Losham accepted the drink without looking up. "Please, join me." He motioned for the other chair.
Rami sat. "Difficult call?"
"No more than usual."
Number One pulled back from the glass doors and joined the others in the dining room, where they had a partial view of the garden but were well concealed in the shadows.
"He's in the garden with Rami," Number One reported to the full collective even though the hive mind perceived it all. "Drinking, smoking, and talking about the call."
We have to wait.He needs to relax before he can fall asleep.
33
LOSHAM
The night air was humid and still, and the cigar was anArturoFuenteOpusX, which was the only good thing about Losham's day.
He drew on it slowly, letting the smoke fill his mouth before releasing it in a thin stream that curled upward and vanished against the stars. The flavor was cedar and leather and something faintly sweet, and for three seconds between the inhale and the exhale, the anxiety in his chest loosened its grip enough for him to almost relax.
The garden was his sanctuary.
The house had been built to Losham's specifications, and he enjoyed every part of it, but the garden was his favorite spot. It wasn't about the landscaping, although it had been masterfully planned by a talented landscape architect who had been lured to the island by false promises, and it was carefully maintained by the gardening crew. It was the arrangement of the outdoor furniture on the stone patio. The angle that faced away from the other residences and toward the tree line, so that when hesat here at night, he could pretend that there was no island, no Brotherhood, and no brothers circling like sharks.
Just the sky and the smoke and the silence.
Rami walked out onto the patio holding a tray with a bottle of Macallan eighteen-year-old, two crystal tumblers, and a second cigar beside the glass.
"You anticipate my wishes," Losham said as Rami poured.
"It's not difficult, my lord. Your cigar is almost out, and you didn't have enough time to relax after the call ended."
Rami poured a second measure into Losham's empty glass. "I noticed that you finished the first glass during your phone call, my lord. You only do that when you're stressed."
Losham accepted the tumbler and took a sip. The whiskey was smooth and warm and did absolutely nothing to counteract the compulsion, but it softened the edges of everything else.
"Please, join me." He motioned to the other chair.
Rami sat. "Difficult call?"
"No more than usual." Losham puffed on his cigar. "You can drop the lord, Rami. We've been friends for a very long time."
Rami dipped his head. "I appreciate you thinking of me as your friend, and I am, but I'm also your assistant, and I don't want to appear disrespectful."
Losham cast him a smile. "You can do that when we are alone."
"It might slip when we are not, and I don't want to risk it. You have enough on your hands with your brothers and the clan and that basement that seems to be cursed by the gods."
Losham chuckled. "Not the gods. Just my father, who is only a demigod, a fact that shaped his entire personality."
Rami tilted his head. "In what way?"
"Inferiority syndrome. He is half human but as powerful as a god. He's driven by the need to prove that he's also just as worthy."
Rami nodded. "I understand."
Losham doubted his assistant could do that. It had taken Losham himself a long time to come to that realization.
"Pour yourself a drink." He gestured at the other glass.
