Whatever It Takes Read online

  Roman dished up the food, slid a bowl in front of Zain and came around with his to sit next to him. Zain mentally said a little prayer of thanks to Allah, the first for a long time, then smiled at Roman. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  It was hard not to eat too quickly. This was his first hot meal in ages. The first ever in someone’s home in England. A lot of firsts in the last few days.

  “You told me you earned a lot of money working for a dangerous man,” Zain said. “What do you do?”

  Roman paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “It’s better that you don’t know.”

  “If you tell me you’d have to kill me sort of thing?”

  “Something like that.”

  Zain’s heart sank. It had to be something illegal and so there could definitely be no future for them. Unless I can change him. He almost laughed. This was not a guy who’d change to suit another just for sex.

  “You’re not going to push?” Roman asked.

  “Would it make any difference? You don’t strike me as a guy who responds to pushing. Though maybe it’s better if I do know. That way, I’m aware what I’m up against.”

  “Up against?”

  “If I have a dragon to slay to save you. Or a demon.” Oh God, why did I say that?

  But Roman huffed, then pushed away his bowl. “I have something to ask you first. Did you have a friend in Aleppo called Cash?”

  Shock turned to horror in a flash. Zain slammed his hand over his mouth and raced for the bathroom.

  Chapter Eight

  Zain emerged from the bathroom minus what dinner he’d eaten. He hoped he wasn’t going to make a habit of this. A glance in the mirror before he’d come out showed him a haunted face, shadows under his eyes. One word had been enough to send him to hell. Qash. Zain had never called him that, always Qashim but… It had to be him. He wasn’t going to be able to get away with claiming his reaction had been to the food, no matter how much he wanted to.

  Roman had cleared away the remains of the meal and lounged on the couch, his legs crossed at the ankles. Even in the midst of roiling fear, Zain felt a surge of desire. How crazy to want someone who had only one interest in him.

  “Well, that was a fascinating response,” Roman said. “Not the one he had when I mentioned the name Zain.”

  Shit. You mentioned me to him? “He didn’t throw up? How disappointing.”

  Roman chuckled. “His name is Qashim but we’ve always called him Cash with a C. He has a fondness for money, yet never seems to spend it. You might not know each other. I have no idea how common the names Zain and Qashim are in Syria, though you’re both from Aleppo, which must reduce the odds.”

  Double shit. “It’s a big city.” Zain was desperate this was a coincidence. But…

  “Three million people in 2010, down to less than one million in 2015. I checked.”

  “Still big.” But…

  Roman sighed. “Even before the mere mention of his name made you vomit, I had the feeling you knew each other.”

  “I hope your feeling is wrong.” Zain poured himself a glass of water and sat on the couch opposite Roman. “The Qashim I know is three years older than me. He looked at least ten years older when we were teenagers. One of those faces. He was a big guy. Tall. Light brown hair. Dark brown eyes. Lighter skinned than me. Big feet. Big hands. Muscular. Strong. He could switch from a smile to a scowl in an instant. A charmer and a…sociopath. Does any of that fit?”

  Zain held his breath then gave a noisy exhalation when Roman nodded. It didn’t have to be Qashim. But…

  “Tell me more about him.”

  “He lived in our building. After his father was killed, then his mother, he moved in with me and my family. My mother felt sorry for him. Qashim was polite and attentive, and found fuel and enough food to feed six of us. I don’t think any of what he came back with had just been sitting there waiting for him to take or to buy. His ability to source whatever my mother wanted delighted her but made me feel anxious and guilty.”

  “He stole?”

  “Yes. And he didn’t care if he had to hurt people to get what he wanted—whatever my family needed he made sure they had. Sometimes…he came back bloody and he always had an excuse, a close shave with a bullet, an explosion nearby that sent brick fragments flying his way, but I think he killed for what he wanted. He never told me outright that he did, but he hinted. He used to say—I do so much for you. It’s all for you. Every risk I take is for you. Whatever you need, I’ll do it for you.”

  “He loved you?”

  Zain gave a short laugh. “He had no idea what the word love meant. He wasn’t wired right.” He shuddered. “He made us his new family. His parents hadn’t been kind to him. His father beat him. I think Qashim was glad they were dead. My family was all that mattered, especially me. He didn’t care that everyone in our half of the city was in the same desperate position. If I ever saw him taking stuff he shouldn’t have, and I argued, he used to ask me if I wanted my sisters to starve.” Zain let out a shaky breath.

  “Survival of the fittest.” Roman sat up.

  “Natural selection would ensure guys like Qashim populated the world. Not one I’d want to live in. I’d be the first to be eaten if my plane crashed in the Andes, whether I was alive or not. I suspect you’d be with Qashim, doing the eating.”

  Roman raised an eyebrow and Zain felt his cheeks heat. That hadn’t come out quite as he’d meant it. But he knew Roman was much tougher than him.

  “I side with the underdog.” Zain put down his empty glass. “It’s the way I was brought up. To feel compassion for those with less than me, for those who are sick or hungry. It’s the way I should be as a Muslim but it’s the way I am as a human. My father was a doctor because he wanted to help people and he…” Zain clenched his fists so tightly he could feel his nails digging into his palms.

  “I’ve never heard him talk about Syria. He doesn’t talk much at all.”

  Zain groaned. “The Qashim I knew didn’t talk much to anyone but me. He was always courteous to my parents but it was as if he put on a different face for them. He had…plans for me and him and was always urging me to leave my family, quit Aleppo. He was sometimes cruel to me and he scared me. I was his obsession. He wanted to know where I was and what I was doing all the time. He didn’t care about anyone or anything but me. My mother thought he was being the big brother and looking out for me, and he was, but it was more than that.”

