Chapter 19: The Boy My Father Made

ERDEM

The man was begging.

That was what I remembered first.

Not his face, not his name.

Only the sound of his voice breaking against the walls.

"Please."

The word echoed in my head.

"Please, I have children."

I was fourteen.

My hands were too small for the pistol my father had placed in them, but the weapon felt heavy enough to belong to someone already ruined. The grip pressed into my palm. My finger rested beside the trigger exactly as I had been taught.

The man knelt in front of me, his shirt was torn. One side of his face had swollen shut, blood ran from his mouth and dripped onto the concrete between his knees.

My father stood behind me.

"Look at him," he said.

I did.

The man's eyes were wide with terror.

My father's hand settled against the back of my neck.

Not gently, he was never gently.

"What do you see?"

I swallowed hard.

"A traitor."

"Wrong."

The man looked at me.

"Please, son. Please, I didn’t—"

My father's fingers tightened.

"What do you see?"

I stared at the kneeling man.

"A weakness."

"Better."

The pistol grew heavier in my hand.

The man started crying, He cried like he was trying to keep the sound inside himself.

My father bent close to my ear.

"Mercy is a disease," he whispered. "If you let it live, it spreads."

The man pleaded again.

I looked at the gun.

Then at my father said. "Shoot."

I did not move.

My father's hand left my neck.

For one second, I thought I had been given a choice.

Then the pistol in my hand was pressed harder into my palm as he stepped beside me.

"Shoot, Erdem."

The man lowered his head to the floor.

"Please."

I fired.

The sound swallowed the room.

The man collapsed forward. Blood spread beneath his head.

My ears rang.

My father looked at the body, then at me.

He placed one hand on my shoulder and said, "Now you understand."

I woke with my hand around a gun.

My father had vanished.

The room was dark.

For half a second, I did not know where I was.

The old cellar clung to me—the smell of blood, the concrete beneath my boots, the echo of the shot. My heart struck hard against my ribs, and sweat cooled along the back of my neck.

Then the estate returned slowly.

The faint city glow leaking through the edges of the window.

I looked down.

The pistol was in my hand, pointed toward the empty space beside the bed.

I lowered it slowly, my breathing remained too loud.

The dream had not come in years.

Not like that.

I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the pistol. The room was quiet except for the hum of the security system.

Then I saw Hendrix, not in the room.

In my memory.

The man had become Hendrix.

His face had been overlaid on the kneeling man's.

His eyes wide, his mouth trembling, his voice begging.

The image was wrong.

Impossible.

My grip tightened around the pistol.

I hated the image, I hated that my mind had put him there.

I stood and crossed the room.

The security panel beside the door lit beneath my touch. Cameras appeared one by one on the small screen.

Courtyard, east corridor, west stairwell, servant passage and Hendrix's room.

I selected the last feed.

His room appeared in pale grayscale.

He was asleep on his side, one arm beneath his head, dark hair fallen across his forehead, making him look younger than twenty-three.

I should have returned to bed. Instead, I took the tablet into my study and poured a drink I did not want.

The study was still arranged exactly as it had been the night before the raid. The portrait of my father watched from the wall. The floor panel remained beneath the rug. The hidden vault waited below the room.

Why carry so much hatred in such a small body?

I watched the feed.

Hendrix shifted in his sleep.

His face turned slightly toward the camera.

For a moment, I could see him clearly, the soft line of his cheek, the restless tension in his brow.

I told myself I was studying him. It was a reasonable explanation, except for the way I had shielded him in the courtyard.

I took another drink.

The alcohol burned down my throat.

Hendrix shifted again but this time he whispered something.

The microphone caught it faintly.

I leaned toward the tablet.

The word was almost lost beneath static.

"Liora."

I froze.

Who was that?

The name meant nothing to me but the way he said it like a prayer spoken at the edge of a grave.

His hand curled against the sheet.

The grief in that single movement reached through the screen more cleanly than any confession.

I had seen men whisper in dreams before, most of them whispered what they had lost but Hendrix seemed to whisper what he had failed to protect.

That was different.

I looked toward the portrait of my father.

The old man's painted eyes remained fixed on me. For years, I had believed that surviving him required becoming worse.

Crueler, colder or more exact.

Fear was control. Pain was instruction. Possession was protection.

Those were the rules he had given me. The rules I had never questioned, because questioning them meant admitting my father had not made me strong.

He had only made me useful.

I reached for the tablet and shut off the feed.

The screen went black.

For a moment, I saw my own reflection in it.

A man sitting alone in the dark, watching a prisoner sleep as though the prisoner were an answer.

I stood abruptly.

The chair scraped against the floor.

Enough.

I returned to the bedroom, placed the pistol on the nightstand, and tried to sleep.

I closed my eyes, then I opened them again.

By dawn, I had not slept.

HENDRIX

I woke before the guards changed shifts.

The room was still dark, but the estate had begun its morning movement. Pipes groaned behind the walls, and footsteps passed outside my room.

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling.

Then I turned my head toward the camera. The tiny red light was steady.

I wondered whether Erdem had watched me sleep.

Irritation flickered through me.

I turned away from the lens.

No. I would not give him that much space inside my mind.

I sat up thinking of what Silas might ask me to do.

A knock sounded at the door.

"Come in."

The lock turned.

A servant entered carrying fresh clothes and a breakfast tray.

Behind him stood a guard I had not seen before, younger and nervous.

I noticed the pistol under his jacket and the way he kept glancing toward the corridor.

New guard. New routine.

The servant placed the tray on the table, then he stepped back.

"Mr. Veyra has asked that you join him in the study after breakfast."

My fingers paused over the cup.

"Why?"

The servant lowered his eyes.

"He did not say."

Oh my, did Silas tell him.

I looked toward the camera once, then back at the servant.

"When?"

"As soon as you are dressed."

The door closed behind them.

I remained seated, staring at the breakfast tray.

Erdem wanted me in the study again.

I did not know whether he had learned about the listening device, I did not know whether Silas had told him, I did not know what the device had already captured.

I lifted the cup and took a small sip, then I set the cup down and began to dress.