Anden had given the other man a searching look. “Was it worth it?” he asked. “Giving up whatever else you might’ve been, to take the path you didn’t think you would?”
Lott had shrugged. “Who can ever know? Was it worth it for you?”
When Anden had mentioned his recent musings about the future to Jirhuya, his boyfriend had listened and said, with sympathy, “I think it’s natural in our forties to start wondering if we’re past the main events of our lives, or if there are still other mountains to climb. Your position in the clan is an incredible accomplishment in itself, miyan. Maybe you’re wondering what else you could do with it.”
Jirhu was no doubt speaking from his own heart; his accelerating career in the Kekonese film industry wasn’t the only thing on his mind these days. Typhoon Kitt had damaged impoverished Abukei villages far more severely than the rest of Kekon. Jirhu had become increasingly involved in advocating for aboriginal communities and was now taking part in the ongoing protest on Euman Island, sometimes staying out for days at a time.
Anden worried for Jirhu’s safety, but he was hardly in a position to demand he stay away from possible violence when, as his boyfriend pointed out firmly, “If I can put up with even half of what you do for the clan, you can accept me doing something important for my own people.”
The town car took Anden beyond the city limits of Walai proper, onto a wide, freshly paved road reeking of asphalt fumes in the summer heat. Anden saw the tall barbed-wire walls and blocky watchtowers of the maximum-security penitentiary long before they arrived. At the security fence, Anden presented his paperwork to the sentry in the box, and then again at the office, where he was issued a visitor badge. After additional check-in procedures and thirty minutes of waiting in a small, yellow reception area, a guard escorted him into a room with a metal table and two chairs.
Anden sat down in one of the chairs. A door on the other side of the room opened and another guard brought the prisoner into the room, handcuffed and dressed in a gray jumpsuit. Anden had never met the man in person before, but looking at him, it was hard to believe he’d once been a formidable enemy of the Kaul family. Iyilo had been the right hand of the notorious jade smuggler Zapunyo, before he’d betrayed his boss, struck an alliance with the Mountain clan, and taken over the Ti Pasuiga crime ring. Now the barukan gangster was fat and middle-aged, his hair long and thinning away from his shiny forehead. All of his jade had been taken from him upon his arrest six months ago.
Iyilo sank ponderously into the seat opposite from Anden and squinted at him with disdain. “Who the fuck are you and what do you want?” he asked in accented Espenian.
Anden answered in Kekonese. “I’m Emery Anden from the No Peak clan.”
Iyilo sat forward slowly. “You’re one of the Kauls. The mixedblood cousin.”
“You knew me for a short while as the journalist Ray Caido.”
The smuggler thought about this, then barked out a gruff laugh. “So I have you to thank for killing Zapunyo all those years ago. Or maybe you should thank me for helping your family to get its revenge.” He rested his hands on his belly. “That’s one thing I can say I have over Zapunyo. I went down, but none of my enemies took me out.”
Iyilo had run Ti Pasuiga well enough at first. He had come from the Matyos gang in Shotar, and he’d learned from Zapunyo, so he did not lack for any ruthlessness. His partnership with Ayt Mada had allowed him to continue to dominate the lucrative black market jade triangle between Kekon, the Uwiwa Islands, and the Orius continent.
Unfortunately for Iyilo, he lacked Zapunyo’s skills in management. As a Keko-Shotarian foreigner, he held the Uwiwans in contempt. He viciously punished betrayals but did not spend money to cultivate loyalty by building village schools and hospitals as Zapunyo used to do. Over time, he failed to keep up relationships and pay off the right people, so he lost the iron control over the politicians and police that Zapunyo had wielded. In the years after Typhoon Kitt, when the Espenians demanded evidence from the Uwiwan government that they were taking steps to combat crime and corruption, the axe had finally fallen on Ti Pasuiga.
Even so, Iyilo could hardly be blamed for believing himself safe. He wore jade and lived in a fortified compound defended by dozens of guards who also wore jade. The understaffed, undertrained federal police force could not hope to go up against him. Instead, the Uwiwan government hired GSI to do the job.
A squad of well-equipped, jade-wearing private soldiers monitored Iyilo’s habits for weeks, then ambushed him on the way to a sporting event. They killed four of his bodyguards but took Iyilo alive, in accordance with the terms of their contract. The Uwiwan government made a victorious announcement and showed news footage of Iyilo in handcuffs, with credit for his arrest given to the national chief of security.