Chapter 3: The Delivery Man's Threat
The painting stared back at her, a chaos of dark lines. Her finger stayed on the frame, feeling the cool wood grain. The scanner’s green light flickered behind her eyes. A problem, Rizwan had said. Now he is both.
She pushed.
The painting swung inward. The safe’s green glow was sickly now, a bioluminescent warning in the dim study. She didn’t touch the passports or the gun. She ignored the velvet pouch. Her hand went straight to the photograph at the back, pulling it out. Liya’s laughing face, Daniel’s softer smile. She turned it over. On the back, in faded blue ink, was an address in Penang. And a single word: Lighthouse.
She slid it back. Her eyes fell on the gun. Small, black, impossibly heavy when she lifted it. The metal was cold. It smelled of oil and nothing else. She put it back exactly as it was, the barrel angled away from her. She closed the safe. The painting swallowed it whole.
She went to the living room, the receipt with Samad’s plea crumpled in her fist. She sat on the velvet sofa, the cashmere throw beside her, and watched the sun bleed out over the skyline. The chandelier’s light grew stronger, painting long, distorted shadows of the window frames across the floor. She didn’t move.
The key turned in the lock just after eight.
Daniel entered, a storm contained in a black tailored suit. He saw her immediately, a small figure swallowed by the large sofa, still in the satin robe from the morning. His eyes scanned the room, the doors, the windows, before landing on her. He dropped his keys into a bronze dish. The clang was too loud.
“You’re sitting in the dark,” he said, his voice gravel.
“The delivery man,” she said. The words sounded thin. “He had a scanner. For the lock.”
All motion in him stopped. “When?”
“After Rizwan brought me back. He said you sent him. A package. He tried to get me to unch the chain.” She swallowed. “I didn’t.”
He was across the room in seconds, kneeling before her. His hands, large and warm, framed her face, tilting it up to the light. He examined her eyes, her expression, like he was looking for cracks. “Did he touch you?”
“No.”
“Describe him.”
“Young. Red shirt. The shirt was cheap, polyester. He had a mole here.” She touched her own philtrum. “He didn’t look at me. He looked at the door.”
Daniel released her face. A muscle in his jaw pulsed. He pulled out his phone, tapped once. “It’s me. We have a breech. The apartment. Today, between four and five. A male, early twenties, mole above the lip. Posing as courier. He used a lock reader. Get the building’s footage. Find the company, the van, his real name. I want it before midnight.” He listened, his gaze fixed on the wall behind her. “And pull Rizwan. His eyes are getting soft.”
He ended the call. The silence he left was different, charged and brittle.
“Who was it?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet.” He stood, pulling her up with him. His hands ran down her arms, a quick, assessing motion. “You did good. Slamming the door. Calling me.”
“Your assistant answered.”
A flicker of annoyance. “I was in a meeting that couldn’t be interrupted. It won’t happen again.” He began to loosen his tie, his eyes never leaving her. “Did you go out after? Anywhere?”
“No.”
“You’ve been sitting here since?”
“Yes.”
His gaze drifted to the crumpled paper in her hand. “What’s that?”
She unclenched her fist. The receipt was damp with sweat, the ink smudged. “Samad. My cousin. I saw him at the mall.”
Daniel went very still. “Saw him.”
“He grabbed my wrist. Rizwan intervened.” She took a breath. “He gave me this. Our uncle’s landlord is trying to triple the rent. He’s going to lose his shop. Samad asked… he asked if you could have a friendly word.”
The air in the room thickened. Daniel took the receipt from her, smoothed it on his thigh. He read the names. His expression was unreadable, a flat, calm surface over deep, black water.
“A friendly word,” he repeated softly. He looked at her. “And what did you say?”
“I said it wasn’t a good idea.”
“But you kept the note.” It wasn’t an accusation. Just an observation.
“I didn’t know what to do with it.”
He folded the receipt neatly, once, twice, and put it in his own pocket. “I’ll handle it.”
“How?”
“The way it needs to be handled.” He cupped her face again, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. “You were scared today. Really scared. I could smell it on you the moment I walked in.”
She nodded, a slight tremor starting in her knees.
“That’s my fault.” He leaned in, his forehead touching hers. His breath was warm. “I built a beautiful cage and forgot the world has teeth. I won’t forget again.”
He kissed her then, not with hunger, but with a profound, sealing certainty. His lips were soft, his movements deliberate, as if he was rewriting the memory of her fear onto her mouth. He picked her up, her legs wrapping around his waist automatically, the satin robe falling open. He carried her not to the bedroom, but back to the sofa, laying her down on the velvet that still held the day’s warmth.
