Kayla had no words for Lei, and Lei did not seem to have any words for her either. They drove all the way to the house in terse silence. Soon her assistant was pulling the car to a halt in front of the house."Here we are, ma'am." Lei said.She left the vehicle running and it rumbled quietly. Kayla considered telling the woman to go to hell and never show her face at her house again, but there was a tugging in her chest that pulled her towards Lei. Yes, the woman was her aide and assistant, her bodyguard and confidant. But at the same time, she was her friend. Lei had grown up with her and had watched her cry, lash out out her brothers, feel joy in all its brightnesses, grieve in silence, grieve loudly, loathe, love. So many things, infact, and that’s why now as she stood, she ran her finger across her silver ring and let herself think."Your mother," she said finally. "Is she safe?"The question seemed to stun her assistant into reticence. She gripped the wheel, her shoulders hunc

"Welcome back, Mr Johns." The flight attendant said cheerily.Her smile was the whitest thing Ceneau had ever seen, which was saying a lot as he grew up in a family of people whose dentition were made perfect by many years of orthodontics."Thank you," he told her grudgingly.The sun was out and bright, a flat golden blot in the sky. It burned his eyes with its brightness. He wanted to make sure his last night in São Paulo was well spent, so he spent it at another club. Hours of partying at nighttime tended to make the eyes burn in daylight.Ceneau plucked his sunglasses from the breast pocket of his jacket and put it on. Behind him, Gaude descended from the stairs. Jovian followed closely behind. The man had been the one who snapped him out of his haze. He had fallen into a pattern - parties and nightclubs and booze and wine and bars and women, in all the shades they came in. Ceneau figured, if he was going to spend the rest of his life trapped in an arranged marriage with a woman

As the sun's golden glow started to spill slowly over the length of the city, Reynolds woke up in Kayla's bed. She was lying next to him, having gotten back from work while he was asleep. He smiled at the sight of her, splayed out in bed. Her hair fanned out around the pillow and one of her legs encircled his waist. She slept like a child, messily. It was the only thing she did with any innocence and he was grateful to be the one who woke up next to her each night. Every other thing she did was done carefully with absolute precision. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and at his touch, she squirmed and smile in her sleep. He kissed her forehead and untangled himself from her and the sheets.It was the morning of Ceneau's wedding and Kayla had planned for it for weeks. By all indications, she wanted it to be perfect. He wanted to make sure all her efforts did not go to waste.The day unfolded with a seamless rhythm. He prepared breakfast quickly. It was pumpernickel wa

Gaude's daily routine had not been broken for a little over ten years.Every morning, he disassembled his handguns and put all the parts together again. Afterwards, he oiled them and made sure that the cartridges were full. Truth was, it had been years since he had had to draw his weapon and fire in defence of anyone. After being assigned to Ceneau Johns, most of the tasks he faced each day were of a more menial nature. He drove his young boss around the city and to events. He served as protection, which too often simply involved standing still in his dark suit and looking tough—an easy skill to acquire after having been trained at the academy. Gaude had worked for Ceneau for so many years, he could no longer trace the memory of being assigned to him back to the beginning. However, if there was one thing he had come to know about the young man, it was that he disappeared whenever he felt overwhelmed.It made the man unique compared to the rest of his kin. The Johns were balls of ra

"Where to next?" Reynolds asked the taciturn man.The silence in the car was sharp and bladed. Coupled with the fact that they still had no idea where Ceneau was, Rey could not help but feel stifled.Gaude glanced at him. "A bar a little further down.""What's there?""Ceneau, hopefully."Rey gave the man a dirty look and he relented. "It was somewhere Ceneau, Tate, Sean and Lloyd used to visit when they were younger. It has long since been overtaken by a biker gang and all sorts of people, like a rendezvous for the worst kind. The brothers stopped visiting the place a long time before then. Their taste changed. It is luxury hotels and expensive vacations now. But not Ceneau. Whenever he is in the country, he goes there.""The gang, they don't make trouble for him?"The bald man shrugged. "They could try if they wished to. I am often with him though. It would end poorly for them. But they don't even go near him. They stay away; leave him in peace. He says it is a haven, that place."G