2. The Midnight Visitor

CHAPTER 2

The Midnight Visitor

Dominic

The city lights glimmered like a million distant candles. Every window, every streetlamp, every car emitted their brightness and warmth. People lived their lives from one day to the next in this big pile of concrete and disappointments.

I turned away from the glass walls of the top floor of my penthouse, turning my back to the city and its lights. I preferred the dimness of my office, its dark brown tones, discreet lamps and their soft, noninvasive glow, and the silence that filled the room.

Footsteps treaded along the hallway outside, and the door slowly opened. Orwell held his head high as if he was escorting a member of the royal family, but when he moved aside to let the young prince pass, it wasn’t a prince at all but a grocery salesboy with a bright orange beanie and cheeks pink with cold.

“Thank you, Orwell,” I said, holding back the note of surprise. “You can leave us.”

Orwell did so without another word. The door shut behind Zain, who stiffened at the sound, possibly holding himself against jumping. He looked at me with a sullen expression I had grown used to seeing on people. Good , I decided. I don’t need you to like me.

My gaze traveled down the length of Zain’s black coat and dark jeans, stopping on his sporty sneakers and returning to his face. His high cheekbones complemented his face. Long lashes framed his chocolate eyes, and black eyebrows lay flat over them for a look of pure contempt.

“I’ll admit I’m a little surprised to see you,” I said, my voice deep and velvety. “What do you want?”

His lower lip quivered momentarily, and he clenched his teeth, the muscles in his face tightening. He lifted a hand that held a phone, the screen bright and filled with images of children. Some included Zain; most included his mother and father. There was a girl of maybe fifteen or sixteen and two younger boys. “I want you to see my father’s children.”

My gaze landed on the screen again, then at his petulant face. “Consider them seen.”

“Whatever you want from my father, remember that these kids will pay the price,” he said in a tight voice. It was surprising to hear the anger there since his voice had been so soft and smooth this morning.

I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms on my chest. “What exactly do you think I want from your father?”

Zain licked his lips nervously. I noticed then just how much it cost him to be here. He kept the phone up and between us, the images open on the screen. “Money,” he said, a hint of a question mark appeared at the edge of that word. “For whatever reason,” he added hastily.

“What? Like for protection ?” I asked, unable to keep the sneer away.

Zain shrugged. “Maybe. I can’t think why you would need it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, boy,” I said with disgust that made him recoil. “I’m not a goddamn mobster.”

Although his breaths were shallow and his fingers restless, he managed a contemptuous little laugh. Damn him.

“I made my wealth honestly,” I growled, heat flushing my face once I realized I was justifying myself to a twenty-something-year-old. I had been mocked enough times that I should have been used to it by now. Still, his disbelief opened up a wound that had never fully healed.

“I’m sure you have an honest reason to come down from your palace in the clouds to bother hardworking people like my father. We barely scrape by without people like you wanting a cut.” The desperation in the kid’s tone was the same old sad song I had heard a million times.

I rolled my eyes. “Your father owes me nearly forty thousand dollars, boy. And if he didn’t care to ask for your esteemed opinion in these matters, why should I justify myself to you?”

He visibly lost some of his youth at that moment. Hardness came into his face, and he held the phone like a gun. He mouthed the number. “But…that’s impossible.”

Few things gave me as much pleasure as proving someone wrong. They all doubted me at every step of the way, and Zain Rashid was no different. “Impossible?” I moved over to my desk, opened a drawer, and produced a folder with Amar’s name on it. I tossed it to the other side of the desk, and Zain glanced down at it. He moved his arm down and tucked his phone inside his coat’s pocket, then approached the desk without touching the folder.

“You’re a loan shark,” he said in disgust.

“Shame on you,” I replied in a cold, restrained tone, then leaned over the desk and opened the folder for him. “These are favorable interest rates. Your father’s timely repayments over the years helped him lower the rates until he was practically making money.” It was an exaggeration, of course, but it wasn’t that far from reality. “Your father mortgaged his house and business for the loans. He came to me when banks wouldn’t consider him. Now, why on earth he hadn’t consulted his then-teenage son is frankly beyond me, but I would appreciate it if you spoke to your father before accusing me of foul play.”

