Chapter 10: Truth or Consequences
The suite felt too quiet after the wind and the waves. Azana stood in the middle of the spacious room, the plush carpet soft under her feet, waiting. Malik moved to a minibar built into a sleek, dark-wood cabinet. The clink of glass was overly loud.
“You want a drink?” he asked, his back to her. “I think we both need one.”
“Water,” she said. Her mouth was dry, but she wanted a clear head. “For now.”
He nodded, pouring himself two fingers of amber liquid from a crystal decanter. He didn’t turn around. “You sure you want to do this? Once you know, you can’t unknow it. It changes things.”
“They’re already changed, Malik. I’m in it. So let’s skip the warning label and get to the contents.”
Before he could answer, a brisk, staccato knock rattled the suite door, followed immediately by the sound of a keycard sliding through the lock. The door swung open.
“Okay, you two lovebirds, I’ve had enough of the mysterious… vibes,” Dee announced, sweeping in with a bottle of bourbon in one hand and a deck of cards in the other. She wore a shimmering kaftan and a determined expression. “I’ve been patient. I’ve been subtle. Now I’m being a nosy old friend.” She stopped, her eyes darting between them. “Whoa. What’s with the funeral faces? Did the sea air kill the mood?”
Azana let out a tight breath, part relief, part frustration. Dee’s chaotic energy was a welcome disruption to the dread that had settled in the room. “Dee, it’s not a good time.”
“It’s the perfect time!” Dee set the bottle and cards on the low table with a thump. “I come bearing gifts and a proposition. We’re playing strip poker until one of you spills the damn truth. I can smell the secrets from down the hall. It’s giving me hives.”
Malik finally turned, a weary, almost amused smile touching his lips. “Strip poker, Dee? Really?”
“It’s a classic! Clothing comes off, walls come down. It’s psychological warfare with a dress code.” She plopped onto the large sofa, patting the cushions on either side. “Sit. Unless you’d rather just tell me why Azana looks like she’s about to perform a field amputation and you look like you’re waiting for the firing squad.”
Azana exchanged a look with Malik. Dee was a bull in a china shop, but she was their bull. And maybe, in a way, her unsubtle method was what they needed. A circuit breaker.
“It’s not a game, Dee,” Malik said quietly. The shift in his tone—the complete absence of his usual melodic warmth—made Dee’s playful grin falter.
“Okay. So it’s serious.” She leaned forward, the mischief in her eyes replaced by a sharp, focused concern. “Then talk. I’m not just here for the piña coladas.”
Malik ran a hand over his face. He walked to the far side of the king-sized bed, to the ornate nightstand. He paused, his hand hovering over the drawer. “You asked for the whole story. This is part of it.”
He pulled the drawer open. Inside, amidst a tangle of charging cables and a paperback novel, lay a sleek, black handgun. It looked brutally functional, out of place against the polished wood and silk sheets. The cabin lights glinted coldly off its slide.
The air left the room.
Dee sucked in a sharp breath. “Holy mother of God.”
Azana didn’t flinch. Her paramedic’s training kicked in, an analytic calm overlaying the shock. She assessed it visually: semi-automatic, likely 9mm, no safety that she could see from here. A tool for one purpose. Her eyes lifted from the gun to Malik’s face. “You have a license for that?”
“In some states,” he said, his voice flat. “Not on this ship, obviously. It’s stayed hidden. Until now.”
“Why?” The word was a bullet itself.
“Because the people I used to work for don’t send strongly worded letters, Azana. They send people. The guy on the mountain was a warning. A ‘we know where you are’ reminder. The next messenger might be less polite.”
Dee found her voice, low and strained. “Who did you work for, Malik?”
He closed the drawer softly, but the image of the gun seemed to burn in the space between them. He came back to the sitting area but didn’t sit. He stood like a man awaiting judgment.
“My family wasn’t like yours, Azana. My father was a… facilitator. He moved things. Money, mostly. For certain organizations. When he died, the business didn’t. They expected me to step in. I was good at it. Charming, discreet, good with numbers.” He took a sip of the bourbon, not tasting it. “I was in my early twenties. The money was stupid. The power was a drug. I thought I was smart, playing in the deep end.”
Azana listened, her mind piecing together the man before her with the ghost of the one he described. The easy confidence that could be perceived as control. The way he watched a room.
“I got out seven years ago,” he continued. “Sold my share, laundered the money through a series of dummy investments, and used it to bankroll my first album. I thought I was clean. I thought they’d let me walk away.” He laughed, a hollow sound. “Nobody walks away. Not really. You just go on a long leash. My music career, the tours, the respectability—it was all a nice, quiet way for them to keep an eye on me. A retired asset is still an asset.”
