“Don’t touch me,” she whispered, as she slipped past, sat on the side of the bed. She took one of his cigarettes from the bedside, lit it with shaking hands. The act of smoking soothed her. She examined the liquor bottle, held it up to the light. “You’re really living it up.”
He watched her motionless from the other side of the room.
“Someone called you out to the office,” he said. “What did he say?”
She opened the bottle and took a swig and recoiled at the harshness, then she closed her eyes.
“He said you wanted to see me.”
“Why?”
“How the fuck should I know. Because you cared about me?”
“No, why would he say this? Why would he call you out there?”
She gritted her teeth in frustration. “I don’t know. You weren’t there. It got late. I came back. Sunny, who were these guys out there who attacked me?”
“I don’t know, they were just some guys.”
“Are you serious? They were just some guys and Ajay just happened to be passing by and you just happened to be in this hotel. Yeah? I’m supposed to believe this? Fuck. They were going to kill me. Or worse.”
“No one was going to kill you.”
“Fuck you.”
“Scare you, maybe.”
“Maybe? Well guess what? I was scared.” She took a deep breath. “God, Ajay was so . . .” She frowned. “If you didn’t call me, why was he following me?”
“Because you were at the office! I have people there. They said you were at the office. I sent Ajay out to keep an eye on you.”
“Fuck you, Sunny.”
* * *
—
They talked at cross purposes awhile, over and over, each one giving the side of a story that made no sense, that went in circles. She was there because she’d been called. Ajay was following her because she was there. She wouldn’t say that she’d been spying on the mansion, that she’d been seen by the same goon she’d encountered out in the resettlement plots. She refused to give this away. But slowly it made sense in her mind. They were screwing with her, sending her a warning, or maybe trying to get rid of her entirely. She thought about the goons surrounding her car, their bloodthirsty faces. Her mind went into terrible what-ifs, she saw herself being dragged out into the road, screaming, helpless, lost, and she knew she was going too far into something she hadn’t bargained for. And Sunny, in this room, what the hell was that about? That was another story.
* * *
—
“Seriously, Sunny. Where the fuck have you been? The last thing I saw of you was your father kicking you into that pool. It was a nightmare. A nightmare. And you abandoned me.”
He was sitting on the edge of the bed now. She could see him in profile.
“I had no choice.”
“You could have made one call.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I think I do. I understand them, I understand you.”
“I didn’t want to put you in danger.”
She laughed bitterly.
“If I’m in danger it’s because I came looking for you.”
He turned to face her. “It’s all gone to shit.”
“Yeah? Whose fault is that?”
“It’s mine,” he said.
“My God, you’re fucked up.”
“Why? I should never have put that ad out. I was being weak.”
“You were being human,” she said. “But yeah, maybe you shouldn’t have done it. Maybe we shouldn’t have done a lot of things.” She shook her head slowly. “It’s such a mess. I don’t want this violence. I don’t want to be involved in this. I just want . . .”
“I miss you,” he said.
“Oh, fuck off.”
“I do.”
He reached his hand out to her.
She held it.
“You really, really look like shit,” she said. “What are you even doing here?”
“I don’t know. Give me a drink.”
She handed him the bottle, he took a swig, and she lay on the bed and he pulled himself up alongside her, and they were both on their backs looking at the ceiling.
“Sunny, what he did to you at the villa, in the pool . . . that’s not normal. Fathers shouldn’t do that to their sons.”
“You live in a different world.”
“Maybe. Maybe I don’t anymore.”
He smiled an empty, pitiful smile.
“The pool was just the start. After I put that ad out,” he said, “he came down on me so hard. He sent his men into my apartment, and they destroyed everything. They smashed it up, and he came in and stood there and watched. He took my phones, my laptops. He shut my businesses down. Took my cards away. Put me on a leash. He said, ‘You never show our name and our face like that again.’?”