“House?” Zain asked in a thin voice. He had come here riding on the wind of ideals and romantic notions, showing me his siblings as if it mattered, but he would leave defeated and disillusioned. While I enjoyed proving people’s assumptions about me wrong, I found no pleasure in destroying this young man’s beliefs. “I didn’t know,” he said, his lower lip quivering for half a heartbeat before he stilled it. “Nobody knew. Please…” He looked at me with that same pleading expression I had seen on countless faces. I was so easy to dismiss until their futures were in my hands, but then the doe-eyed looks came into play.

Zain Rashid had his father’s big, dark eyes, but he had his mother’s complexion. He was an odd mix of Lebanese and Mexican heritage, cooked in the great American pot, and when he lost the cold composure, the natural beauty of both sides of his ancestors melted into one. If I were an easily moved man, I would have hesitated then. But it had been a long, long time since I had last been impressionable. And I had learned my lessons then.

“I’m not running a charity,” I said, my voice sore and rough. “And I will have this debt settled one way or another. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe it’s past your bedtime.”

“I’m not a kid!” Zain balled his fists and stared at me. He was half a head shorter, and there was a scattering of hair above his lip and over his chin that didn’t exactly work in favor of his fiery statement, but his molten-chocolate eyes blazed with fury. “Stop acting like I am.”

“Fair enough,” I said coolly and squared my shoulders. “Now, Mr. Rashid, get out of my apartment.”

He took a hurried step back, staring at me just as intensely, and turned on his heels. He was gone in a heartbeat.

As I returned to my chair, I recalled the faces of the three former owners of the HVB investment firm. They had been so devastated to learn that the scrawny guy they’d picked on mercilessly was their new boss. I couldn’t wait to see their fathers’ reactions, each sitting on the board as a token of respect. They had been so eager to protect their sons from any disciplinary action I might have put in motion that even the college board urged me to let it go. And I had. I hadn’t trusted the disciplinary board to deal with these assholes. There was nobody out there who could be trusted. The only power was the power of a clean contract between two parties. Anything beyond that was too speculative and susceptible to corruption.

My entire life was built on contracts. It was perfectly clear to me at any moment who was right and wrong because I never left the terms vague. Why I shouldn’t feel justified for sending that little brat home with a bruised pride was beyond me, but I tried my best to put him out of my mind.

The lights of the city glimmered miserably.

I longed to return to the quiet solitude of my home. I longed for this business to be over. If only Amar Rashid would have respected the men I had sent to collect the debt. But as things were standing now, my presence was unavoidable.

Zain

I walked quickly down the street and around the corner, huddling in my coat against the chilling gusts of wind. Maybe it wasn’t the cold wind that made me shiver. Perhaps it was a pair of icy eyes devoid of all humanity and warmth.

I should have listened to Mama Viv. For all my stupid hope that I could change his mind about pressing this further, I had only angered a very ruthless man.

My mother was still up when I returned home. My siblings were in our little room upstairs, and Mother was in the office in the back of the shop, reviewing the day’s work. There had been little of it. “Zain?” she called softly when I appeared in the hallway.

“Mom?” I replied, hating the desperate question in my voice. “Is Father back?”

“No, darling,” Mother said. “But he will be. Don’t worry about him.”

I swallowed the knot in my throat. “Did you know? About Blackthorne?”

Mother’s face was lit softly by the desk lamp. Her features were elegant, and I had been lucky to inherit them, or so people said when they teased my father. She smiled a little and nodded. “I knew, darling.”

“Why did nobody tell me?” I asked.

“What difference would it have made, Zain?” Mother asked calmly. “We needed money, and business was going well enough that your father was confident in taking a loan.”

A harrowing suspicion had haunted me the entire day, and seeing the dates on Dominic Blackthorne’s contracts only made things worse. I had noticed that my father’s first loan was six years old, but that one had not been particularly high. He had taken on more debt four years ago and even more the year after. “What did you need the money for?” I asked.

Mother stiffened in the chair. “This and that. Your father’s new truck for the store, the warehouse expansion…”

“Yes, six years ago,” I said. “And then?”

“Zain,” Mother said, her voice darkening into a warning. “Will you let us handle this?”

“It was my college tuition, wasn’t it?” I asked. They had been so damn proud that I had enrolled. They had been so willing to fund it. “It’s not so expensive,” Father had claimed, thankful I had been happy with a public, in-state college. He had made it clear, however sadly, that private colleges were not something I could consider. “Wasn’t it?” I demanded, failing to hold back the note of anger.

My mother stood up proudly. “Mind your tone,” she said, but the threat wasn’t in it. “Your father and I did what we thought was best, and you will let us handle it. I don’t want you to get involved.”

