Sunil sighed, relenting. “We were loading the ship. It took longer than normal because Paranjay was late, so we had to load his share, and then we had a couple of new boys with us on this trip who were moving slowly. Paranjay was doing the final check in the hold when several cops?—maybe twenty, thirty??—came up the dock. Most of them had nightsticks, some had handguns. It wasn’t much of a fight. Paranjay tried to use his daivyakt to suffocate the officers, but he ran out quickly, and they overwhelmed him. One of them caught me in the back of the head, but he didn’t knock me out fully. I jumped off the dock and swam under the boat. I had enough daivyakhi to create an air bubble there, so I waited?—hey!”
Hasan launched himself at the first mate, striking him in the face with a satisfying crack.
“No attacking my patients,” his ma scolded, shoving him away. She lifted Sunil’s chin, examining Hasan’s handiwork as he cursed.
“You gave me your word!” Sunil cried. Blood oozed from both a broken nose and split lip, staining his teeth.
“Youran away, you coward!” Hasan moved to strike him again, but Zeyar grabbed him by the back of the jacket. “You could have fought, but instead you chose to save your own sorry hide.”
“There was nothing I could do!” Sunil said. “They outnumbered us. What did you want me to do?”
“You could have come to us!”
“That is true,” Zeyar said, turning to Sunil. “Why did you hide for two days instead of coming for help?”
“I didn’t know what black deal you’d strike with the pigs,” Sunil spat at Zeyar. “You’d trade anyone if you stood to profit. Obviously, Paranjay is the same, too, sending his thug brothers after me instead of dealing with me himself.”
“He can’t come after you because he’s injail,” Hasan snapped.
Zeyar winced. His ma went deadly still. Even Sunil gaped in shock, blood continuing to drip unnoticed from his broken nose.
His ma recovered first. “Paranjay is in jail?” she whispered.
“He is.” Hasan jabbed a finger at Sunil. “Because this gutless idiot abandoned his crewmates.”
“The only people responsible for Paranjay’s kidnapping areyou!” Sunil sat upright, glaring at the brothers. “I told him smuggling that much opium was dangerous, but you lot wanted to make more money per trip. It’s your own greed that?—”
Sunil stiffened. A scalpel gleamed at the base of his neck, sharp as the look in Rohini’s eyes. “Get out of this clinic, before I cut you open to see if you’re truly as spineless as you act.”
“Madam!” Azha exclaimed. She’d been so quiet the whole time, Hasan had nearly forgotten she was there. “What about the healer’s code?Do no damage, take no sides.”
“Oh, damn the bloody code,” Rohini said, but she lowered her scalpel. “You can finish draining his wound, Azha. I’ve gotten most of it, anyway.” She turned to look at her sons. “I want to speak to you both. Now. Outside.”
“Now you’ve done it,” Zeyar whispered as they followed their ma. “Great job. Magnificent.”
Now that his rage had ebbed, Hasan found himself regretting his outburst. “She was going to find out eventually.”
Rohini stopped in the hall, turning her furious gaze on the two of them. “What’s this about your brother being arrested?”
Zeyar gave Hasan a look that said,All you, buddy.
Hasan sighed. “Paranjay was supposed to make another shipment,” he said. He recapped Sunil’s story, combining it with the information Raman had given them to lay out what they knew thus far.
Their ma’s eyes flashed. “You’ve known about this fortwo days, and your first thought wasn’t to call your mother?”
“We didn’t want to worry you until we could get a plan in motion,” Zeyar said.
“And did you?” Rohini put her hands on her hips.
Hasan blinked. “Did we what?”
She narrowed her eyes at them. “Did you get a plan in motion?”
“Yes,” Zeyar bluffed.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “So, what is it?”
“We’re going to raid the precinct,” Hasan announced as Zeyar said simultaneously, “We’re going to bribe the guards.”