The chandelier light caught the fine threads of the fabric, glinted off the pale skin of her thighs. He stood over her, stripping off his suit jacket, his tie, his watch. Each item was placed neatly on the armchair, a study in control. He unbuttoned his shirt slowly, revealing the intricate tapestry of tattoos across his chest and abdomen—tribal motifs, a coiled serpent, script in a language she didn’t know. The history of his violence written on his skin.
He joined her on the sofa, his weight pressing her into the cushions. He kissed her throat, the hollow between her collarbones, his hands pushing the robe fully open. He worshipped her body with a desperate tenderness, his mouth hot and seeking, as if memorizing her contours by taste. When his tongue flicked over her nipple, she arched off the sofa with a sharp gasp.
“You’re mine,” he murmured against her stomach, his voice vibrating through her. “Every scared breath. Every heartbeat. Mine.”
He hooked his hands under her knees, pushing them up and apart. He looked at her, his dark eyes blown wide with a mix of fury and devotion. He entered her in one slow, inexorable push, filling the empty, frightened space inside her with something solid and claiming.
She cried out, her fingers digging into his biceps.
He didn’t move. He stayed buried to the hilt, his body trembling with the effort of restraint. “Say it,” he breathed, his forehead beaded with sweat. “Let me hear it.”
“Abang,” she whispered.
He began to move, a deep, rolling rhythm that had none of the frantic pace of the study. This was a pledge. Each withdrawal was a confession of absence; each thrust was a vow of return. He shifted, pulling her up, turning her so she was on her knees facing the back of the sofa. He draped himself over her, one hand tangling in her long hair, the other gripping the generous swell of her hip.
“This,” he grunted, driving into her from behind, his voice raw at her ear. “This is the only thing that’s real. The only thing they can’t touch.”
He held her like that, anchored, as the world outside the windows dissolved into a blur of city lights. Her moans of “Abang” became a broken chant, matching the slap of skin on skin, the creak of the sofa frame. She fell apart first, a silent, seizing unraveling that left her blind. He followed with a choked, guttural sound, his teeth sinking into the tendon of her shoulder as he emptied himself into her.
He collapsed beside her, pulling her half onto his chest. They lay tangled in the wreckage of her robe, their sweat cooling in the conditioned air. His heart hammered against her ear.
Minutes passed. The shock of intimacy gave way to a fragile calm.
“The safe,” she said into the silence.
His hand, which had been stroking her back, stilled. “What about it?”
“I opened it again. Today. After the man left.”
He didn’t pull away. He didn’t get angry. He just let out a long, weary breath that lifted her head with his chest. “Why?”
“I needed to see her again. Liya.” She felt him tense. “There’s an address on the back. Penang. ‘Lighthouse’.”
He was quiet for so long she thought he’d fallen asleep. “Our grandmother’s house,” he said finally, the words rusted from disuse. “That’s where the picture was taken. She loved that place.”
“Is she…”
“Gone. A year after Liya.” He shifted, looking down at her. His eyes were ancient in the low light. “You looked at the gun.”
“I touched it.”
“Do you want to know how to use it?”
The question hung in the air, lethal and simple. This was the line, the one he’d warned her about. The moment you know, you’re in.
“No,” she said. Then, more firmly. “Not yet.”
He nodded, a ghost of approval in his eyes. He kissed her hair. “Smart girl.”
His phone, facedown on the coffee table, buzzed. Once. Twice. A specific pattern.
He sat up, taking her with him, wrapping the cashmere throw around her shoulders. He answered on speaker.
“Boss.” It was a different voice, younger, strained. “We found the van. Abandoned in Old Town. The scanner’s inside, wiped. The shirt was in a dumpster. No prints.”
“And the man?” Daniel asked, his voice lethally calm.
“He’s a ghost. Not on any crew roster we know. The mole might be fake. This was professional.”
Daniel’s fingers tightened on the phone. “The building footage?”
“The feed for the service entrance was looped for a six-minute window. They knew the blind spots.”
A professional. A ghost. Naira shivered, pulling the throw tighter.
“The origin?” Daniel asked.
“Working on it. The method… it has a signature. It’s tidy. This feels like a probe. Not a full move.”