“We could lose our home for a useless Communications degree,” I said, tears welling in my eyes before I could blink them away. “And for what? So I could work at the cash register?”

“Zain, I will not tolerate this,” Mother warned me, but she closed the distance between us as soon as she had spoken, putting her arms around me and pulling me into a tight embrace. “These were not your decisions,” she said in a low, hurried voice. “And they’re not your problems to fix.”

How could they not be mine? It had been my degree that had buried us so deep. And it had been the degree I had wanted so badly that my parents had no choice but to find a way to make it happen. I could still remember the burning desire to study, even if I hadn’t moved out of our home or done much of what college students did.

My mother held me until the hot and angry tears dried away. Once we pulled away from one another, she repeated in a low tone, “You will not involve yourself, Zain. Let your father handle it.”

I said nothing.

My father was home in the morning when I woke up. It was still dark outside, and the day promised to be rainy and cold. I quietly got out of my bunk bed, trying not to wake Karim, who occupied the upper bed, or the other two siblings sharing the bunk bed across the room. Sitting at the dining table, my father poured himself coffee, his strong brew that made the house smell like the winter of my childhood in my heart and mind, and he ran his fingers over his thick mustache. “Zain,” he said softly as I pulled the door shut.

Once my siblings were out of earshot, still fast asleep, I unwrapped the T-shirt I had grabbed from the back of my chair and pulled it over my head. “You’re back,” I said.

“I needed to see some people,” Father said in a voice that betrayed nothing.

He must have read the question from my face. I didn’t dare voice it, and I should have concealed it better. He was, after all, my father. That carried some weight in this house.

“No, Zain,” Father said in a tone edged with authority. “I did not look for lenders.”

I pressed my lips into a tight line. That they had gone so far as to ask Dominic Blackthorne for money to pay my tuition without telling me the truth hurt my soul. It made me feel like a kid, even though I had shouted at Dominic that I was not one. What right did I have to claim I was an adult in the company of adults who shielded me like this?

I left my father sitting in silence while I brushed my teeth and poured myself filter coffee, which was much milder and preferable, in my opinion. This was how we always started our day.

When I sat down and took a sip of coffee, Father looked into my eyes. “Your mother is worried, Zain.”

“I know. We’re going to lose the house,” I said bluntly, making my father wince and regret my words instantly.

“Mr. Blackthorne is not as unreasonable as that,” Father said quietly, lifting the small cup of coffee with three fingers and bringing it to his lips. The cup was white porcelain with a striking turquoise pattern around the middle and only three fingers deep. Father would drink his coffee hot in small sips and then pour more from the bronze pot.

“He is very unreasonable,” I protested. “He’s here to settle the debt, Father.”

“He’s here on his business, and it makes him agitated,” Father said calmingly. “Everyone knows Mr. Blackthorne hates being in the city. The rule is never to do business with him when he is away from Harringford, his home.”

“Is that where you did business with him?” I asked.

Father nodded once, deeply. “And it is where I should go to speak to him. Not here when he is angry.”

I gave a pained laugh and stifled it so I wouldn’t wake the others up. “Do you hear the sound of this?”

“Zain,” Father said, but it was an attempt to soothe me rather than to warn me that I might be overstepping.

“He acts like a petulant prince,” I hissed. “We can’t speak to him here because he’s angry? That’s ridiculous. And how will you meet him there? He’s in the city right now, and he wants his money, or he’ll set his lawyers on us.” I wanted to shout that we were screwed, but that language could earn me a warranted slap on the mouth or the next appropriate response.

“I will arrange it,” Father said firmly. “I will take part of the payment to him personally. To Harringford. And we will speak as human beings.”

“What? While I sit here, useless, watching you call in every favor you can for the sake of a degree, which I never get to use?” I asked, my voice cracking. “Do you have any idea how pathetic that makes me feel?” I asked.

Father looked at me with clear pain in his eyes. “I wished I could spare you that, Zain, but I couldn’t. You never should have been troubled with this.”

“I shouldn’t have studied if we couldn’t afford it,” I said, my voice squeaking as I was torn between raising it in a desperate plea and keeping it low for the sake of my sleeping family. “Don’t you see I can’t just sit and wait?” The plea was unmistakable now.

Father clenched his fists on the table and squared his shoulders. “You will do nothing, Zain. This is not your mess to unmake.”

