Chapter Thirty Hypocritical
Chapter Thirty
Hypocritical
Hasan woke with a pulsing headache. Eyes closed, he grimaced. Pain ebbed and flowed from his left temple. Without opening his eyes, he brought his hand up to the side of his head. When his fingers came away sticky, his eyes flew open.
Though it was dark, he knew exactly what the metallic-smelling substance on his hand was: his own half-congealed blood.
He blinked at the sight, dazed. Had he had an accident while he’d been out with Poppy?
They’d been in Sanivali Square. She had finally come around, demonstrating excellent control over her power.
For a moment, the memory filled him with warm pride.
Then he flinched as he recalled what had happened next.
“Zeyar!” Hasan flung away the cotton sheet someone had draped over him, stumbling out of bed. A wave of dizziness washed over him. He staggered into the wall, knocking one of the paintings to the ground. He paid it no mind, lurching toward the door.
He was going to find Zeyar. And then he was going to kill him.
“Zeyar!” he shouted again, tripping into the hallway.
Heavy footsteps pounded up the staircase.
Zeyar’s head appeared first, followed by the rest of him.
He wore a white button-down shirt and the same gray slacks from earlier, dirtied from where Hasan had kicked at him.
The sleeve on his burned arm was rolled up, clean white bandages wrapped around the wound.
Hasan launched himself at his brother without a second thought. The two of them flew backward, crashing into the wall behind the landing, denting the drywall.
“What’s wrong with you?” Zeyar wrenched him into a headlock.
“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Hasan said, thrashing furiously. “How could you deal with Montrose? Without telling me?”
All this time, he’d thought Zeyar had gone to the city to take care of Vinay’s family.
He’d authorized him to act on his behalf, trusting him to keep his interests at heart, and then he had gone and done the very last thing Hasan would have wanted.
He twisted out of Zeyar’s grasp, dancing back before swinging at him.
“There was no point discussing it with you!” Zeyar dodged the blow. “You wouldn’t have understood.” They separated, circling each other like lions.
“Because it was the wrong choice!”
Hasan lunged for Zeyar again. The two of them hit the ground with a heavy thud, each one scrambling to subdue the other.
“You act like there was a choice,” Zeyar said, his chest heaving as he held Hasan down. “What did I tell you, Hasan? There is no white or black, only shades of gray. Men like Richard Montrose will always win. We’d only be damning ourselves by supporting the losing cause.”
“Poppy could have done it.” Hasan panted, the strain on his old injuries catching up to him. “I spent all week training her. You should have seen how quickly—”
“You trained her?” Zeyar stared at Hasan. He looked down the remaining flight of stairs, where their ma had appeared, summoned by the sound of violence. “Did you know he was training her?”
“The girl is daivyakt,” Rohini declared, hands on her hips. “She deserved to know how to commune with the gods.”
Zeyar turned back to where he had Hasan pinned, eyes blazing. “You broke your promise. You said you’d stop acting out based on your personal moral code.”
“You did the exact same thing!” Hasan snapped his head forward, bashing his skull into Zeyar’s nose with a sickening crunch.
Zeyar grunted, lifting his hands to protect his face instinctively, allowing Hasan to throw him off at last. Zeyar rolled down the remaining flight of stairs, forcing their ma to jump back.
“Hasan!” she said, her eyes flashing with a warning.
He didn’t heed it. He leaped down the flight before Zeyar could rise, grabbing him roughly by the collar. He shook him once, hard. “Tell me what he promised you.”
“I did it to bring Paranjay home,” Zeyar said, blood staining his teeth.
“I did it for both of you. He’d have raided every holding of ours, razed every safe house, until he found Poppy.
Even if we had the numbers to defend ourselves, we’re no match for his weaponry.
We lost eleven men at the museum. We lost Vinay—”
“Don’t you fucking talk about Vinay,” Hasan said.
“You yourself almost died. I got him to stop!”
“You got nothing.” Hasan shook Zeyar viciously. “You say you did this to bring Paranjay home? Well, where is he, then? Where is he?”
Zeyar closed his eyes. Then, finally, he said, “He’s in the city.”
“He’s still in jail?” Rohini covered her mouth.
“As part of the bargain, Montrose moved Paranjay to a third location and gave me the address and the key when we arrived in Sanivali. He didn’t trust me enough to bring Paranjay here until he knew it wasn’t an ambush.” Zeyar tossed Hasan a dirty look.