Daniel’s eyes met Naira’s. The tenderness was gone, burned away by a calculating fire. “Lock it down. Triple the perimeter. No one gets a sniff of her schedule. If the uncle’s landlord so much as jaywalks, I want to know.” He paused. “And send a team to Penang. The grandmother’s house. I want to know if anyone’s been asking around.”
“Understood.”
He ended the call. The quiet of the apartment felt different now. Not safe, but fortified.
“Who’s probing?” Naira asked.
“Someone who knows what I am. And knows what you are to me.” He stood, naked and unselfconscious in the dim light, a predator surveying his territory. “They’re not coming for the safe, Naira. They’re coming for the thing that makes the safe matter.”
He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, staring out at the glittering, deceptive city.
She watched the hard line of his back, the tension in his shoulders. The man who had just made love to her with heartbreaking tenderness was gone, replaced by the gargoyle. The brother who had lost a sister. The lord who saw threats in shadows.
She rose, letting the throw fall. The satin robe whispered against her skin as she crossed the room. She pressed herself against his back, her cheek against the ink and muscle and scar tissue. She felt him shudder.
“Then let them come,” she whispered, her hands splaying across his stomach. “And let them see what happens.”
He turned in her arms, his expression shifting again, the war between his two selves raging in his eyes. He cradled her face, his touch almost reverent.
“If they touch you,” he said, his voice a low vibration of pure promise, “I will not have a friendly word with them, sayang. I will burn their world to the ground and salt the earth. And I will make you watch, so you understand exactly what your ‘Abang’ is capable of for you.”
Outside, a siren wailed, distant and fleeting. Inside, they stood entwined before the window, a target and his guard, a husband and his wife, the chandelier light painting them in gold and shadow, waiting for the teeth to show themselves.
Inside, they stood entwined before the window, a target and his guard, a husband and his wife, the chandelier light painting them in gold and shadow, waiting for the teeth to show themselves.
The morning arrived with a brittle, clear light. Naira woke to find Daniel already dressed, standing at the foot of the bed tapping a silent rhythm on his phone screen. The cut on his jaw was an angry red line. He looked like he hadn’t slept.
“You’re going in,” she said, her voice scratchy with sleep. It wasn’t a question.
“I have to.” He didn’t look up. “Things need moving. Safehouses. Routes. This probe changes the board.”
She pushed herself up on her elbows, the silk sheet pooling at her waist. The previous night’s fear had hardened into a cold, clear resolve in the light of day. She remembered the photograph in the safe. The lost sister. The lost version of him. “What if they’re watching the offices? They’ll expect you to run there.”
That made him look up. His eyes were guarded. “So?”
“So don’t give them what they expect.” She swung her legs out of bed, the cool air hitting her skin. She walked to him, placing her hands on his chest, feeling the starched cotton of his shirt. “Stay. Just today. Let them watch an empty car leave. Let them wonder where you are.”
A faint, weary amusement touched his mouth. “And what would we do? Hide in the apartment all day?”
“We could be normal people.” The words felt foreign on her tongue. “We could go out. Together. In the daylight, where everyone can see.”
He barked a short laugh, devoid of humor. “Normal people. You think that’s a shield?”
“I think it’s confusing.” She kept her gaze steady on his. “And I think you need to breathe. Just for one day. Before you start burning worlds.”
He studied her, his intense eyes scanning her face for doubt, for fear. He saw only a stubborn plea. He cupped the back of her neck, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin behind her ear. “You’re asking me to play house while someone is sizing up the foundation.”
“I’m asking you to have breakfast with me. Then maybe buy that hideous ceramic owl your interior designer keeps suggesting.” She managed a small smile. “We never got a wedding registry. Consider this a hostile takeover of your aesthetic.”
The silence stretched. He looked past her, out the window, his mind clearly racing through contingencies and threats. Finally, his shoulders dropped a fraction. He let out a long, controlled breath. “One day,” he conceded, his voice low. “And we use my car. And we don’t lose Rizwan’s replacement.”
“Deal.”
The replacement driver was a woman. Selvi was compact, with sharp eyes and a polite, unwavering demeanor. She held the door of a modest sedan open, her gaze constantly sweeping the garage perimeter. “Ma’am,” she nodded to Naira. “Sir.”
The mall was a monument to polished excess. They walked through soaring atriums, past cascading water features that did nothing to mask the low hum of consumer frenzy. Daniel kept her close, his hand a firm presence on the small of her back. His eyes never stopped moving.
“See?” Naira said, nodding toward a store selling ridiculous crystal figurines. “Normal people. Arguing over whether that glass badger is tasteful.”
