to a bathroom, and fresh soap and shampoo and a toothbrush. When she started to take off the dove, he stopped her. “No. I want you to wear it always. A hope for peace.”
He gave her fresh pants, a shirt, underwear. Demi brought up bread and fruit for breakfast. He thanked Demi, and so did Yasmin. Demi gave her a surprised glance as she went back downstairs.
“It’s nice to be one of us. To be free from the closet, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Come with me.” He felt a thrum of excitement in his chest; it was just like going back onstage.
He brought her down into the main dining room and there they were: Piet, Demi, six other men including the twins who often stared at her. Now they all stared at her. And in the middle, where the dining-room table should have been, there was a man tied to a chair. Thick rope bound him; a gag protruded from his mouth.
He moaned as Edward and Yasmin entered, his face bruised and beaten.
“Do you see this man, Yasmin?” Edward said.
“Yes, I see him.” Her voice was flat.
“He’s a terrible man, Yasmin. He has been working on a scheme to take you from us and to kill you if he cannot take you away.”
“To take me and to kill me?” Her tone was quiet, unruffled.
“Yes, to take you back to your father. He contacted one of our people with a mouthful of lies; we followed him. Do you know this man, Yasmin?” Edward grabbed the former spy’s head, twisted it toward her. He’d been beaten badly, but she studied the face and finally she shook her head.
“Your father knows we are protecting you from him. Your father sends people to destroy us. In secret. Like this man.”
She said, “Well, that’s wrong. I don’t want to go back to what I was.” And she spat in the man’s face. The gob of saliva hung off a clotted eyebrow, dense with dried blood.
The group gave a soft murmur, watching her.
“Are you sure you don’t know him? He has tried to infiltrate us, through Piet.”
“I don’t know him.” She looked at Edward.
The man bound to the chair stared at her and Edward took the gag from his mouth. “I just… I just want the money I’m owed. By Piet. That’s all. I don’t want to know about anything else.”
“You know about me. From who?” Edward said.
“I don’t know…,” the man said in Turkish, and then Edward started to beat him. Yasmin tried to look away and Demi said, “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare look away or we’ll tie you to the chair,” so she didn’t.
Under his fists, Edward saw the blood leap in its little splatters and the teeth break. He stopped and picked up one of the man’s hands. “I have ten ways to make you talk, right here. Bahjat Zaid sent you, yes?” he said, and he began twisting the fingers hard.
Finally the man screamed, “No, no. All right, Zaid sent me,” and then a torrent of words that Yasmin couldn’t follow, and Edward, leaning close, his hand on the man’s shoulder, gentle now, like they were friends.
“You were going to steal our shipment when it arrived in Rotterdam?”
“Yes… trade it for Yasmin. I would get it and then trade it for her. So I could take her back to her father. I will tell you all. Please just don’t…”
“So your route to smuggle our goods from here to America, that was all a lie? I just want to be sure I understand. You have nothing to fear if you tell me the truth.”
“Yes. It was a lie. All a lie. There was no route.” His breathing came in hard jolts.
Edward stepped away, wiped a speckle of blood from the toe of his shoe. He gestured at Demi, standing by a camera. He snapped fingers and said, “Action!”
Demi started the video camera.
Edward pulled out a gun, its barrel capped with a silencer, from the back of his pants. He handed it to Yasmin. He could hear the sudden gasps of the others.
“Act one,” he said. “Kill him.”
She took the gun in her hand. She looked at him in confusion.
“It’s not a test, Yasmin. It’s a duty.”
The man was broken, blood dripping from his mouth. His gaze met hers.
“Yasmin, do it. Now, please, my to-do list is not getting shorter,” Edward said.
She didn’t raise the gun; she stared at the beaten man.
“Yasmin…” He hoped he wouldn’t have to threaten to kill her again.
“I’m deciding