exit."
"Zina, please—"
"Five minutes," Zina promised, her eyes boring into her mother’s with conviction. "I swear on my life, Maman, I will be back in five minutes. Please stay here and be quiet."
Without waiting for permission, Zina slipped out of the alcove and sprinted back the way they had come, moving with the terrifying silence of a predator.
When she reached the junction where the tunnel split toward the northern city exit, she went to work.
She dragged her shoes through the dirt, kicking up a deliberate trail.
She found a rotting wooden support beam and kicked it hard, snapping it with a loud, echoing crack.
She grabbed a loose iron pipe and dragged it violently against the stone wall, the screeching metal amplifying through the corridors.
Finally, she raised her pistol and fired a single round into a metal electrical box mounted on the wall. The spark and the sharp ping of the ricochet echoed down the north tunnel, mimicking the sound of someone fleeing in a panic.
She immediately doubled back, moving silently along the opposite wall to avoid her own false tracks. When she slid back into the alcove, her mother let out a shuddering breath of relief.
"Let's go," Zina whispered, hoisting Reza back onto her shoulders. "Move."
The diversion worked. They heard the distant, muffled shouts of men echoing down the north tunnel, drawn away by the noise. Zina pushed her family forward, their pace grueling, until the stale air began to thin, replaced by the faint, distinct smell of salt water, diesel fuel, and rotting wood.
They emerged through a rusted grate hidden behind a stack of abandoned shipping containers on the edge of the industrial harbor. The night air was cold, biting through Zina’s thin dress, but she welcomed it.
***
The docks were relatively quiet at this hour, but Zina knew the shadows were deceptive.
If the Kazan organization had fractured from within, any one of the dockworkers or smugglers could be on the payroll of the men who had just butchered her family.
She bypassed the main offices, leading her mother and grandmother through the maze of towering metal crates until they reached a small, ramshackle structure built near the water’s edge.
She pushed the door open.
Inside, sitting at a cramped wooden desk illuminated by a single swinging bulb, was the Old Man.
He was a fixture of the harbor, his face weathered like driftwood, his hands stained with engine grease and tobacco.
He had managed the illicit comings and goings of the port for as long as Emir Kazan had ruled the city.
The Old Man looked up, a freshly lit cigarette hanging from his lips. He saw Zina in her ruined emerald dress. He saw Roxana, pale and hollow-eyed. He saw Meryam leaning on the doorframe, and the traumatized young boy clinging to Zina’s hand.
The cigarette slipped from the Old Man's lips, landing on the desk.
He didn't ask what happened. He didn't ask for details. The silence of the harbor and the sheer, devastating grief radiating from the women told him everything.
"I heard the sirens in the city," the Old Man said, his voice like grinding gravel. He stood up slowly. "The radio chatter is chaos. Emir...?"
"Gone," Zina said, the word tasting like ash in her mouth.
The Old Man looked at Reza, his weathered eyes softening for a fraction of a second, before turning back to Zina. He didn't ask for money. He didn't hesitate. Loyalty to Emir Kazan was a rare commodity tonight, but the Old Man still possessed it.
"The Caterina," the Old Man said, moving past them to peer out the small window toward the docks. "A cargo freighter. She’s fully loaded, untethering in fifteen minutes. Bound across the Mediterranean."
"Where?" Roxana asked, her voice raspy.
"Europe. Monaco, then the Italian coast," the Old Man replied. He looked at Zina. "It is not a passenger vessel. You will have to stay in the hold. It will be cold, and it will be dark. But the captain owes me his life. He won't put your names on any manifest."
"Get us on it," Zina said.
Ten minutes later, Zina stood in the cavernous, oil-stained hull of the Caterina.
The steel doors of the cargo bay were closing, grinding shut and cutting off the view of the harbor, the city, and the country she had ruled.
She arranged a pile of canvas tarps for her grandmother and mother to sit on.
Reza curled up in his mother’s lap, immediately falling back into an exhausted, traumatized sleep.
As the freighter’s engines roared to life, vibrating through the steel deck, Zina walked to a small porthole. She watched the lights of the harbor slowly pull away, bleeding into the black water.
She had kept them alive. For now.
***