“It’s hideous,” Daniel muttered, but she felt some of the tension leave his fingertips.
They wandered into a high-end boutique. A sales associate fluttered over, recognizing the cut of Daniel’s suit instantly. Naira drifted toward a rack of dresses, the fabrics whispering under her touch. She held up a slip of emerald green silk.
“That’s the color,” Daniel said from behind her. He was closer than she’d realized.
“Of what?”
“Of your eyes when you came last night on the sofa.” His voice was a quiet rumble meant only for her. The sales associate discreetly turned away.
Her cheeks warmed. “Subtle, Abang.”
“I’m not a subtle man.” He took the hanger from her. “Try it on.”
In the mirror-lit changing room, the silk fell against her skin like water. It clung to her small waist and flared over her hips, leaving her back bare. She stepped out.
Daniel was leaning against a pillar, examining a men’s tie. He glanced over. Every other thought visibly left his head. His gaze traveled down her body, a slow, possessive inventory that had nothing to do with the dress and everything to do with what was beneath it. Selvi, positioned near the entrance, watched the room’s other occupants with renewed intensity.
“We’ll take it,” Daniel said to the associate, his eyes never leaving Naira.
“You haven’t even seen the price.”
“I don’t care.” He finally looked away, pulling out a black card. “Wear it out.”
“I can’t. The tags.”
“Give them to me.” He took the plastic tag and carefully snipped it with a small tool from his keychain. He handed her the dress’s matching jacket. “Now you can.”
It felt illicit, walking out in the new silk, her old clothes in a bag. The mundane act of shopping had been transformed into another kind of claiming. They bought the hideous owl, a bizarre Art Deco piece with overly large eyes. Daniel carried the bag without complaint.
“Happy?” he asked as they passed a crowded food court, the smell of fried dough and sugar hanging thick in the air.
“Strangely, yes.” She laced her fingers with his, feeling the familiar roughness of his knuckles. “This is nice. Pretending.”
“We’re not pretending.” He stopped, pulling her slightly out of the main flow of foot traffic, near a potted fern. “This is real. The dress is real. Your hand in mine is real. The threat is also real. They can both exist in the same minute.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “That’s the life I’ve given you. The beautiful tension.”
Before she could answer, his attention snapped to the left. His body shifted, minutely, placing himself between her and the escalator. Selvi closed the distance, her hand hovering near the waistband of her trousers.
A group of teenagers spilled out of a tech store, laughing and shoving each other, oblivious. Daniel watched them pass, the hard line of his shoulders gradually relaxing. The moment passed.
“Come on,” he said, his voice forcibly light. “I need coffee that doesn’t taste like it was brewed in a panic room.”
They found a quiet café tucked away from the main thoroughfare. He ordered for them both. As they waited at a small marble table, his phone buzzed. He read the message, his expression not changing, and typed a quick reply.
“The landlord,” he said, putting the phone away screen-down. “Goh Tian Beng.”
Naira’s spoon stilled in her coffee. “And?”
“And he had a sudden, profound change of heart this morning. He visited your uncle personally. Offered a new ten-year lease at the old rate. He was very apologetic. Said family is important.” Daniel took a sip of his espresso. “He even brought a fruit basket.”
The casualness of his tone was more frightening than any threat. “What did you do?”
“I had a friendly word.” He met her eyes over the rim of his cup. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
She thought of the safe, the gun, the ghost with the scanner. This was the ripple. A friendly word that made a man bring a fruit basket. “Thank you,” she said, the words tight in her throat.
“Don’t.” He reached across the table, covering her hand with his. “Never thank me for that. Just know it’s done.”
They drove home as the afternoon faded. The ceramic owl, now unveiled, stared blankly from the console. The green silk dress felt like a second skin. Selvi saw them to the door, her eyes giving the empty hallway a final sweep before she disappeared toward the service elevator.
Inside, the apartment was silent and cool. Daniel placed the owl on a shelf, where it looked absurd and somehow fitting. He stood there, looking at it, then out at the darkening sky.
“Today was good,” he said, his back to her.
She came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against his shoulder blade. “It was.”
He turned, pulling her into an embrace that felt different. Less desperate, more sure. He rested his chin on top of her head. “Tomorrow, the world.”
“Tomorrow,” she agreed.
But for now, there was just the quiet, the absurd owl, and the scent of jasmine from a candle she needed to relight. The teeth were still out there, waiting. But for this moment, inside the beautiful tension, they were just a man and a woman, home from a day at the mall.