7./2

The car drove up the familiar flagstoned driveway and pulled over before the wrought iron double door ornate with intricate scrollwork. 

Serhat leaned back, the leathered seat cushioned well his neck. He drew a deep breath. 

"Sir?" said Armo Palermo, glancing into the rear mirror. 

Serhat squinted at the round, bald pate of his chauffeur. A smirk skittered across his lips. "How long have you been working for me, Armo?"

The big man cocked his brow. "Since your mother passed."

"Yeah, no, I mean, before that. How long have you been working for House Effendi?"

"Since she was just a girl turning eighteen, your mother, I mean." the man intoned, his hands tapping the wheel. 

Serhat put down the leg that crossed upon the other and propped on his lap. "You remember her exact age then?"

"It was her birthday the day I started. Lord Effendi threw such a party for her to intimidate any suitor no man can easily forget." 

Yet much of a parent's caution and vigilance was proved of little use in taming a daughter's rebellion. Chiara Effendi got herself pregnant with a man Serhat had never met. Rumor has it that Lord Effendi ordered Armo Palermo to shoot him before her eyes and made sure that lesson was shoved down her throat. 

But what was the lesson there, really? 

A custodian of his house, Lord Effendi had kept outsiders from getting their hands on the family's wealth through his idiotic children. Until Erhan Qusbecq. Who gallantly offered his hand in marriage to redeem the scarlet woman, saving her from soiling her family's name, and adopted the baseborn son at the age of fifteen. While it's the daughter he had married, it's the father's heart he had captured. And with it, he rose in rank to prominence in a few short years, during which he bid his time. Never acknowledged the Third World wife he had divorced or the son they had together until Lord Effendi passed away. Until every prominent figure of the House Effendi fell out of grace or died of old age. The outsider Lord Effendi had spent the latter half of his life fending and fearing eventually usurped everything he owned, and he stamped approved it. 

Serhat released a guttural chuckle dripping in sarcasm. 

"Anything funny?" asked the bald man in the driver's seat, turning a cheek to his shoulder. 

"Fate," Clucking his tongue, Serhat dusted his pleated velvet pants. "It's hilarious!" 

The car door slid aside at the click of a button. A few steps up the marble stairs brought him before the ornate door. His eyes narrowed at the medallion of a serpent circling a crescent moon centering the scrollwork. All the years he had spent growing up here, was he happy? Did he even like Lord Effendi as a grandfather? He huffed a sigh, his brows raising. Truth be told, he didn't care. But should the Effendi medallion become just another meaningless scrollwork among others, he, too, shall become meaningless. And that, he cared a great deal. 

The door swung open from the inside. Ezio Pagnotto greeted him, bowing his gray head. Leaning out an arm thin and long, he ushered Serhat to the changing room. 

"Lord Qusbecq is waiting," said the butler, stopping before the room, his eyes the color of his hair seemed to smile. 

Serhat acknowledged with a nod. "Has Warshond arrived?"

"Yes, my lord. Master Warshond arrived a few moments ago." 

Sucking in his cheeks, Serhat stifled a snort. He pushed inside the misted changing room. 

Behind a shroud of steam stood a sinewy man about six-five with his back to the door. Half naked, he had a towel thrown around his waist. Styled with hair clay, his jet-black swept about corded shoulders. Upon hearing the footsteps, he glanced back, his sculpted profile silhouetted in fluttering sunlight. 

"Hurry up," he said, returning his gaze to the front. "Father despises whoever who keeps him waiting."

"Do I need you to tell me that?" Serhat harrumphed, throwing off his suit jacket. "And who says I'm late?" Unbuttoning his shirt, he flicked a sidelong glance. "Nice abs. How many crunches a day?"

Warshond rolled his eyes. 

"What? Don't deign to answer, or too great for crunches? How old are you now? Thirty? You'll get old soon! A blink of an eye! So don't take that body for granted!" 

"Have I not told you to hurry up?" 

"And Have I asked you to wait?" Serhat snapped back. "Go ahead, then, if you fear the old man so much! Who's stopping you?" He hurled his shirt. 

Warshond crossed his arms, his head tilting to the floor where the expensive shirt spun of mulberry silk lay sprawled. He picked it up and sauntered back to Serhat. "Do you think he calls us here every month because he enjoys spending time with us naked?" He tossed the shirt at his chest. "Why do you think I know your dirty secrets, and you mine?"

Holding the mulberry silk shirt to his chest, Serhat stared up to meet the other in the eye. 

"Do you think I'd wait knowing that he'd like me to get ahead?" Edging half a step closer, the other man pressed on, his voice even, tone uninflected. "He needs us to stand sentry as a team, not too weak to be useless, nor too strong to overshadow. So, team, hurry the fuck up." 

The Sunday meeting at the bathhouse was a statement indeed. Serhat dropped his gaze. No weapon. No secret. With nothing to hide, they saw each other through and through. Any attempt to scupper the boat they were in together, any plot of betrayal, would be suicidal. 

Gulping his words, he threw on the towel and stalked out with Warshond following behind. 

The back of the changing room opened to a rustic peristyle that led to an indoor bath walled and floored with mosaic and marble. In the bathing pool that centered the room, Lord Qusbeck sat in the steaming water with his arms across. His eyes lifted at his sons, acknowledging their presence. Sixty of age, he looked like a dashing forty-year-old, with a headful of thick curls the color of honey straddling a classic straight nose so coveted it threw women in awe, which Warshond took after.

When both sons took their seats in the pool facing him, the lord hung an arm over the edge of the marble bath pool. 

"I need a sacrifice," he cut to the chase, flicking a glance at Serhat. "All the dirt I have you collected, now is time to upend the dustbin."