I sat still as my father stood and left the kitchen. The pit of desperation opened in my stomach like a black hole. He wouldn’t let me, and I was powerless. I had been powerless all my life. Respect your father, respect your mother, provide for your siblings, be a good student, and pray to God for a better tomorrow . But where did all that leave me? When could I be myself if not in a time of crisis?

For the rest of the day, Father was mostly gone. After I had done my round of deliveries in the neighborhood, I took over the store and sat alone for the rest of the day. It was a typical rainy day around here; under the table, Mary Renault’s books about Alexander the Great and his lovers were safe enough that my parents wouldn’t question their contents, although they were tantalizing reads to me. They filled me with the yearning for a passionate love I could never have outside the books.

It was Saturday morning, and my father sat in the office with an envelope full of borrowed cash, and my mother and siblings were upstairs when Dominic Blackthorne strolled into the shop as if he already owned it.

“Good morning,” Blackthorne said. “Is your father here, Zain?”

“What do you want?” I growled, closing The Persian Boy under the counter and standing up.

“Oh, let us not go through this again,” Dominic said tiredly. “I wish to speak to your father. And have what is owed to me.”

Resignation came over my face. I looked into his cold eyes. “You are ruining our lives.”

He might have said that our lives were not of concern to him. He might have said it hadn’t been his choice to get to this point. He might have defended himself in a million ways, except that my father chose to enter the shop just then. “Zain, apologize to Mr. Blackthorne.”

“No need,” Dominic said, waving his princely hand through the air. “He is young. He’ll learn.”

“Forgive him, Mr. Blackthorne,” Father said in what was almost a meek tone. I hated to see him like this. He had come to this country in search of freedom and prosperity, but he bowed to a rich man who fancied himself a lordling.

The footsteps coming down the stairs were many, so I gathered that my entire family would observe the spectacle. “Amar?” Mother called from the hallway in the back of the shop, the three kids huddled behind her.

“Mr. Blackthorne is here, Maria,” Father said. “Would you make us coffee?”

“Not necessary,” Dominic said crisply. “I am returning to Harringford Manor when we are finished, and not a moment too soon, I’ll tell you.”

Father hesitated, almost as if fighting the urge to dry-wash his hands before Dominic’s cool gaze. “Mr. Blackthorne, I am collecting money to pay you back. I hoped to meet you at Harringford next week.”

“That won’t be needed, Amar,” Dominic said. His mustache and the beard on his chin were darker and longer than the stubble on his cheeks and jaw. It gave him a deceptively elegant look. “I am here in person, as you expressed you would prefer the last time my man visited. So? How should we do this?”

Father looked stricken. It broke my heart in ways I didn’t think I could ever truly fix. “There is a problem, Mr. Blackthorne. If you would only accept what I have collected so far and extend…”

“Amar,” Dominic said and blew a breath of air in disappointment. “We had an agreement.”

“Let me work for it,” I heard myself say.

“Zain,” Father snapped, and Mother repeated my name a heartbeat later. She added, “Silence.”

Dominic’s gaze shot in my direction with something like interest.

“Forty grand, huh? I can work that off in a year, can’t I?” I suggested, my mouth dry with fear. I wasn’t scared of doing this. I was scared that the words came out of me without any thought at all. It was like my mouth was enchanted.

“A year?” Dominic asked, offended. “Think of me what you will, but my gardener’s assistant makes that much in half the time.”

“How generous,” I said tightly.

“Why should I let you work for me when I can settle the debt with so much less inconvenience?” Dominic asked. He was willing to play this game. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked. His gaze was solidly on me now, black pupils dilating with curiosity.

“Don’t listen to him, Mr. Blackthorne,” Father said.

Dominic didn’t let that distract him. Looking into my eyes, he replied to my father, “He is an adult, Mr. Rashid. And a noble one if he wants to help solve your mess.”

This was the first time Dominic extended any courtesy to my father, addressing him as mister instead of that patronizing one-way use of the first name. I wondered if it meant he was showing some respect.

“I do,” I said calmly. “And I’m a hard worker. There’s nothing I can’t learn to do.”

“Is that so?” Dominic asked, taking a step toward me.

I hated how it made me look up to keep my gaze on his eyes.

“Zain, stop this,” Father said. “You will not do this.”

I looked away from Dominic to my father. “Yes, I will,” I said firmly. I hadn’t thought about it, but the decision had already been made. “It’s my college tuition. I won’t let you borrow money from half the neighborhood to pay a shark for it.”

