“I don’t have many hobbies of my own,” Armond said when I did not answer. “I just enjoy watching people fulfill their promises to me. Since you had already promised me, it was only natural for me to come and claim it.”
That seemed like a far-fetched reason to me.
“What about my arm?” I asked, determined to change the subject.
A bullet went through it. You’re d*mned lucky to be alive after all of it.
“It’s nothing,” Armond said. “Just rest up well. You’ll be fine, just not able to lift heavy objects is all.”
I pursed my lips at that but nodded.
A scuffle of footsteps outside made me panic, thinking it was Abe, but it was only the nurse here to change my medication.
I had a lot more questions for Armond, but he seemed to be reluctant to discuss them with me. With several more reticent answers, he took his leave.
Armond’s relationship with Abe is more complex than I had first imagined.
After some hot soup, I fell back asleep.
It was rainy in the tropics. Thunderstorms had a tendency to start at night and keep me awake with their fearsome and savage roars.
The hospital was sparsely populated, which made it even spookier during the late-night storms.
I had no way of falling asleep, so I thought to sit up for a bit. I attempted to pull myself into an upright position.
I must have swung overly hard and had knocked the bottle of saline solution to the floor with a loud crash.
The doors swung open at the sound of the disturbance, and Danny entered the ward.
He frowned at the mess on the floor and turned to leave.
Soon after, he returned with a nurse who promptly cleaned it up. She relayed some instructions in broken English and departed.
Danny glanced at me and turned to leave.
“Mr. Danny!” I called out suddenly.
“Yes, Ms. Stovall?” he spun around and answered politely.
“I’d like to know what is going on between Ashton and Abe.”
Danny frowned with reluctance. “Ms. Stovall, you need to rest,” he said after a moment’s pause.
He turned again to leave. In a moment of panic, I flung the glass of water onto the floor to get his attention. “If you are going to threaten Ashton with my life, you should at least do me the courtesy of telling me why. I just want to understand what my death is for.”
Danny was unhappy. “Ms. Stovall, you should treasure life!” he said, with his eye on the broken shards of glass on the floor.
“Mr. Danny, I know you are not a native Venrian,” I said after a deep breath. “For whatever reason that landed you to be Abe’s associate, you must understand that after all the illegal things that you’ve done, you have your punishment awaiting you.”
He looked at me with amusement like I was a simpleton. Meanwhile, the nurse returned and cleaned up the shards.
Danny took a seat under the lamp. His dark skin glinted maliciously under the bright fluorescent as he looked at me. I suppressed my shudder at the sight of him.
“I’m not a religious man,” he said after a pause. “I don’t believe in retribution or punishment; you can take your piousness someplace else away from us. Mr. Abe and Mr. Fuller share a grudge that is personal in nature. Your appearance was part of the plan. When you were in the car with Dante, the plan was already formalized by Mr. Abe.”
“We thought you were a Murphy, when the Murphys came looking for you. But when you said that the Fullers, the Stovalls, and the Moores from K City will protect you, it was a clue that sparked our interest for further investigation. There wasn’t much news of you back in Chanaea, but the fact that we were all able to pull this off with no casualties demonstrated that luck was on our side.”
“What conflict did Abe and Ashton have in the past?” I asked, trembling. I did not expect to be used as a pawn that early on.
Danny leaned back on his chair. “’Conflict’ is an understatement,” he drawled. “Old Mr. Fuller and Mr. Abe’s father were comrades during the war. One of whom returned to Chanaea to retire, the other remained in Venria to defend its borders. The Fullers capitalized on their wartime glory to flourish and prosper, but Mr. Abe’s father didn’t fare too well out at the border. For the sake of his wife, he was forced to make an honest but meager living. He did not expect that George Fuller and his grandson would one day come back and visit him, much less bring up his old indiscretions.”
I frowned. I did hear of Grandpa Fuller visiting his old comrade along with Ashton at the border. On the way back they were assaulted and have met the Larsons.
Parker Larson had entrusted his sister to Ashton’s care before he died. They remained married for many years. It was because of Rebecca that things happened between Ashton and me.
Little did I realize that I was dragged into the middle of this again.
“Did something happen to Mr. Abe’s father?” I asked.
Danny nodded. “He was a hero on the battlefield. Forced to live a life of increasingly conflicting choices, his punishment was more severe than other men. To spare his wife and child the burden which he bore, he killed himself.”
I was shocked with pity. My mind turned to the night I saw Ashton. He had spent a lot of money on that necklace. “What is up with that necklace?”
