“Are you home alone?”
She nodded.
Very well, if Darsh Jana wasn’t here, then Hasan could wait. He had all night. “Might I come in?” he asked. It was a formality, not a request.
Daria opened the door fully, stepping aside so he could cross over the threshold. “Come. Let me make you some chai.”
The inside of the house was even more decrepit than the outside. Though a broom was propped up against the wall, the bare floor was still grimy. A layer of dust coated the stiff, threadbare furniture. He moved quietly around the cramped room, inspecting the faded picture of Darsh’s parents hanging on the wall, a limp garland of dead flowers draped over it.
In the kitchen, Darsh’s sister was making a racket as she prepared tea for the two of them.
“Where’s your brother tonight?” he called, running a finger over the dusty frame.
“Oh, I wouldn’t know.” Daria laughed a little. “He’s always working, my brother. Does every odd job he can find. He’s not gotten a moment’s rest since Mama and Baba passed.”
Touching, but entirely untrue. Hasan doubted that Darsh Jana had done a single day’s honest labor since a rickshaw accident claimed both his parents’ lives. Behind him, Daria came in with a steel teapot and two glass cups balanced on a tray. She put the tray down carefully on a crate masquerading as a coffee table.
“Please,” she said, “sit.”
Hasan gingerly took a seat on the rickety couch. As Daria poured, he asked her again, “So where is Darsh working this evening?”
Daria shook her head. “I told you, I don’t know where he is.” The stream of black tea wavered slightly, spilling over the lip of one glass.
“He’s your brother. Your only remaining family. And you expect me to believe that you don’t know what he’s doing?”
The girl shrugged as she put Hasan’s cup down in front of him. He seized her wrist so swiftly, she had no time to pull back. Hot tea sloshed out of the cup and ran down his forearm, but he barely felt the burn.
“Your brother owes me a lot of money, you know,” he said softly, as though he were trying to coax a stray cat out from under his car. “Where does a man with no money to his name spend his evenings?”
Daria stayed silent, her gaze locked on where his long fingers had wrapped around her wrist like manacles.
“Hiding.” Hasan answered his own question. “I know when someone is lying to me. I have eyes all over the city. If my men find him first, I won’t hold back. But if you tell me the truth tonight, I’ll show him mercy.”
Daria wavered; Hasan pounced. “Last chance, Daria: Where is Darsh?”
“I don’t know anything,” she insisted. Then she looked up at him through her lashes, her calf eyes wide and innocent. “But if my brother is in your debt, then perhaps I can repay it.”
As though her meaning were not already clear, Daria placed her free hand on top of where Hasan still held her wrist, trying her best to change the meaning of his grip into something more intimate. While she reached across, she bent a little lower, letting the front of her robe hang open, a window of temptation for most men.
But Hasan was not so easily tempted as most men.
He didn’t bother to hide his disdain as he pulled back. “It’s money I want. Nothing else.”
“Are you sure?” Daria purred, though the noise sounded more like the mewling of an alley cat than the seduction of a sultry vixen. She pushed down one sleeve of her dressing robe, exposing first her collarbone, then her shoulder. It became painfully obvious to Hasan that she had planned to seduce him from the start.
“I’m certain,” he said, his voice cool and detached as he rose from the couch.
She blocked his path, fumbling with the tie holding her robe closed. “You don’t sound certain.”
Hasan seized both her wrists in one of his hands and thrust her back firmly. “Look. I don’t have time forpleasantries,” he said. “Tell Darsh he cannot avoid me forever. I will catch him eventually. Each time I have to come calling, I will double his debt. Starting today.”
With that, he released her. Turning on his heel, he made to leave one last time. Daria caught his arm again, and he nearly swore.
“Wait!” Her voice cracked.
Damn if the girl wasn’t stubborn. But when he turned around, there were tears in her eyes, and the tip of her nose was turning red. “We don’t have the money. He’s trying, I swear. Just give us one more week. One more chance.”
Godsdamn it.“Your brother is already two weeks late. He’s run out of chances. You know what happens now, don’t you?”