“Mind your tongue,” Dominic growled. “Or we have no deal.” Someone who didn’t want this would have cut me off a while ago. Dominic had a reason he was still listening, and for curiosity’s sake, I wanted to find out what it was. And could it have anything with the shameless way his gaze had traveled over me two nights ago? The thought sent chills down my spine, but the tingling sensation wasn’t confined only to my spine.

“Father, please,” I said. “Let me earn this.”

“He will be paid well,” Dominic said. “And if he truly can work, perhaps he will make more than is necessary.”

Father considered this, although he was reluctant.

“Zain, don’t,” Mother said softly. My siblings were gone, and I hadn’t noticed when they had left.

Dominic expressed mild boredom when he next exhaled. “I need to leave soon. Will you please make up your mind? I will wait in my car.”

Something hot and molten uncoiled in me. I hated him.

Dominic walked out, and Father crossed the shop furiously. “Why did you do this, Zain?”

“I told you yesterday,” I said softly, almost guiltily. “I…can’t just sit here and let you pay for it. Not if I can help it.”

“But you’ll go with him. To Harringford, Zain. Your place is here. By God, I should be going instead,” Father said.

I had wished to leave for college, although I had never admitted that aloud. I had wanted to taste the same freedom people my age tasted at eighteen when they moved into dorms and learned to handle their own time. I had never had any of that, and it was something I couldn’t get anymore.

I didn’t want this to be my place. I sure as hell didn’t want Harringford to be my place, but if I could work and prove myself, maybe my parents would finally see me as more than a child in need of protection.

“I want to do this,” I said. “And I’m old enough to make that choice.” And when that didn’t soften my father’s features at all, I added, “You’re needed here more than me. And you have Rami and Yara to help you around the store.”

“He made his choice, Amar,” Mother added softly. I was surprised to hear it, but she took my side. With my father’s hand in hers after a moment, Mother looked at me. “You shouldn’t let Mr. Blackthorne wait.”

“Maria,” Father said, exasperated.

“He’s proud, Amar. Too proud, just like you,” Mother said kindly, her eyes glimmering with tears like I was going away for good. Perhaps, in some way, I was. Not a little boy anymore. Normal kids had this moment when they enrolled in college, but my studies had been so uneventful that they hadn’t disturbed my regular life at all. “We can’t deny him this.”

Father’s face relaxed a little. “Alright,” he whispered, then looked at me. “Alright,” he repeated louder. “You may go with Mr. Blackthorne, but there is a condition. If he mistreats you in any way, yells at you, or complains about your work, you will return.”

I nodded. I couldn’t see Dominic Blackthorne keeping his tongue, but I imagined I could fly under his radar for the most part. He would forget all about me within a week.

“Go pack some clothes,” Father said. “I will keep them waiting for you.”

I hurried away from the cash register like an arrow, finding my biggest backpack and stuffing it with the kinds of books I didn’t want anyone finding and reading. I didn’t want them to find out some hard truths in my presence, and I didn’t want it extra hard in my absence. So I stuffed my backpack with all the risky titles and a small pile of T-shirts and pants, put on my coat and beanie, and kissed my siblings goodbye. Karim was upset, although I wasn’t sure how much he understood. “I’ll be back,” I promised.

“When?” Yara asked.

I shrugged. “Soon.”

And that was it.

Downstairs, my mother hugged me. “Text me when you can,” she said. “And call me.” She kissed me on the cheek. “You’re too rash for your own good.”

“I know,” I whispered. I picked up Mary Renault’s books from under the counter and then shook my father’s hand. He pulled me into a hug, tapped my upper back, and let me go.

The door of a large black SUV opened as I approached it, and tightness squeezed my chest hard as I reached for the handle to open it wider.

Dominic Blackthorne sat comfortably on the far side, an armrest lowered between the large seats, and I climbed into the car. The air was filled with that unique scent of pine and fresh snow. It tickled its way through my nostrils and into my lungs.

“We can go, Orwell,” Dominic said once I shut the door.

The SUV glided smoothly along the road. Dominic didn’t look at me. He didn’t even acknowledge me, so I gazed out of the window at the passing buildings. One of them was Mama Viv’s Neon Nights, where I had delivered fresh vegetables just this morning, thinking I would stop by tomorrow again. I wouldn’t. I had made a big, rash decision, and it very well could have been wrong.

But excitement glimmered in me like fireworks.

I had never made a big decision before. And I had never been rash. My pulse sped as I settled into the comfortable seat and let the silence wrap itself around us. Nobody spoke a word as we made our way to Harringford Manor.