His words bothered Hasan, though it took him a minute to realize why. “Tell me what else you got from him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Part of the bargain,” he repeated. “You said part. What were the other parts?”
“I got immunity, for all of us.” Zeyar shoved him away. “We won’t be charged for Poppy’s kidnapping, so long as we don’t provoke the police further.”
“And that’s all?” he asked. When Zeyar hesitated, Hasan said, “Swear that that’s all he promised you. Swear it on our grandfather.”
Zeyar relented, running a hand over his hair. “His father, the marquess, has agreed to sponsor me as one of his picks in the House of Representatives.”
The revelation was like a kick to the teeth. Hasan’s shaking hands curled back into fists. “How could you?”
“I told you,” Zeyar said. “We can only protect ourselves if we have a voice in the system. Paranjay would never have been taken if we’d had someone to guard our interests.”
“Poppy could have been our voice!” Hasan exploded. “That was my whole point, but you refused. What makes you different from Poppy, Zeyar? What makes you think you can survive the machine that you profess will devour her?”
“Because, unlike her, I’m not reaching for a position that I could never keep,” Zeyar said, pointing at himself. “I only play games I know I can win. The girl has bitten off more than she can chew. She is one woman vying for the top office in the colony. No one will support her.”
“I support her!” Hasan shouted. “I’d already told her we would back her, and then you went and ruined it.”
“That was a choice you made without me,” Zeyar said, “which is ironic, given that you’re upset that I made a choice without you. What makes us different, Hasan?”
He recoiled. “Because the person I chose to back doesn’t have a history of violence against us!”
“So, personal opinion.” Zeyar’s dark brow lifted, the twin to Hasan’s scar standing in stark relief. “Your personal opinion on the matter is what makes it okay for you to act on your own, whereas if I do the same, I’m the bad guy?”
Hasan’s head throbbed, though it had little to do with the wound on the back of his head.
He couldn’t find the words to describe why what Zeyar had done was so wrong when it so closely resembled his own actions.
He’d known supporting Poppy meant breaking his promise.
He’d chosen to ask forgiveness over asking permission.
But in that moment, he found it hard to get down and beg forgiveness at the feet of the same man who had planted a knife in his back.
“You could have told me your plan. At least I was honest about where I stood on supporting Poppy.”
“And I was always honest about not supporting her,” Zeyar retorted. “I told you she was the weaker choice. You don’t listen, Hasan. Even if I’d told you what I was planning, you wouldn’t have listened. All you care about is what’s morally correct. You don’t understand how the world works.”
“It doesn’t matter what’s morally correct,” Rohini said. “You secured a political role for yourself before you secured your own brother’s freedom. What kind of man are you?”
For that, Zeyar had no answer.
Hasan couldn’t look at him anymore. “You should go.”
“You can’t tell me to leave.” Zeyar stood his ground. “This is my home too.” He turned to their mother. “Tell him, Ma.”
She tilted her chin up, the cords of her throat prominent as she clenched her jaw. “You can come back when you get Paranjay.”
Zeyar stared at her. “Are you serious?”
Their ma did not flinch.
His face went slack. He dusted himself off, adjusting the bloodied collar of his button-down shirt.
“Very well. You’re upset; I can tell. When I return with Paranjay, I hope you’ll be ready to apologize to me.
” Zeyar reached for his blazer, slung across the banister.
His movements were slow, as though he were hoping Hasan or their ma would change their minds.
They didn’t.
Zeyar buttoned the jacket, his eyes blazing.
“I did this for you. For us I’ve won a seat in a House that has never opened its doors to Virians before.
Now we have a seat at the table where they wouldn’t even toss us scraps.
But you want to cast me out? Fine!” Zeyar wrenched the door open.
“Promise me this, Hasan: Don’t go after Montrose.
Don’t try to rescue Poppy, or storm the precinct, or any other shit like that. Stay out of trouble.”
“Fuck off,” Hasan said. “I owe you nothing. I only make oaths to my brother, and the only brother I have is rotting in a Marnapur jail.”
Zeyar flinched. It was a tiny, fleeting gesture that betrayed his proud indifference, but he covered it quickly with that ice-cold confident facade that Hasan hated most.
“When you get over yourselves, call me,” Zeyar said. The door slammed shut behind him.
And with that, the second Devar brother was lost.