“And the leash just got shorter,” Azana stated.
“Yeah. A guy named Carver. He was my father’s protégé. Now he runs the show. He’s decided my ‘retirement’ is over. He wants me to facilitate one more deal. A big one. I said no.” Malik’s gaze was steady on her. “The landslide was his reply. This?” He gestured toward the nightstand. “This is mine.”
Dee stood up abruptly, pacing to the window. The ocean was a black void. “So we’re on a floating tin can with a target on it. Great. Just fucking great.”
“I didn’t know they’d move like this,” Malik said, his focus on Azana, pleading for her to understand. “I thought I could have this. You. A week of peace before I figured out how to make him back off for good. That was selfish. And stupid.”
Azana finally moved. She walked to the minibar, poured herself a finger of his bourbon, and knocked it back. The heat washed down her throat, grounding her. She’d seen the aftermath of this world. The bodies in alleyways, the hollow-eyed families in the ER waiting room. She’d never sat across from the cause before.
“What’s the deal?” she asked, turning back to him. “What does he want you to do?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
He held her stare for a long moment. “A shipment. Coming into Tacoma. Pharmaceuticals. He needs a clean, legitimate front to receive and distribute. A touring musician with a corporate shell and a warehouse seems pretty clean.”
“And if you say no again?”
Malik was silent.
Dee answered for him, her voice bleak. “They don’t send a landslide next time. They send a person.”
The three of them stood in a tense triangle. The gentle rock of the ship felt like a taunt.
“We get off at Juneau,” Azana said decisively. “We find the first flight to Seattle. You go to the police.”
“The police are how I know which cops are on his payroll,” Malik countered gently. “It’s not that simple.”
“Then what is your plan?” Her voice rose, fraying at the edges. “Wait for them to corner us in an Alaskan port? Hope your one bullet counts?”
“I have a contact,” Malik said. “A guy who got out clean. He’s off-grid, but he left me a way to reach him for emergencies. He might know how to pressure Carver. I was going to call him when we docked.”
“Call him now,” Dee insisted.
“It’s not a phone call, Dee. It’s a process. It takes a day, maybe two.”
Azana walked over to the bed and sank onto the edge, the fight draining out of her, replaced by a cold, professional calculation. She’d triaged scenes with less information. “Okay. Okay. We have two days at sea. They know you’re on the ship, but they don’t know you’ve made me. They don’t know about Dee.”
“They will if they’re watching,” Malik said.
“Then we act normal. We go to the shows. We have dinners. We give them nothing to see but a vacation fling.” She looked at Dee. “You can’t be seen with us anymore. It’s not safe.”
Dee snorted. “Honey, I retired from dance, not from life. You think I’m scared of some two-bit gangster? I’m from Miami. My ex-husband was a district attorney. I know how to be a pain in the ass.” She picked up the deck of cards, tapping it against her palm. “But fine. We’ll be discreet. But we stick together. All three of us.”
Malik looked at Azana, his expression raw. “You should walk away. Get Dee to hide you in her cabin. Disappear into the ship’s crew if you have to. I’ll draw the attention.”
Azana stood up. She crossed the room until she was right in front of him. She took his face in her hands, just as she had on the balcony. The fear was there, a live wire in her chest, but beneath it was a stubborn, unyielding fury. “You don’t get to be noble. You dragged me into this the moment you looked at me across that bar. So we’re in it. We see it through.”
She saw the conflict in his eyes—the shame, the relief, the burning want to protect her. He leaned his forehead against hers, a gesture of pure exhaustion. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Save it,” she whispered back. “And put that damn thing somewhere safer. If we’re playing normal, we can’t have the maid finding it.”
A shaky laugh escaped Dee. “Well. This took a turn. I was hoping for some sexy secrets, not… this.” She hefted the bourbon bottle. “I think we still need this. And forget strip poker. We’re playing go-fish for our goddamn lives.”
Malik kissed Azana’s forehead, a soft, searing promise. Then he went to the nightstand, opened the drawer, and removed the gun. He disappeared into the walk-in closet. When he returned, his hands were empty. The space where the weapon had been seemed to vibrate with its absence.
“Normal,” Azana said, more to herself than anyone. She picked up the deck of cards from the table. “Okay. Deal me in.”
Dee poured three glasses, her hand remarkably steady. The ice cubes clinked like tiny alarms. Outside, the great, dark ocean held them, moving steadily toward a shore where the past was waiting, armed and impatient. For now, they had a game to play, a performance to maintain, and two long days to get through without flinching.