  “He’s gay?”

  Zain let out a choked laugh. “Er…no. Qashim helped stone a gay man to death who’d survived being pushed off a roof.”

  Roman blanched. “Fuck.”

  “I was glad when he disappeared,” Zain whispered and added a silent sorry to Allah. “I didn’t want him dead, though I didn’t mourn him when he’d gone. If this guy you know is him, he’s probably never stopped looking for me. I know that sounds arrogant, but he was aware I wanted to come to London to study. That’s probably why he’s here. And you have no idea how much I wish it wasn’t true, that I was no longer important to him.”

  “Are you sure he’s not gay and in denial?”

  “Puhh. No. He definitely likes women.”

  “Or pretended to. I assume you had to do that too.”

  “He…” Zain thought about it. “Maybe you’re right. He might be gay but denying it even to himself. Maybe joining in with the stoning was a way to make the point that he wasn’t gay. He was freaky enough to enjoy killing someone so publicly and brutally regardless of whether they were gay or not.” He shuddered. “Qashim gay? Now I’m even more alarmed.”

  “He never gave you any reason to suspect he liked you in that way?”

  “I was too freaked out by the fact that he liked me at all. It’s hard to make you understand what he was like, how he had everyone conned but me. I think he even liked me being afraid of him. I looked it up in my father’s medical books and checked online when we had a connection. There are labels t
o use to describe him but all that matters is that he’s…not right. Something is twisted in his head.”

  “Assuming it’s the same guy, I’ve never liked him.”

  Zain smiled. “You have good taste.”

  “And you taste good.”

  Zain’s heart gave a happy thump.

  “Interestingly, after my boss told me to find you…deal with you, Qash called me and offered to help. Completely out of character. He said if it was you, that he didn’t want you hurt. I thought that was significant because you’re a threat to him. He should want you hurt.”

  Zain could feel his hopes for the future drying up like short-lived desert flowers. He clung to the hope that this was a different man but…he knew it wasn’t.

  “Your turn,” he said to Roman. “How do you know him?”

  “First of all…” Roman pulled his phone from his pocket and pressed a few buttons. “Come over here and tell me if this is him.”

  Zain gulped. “You had a picture all along? Why didn’t you just show it to me?”

  Roman shrugged. Though Zain could guess the answer. Roman had wanted information and now he’d got it. Zain took a deep breath, pushed to his feet and crossed to sit next to Roman.

  “Maybe I just wanted you sitting next to me when you saw him. Your stomach’s empty, right?” Roman handed Zain the phone.

  Zain’s heart slammed to a stop as his gaze locked onto a shot of Qashim drinking coffee next to a man Zain had seen at the party. The one who’d licked Roman’s cheek.

  “It’s him,” Zain said.

  “Has he changed much?”

  “Physically, he looks like an older version of the teenager I once knew. But as a person, I’m sure he hasn’t changed at all. It would be comforting if I could convince myself Qashim has no interest in me beyond curiosity about what happened in Syria after we’d parted. That all we’d do if we met was exchange stories about how we reached the UK. But I’m increasingly certain Qashim will only care about now and merely take up where he left off, reattaching himself like some malignant tumour.”

  Zain sagged. “That makes me sound ungrateful and uncharitable because without him, my family wouldn’t have survived as long as they did. I ought to be thankful. I am, but… I’m frightened. And I’m even more frightened now I know he’s in London.”

  He handed back the phone. “Tell me how you know him.”

  “He’s a colleague of Dima, the guy in the photo.”

  “The arsehole who licked your cheek?”

  “You cared?” Roman smiled.

  Zain opened his mouth to make some quip and closed it again.

  When Roman stayed silent, Zain finally snapped. “For fuck’s sake, just tell me the rest. I’m already freaked out that Qashim is here in London. You say I’m in danger, I have the right to know why.”

  “Yeah, you do.” Roman uncrossed his legs. “The guy I work for is called Arkady Grekov. Dima’s his son. Arkady paid for me to go to school in England with Dima when I was fourteen. Dima’s a year older. Our paths divided when I went back to Moscow to university. Dima stayed here. By then, his father had moved to London. He asked me to work for him after I’d graduated but I said no. Four years ago, I said yes. I worked in Moscow for the first year, then I moved here. Dima and Qash started working together a couple of years ago but their business was and still is separate to Arkady’s.”

  That wasn’t telling him much. When Roman said no more, Zain asked, “What do you do?” How many times do I have to ask that? “What do Dima and Qashim do?”

  “They’re sex traffickers. Traffickers of those who wish to come here at any cost.”

  Goose bumps raced down Zain’s spine. “Shhhhit.”

  “Dima doesn’t need to work at all. He has plenty of money from his father but he’s the type who can never have enough. His legitimate business is a fashion chain but he runs a network that lures young women in from Eastern European countries on the promise of paid work and a better life in the UK.

  “The women are told this is their chance to provide for their children or their families, that the UK with its health service and ethnically diverse communities is a place of opportunity where they can be anything they want. None of which happens because from the moment they say yes, they owe money for papers, clothes, transport and accommodation that they have no hope of repaying.”

  Please don’t tell me you’re involved with that.

  “No, I’m not. Not directly. Except that by knowing about it, I am involved. Yes, I can read minds. Or in this case, your face.”

  Zain wished he could smile at that comment.

  “Qash is Dima’s second-in-command. The one who gets nasty when necessary. As far as I know, he’d the one who oversees the actual transportation across the Channel. When they’re not bringing women in, they transport people like you.”

  “Oh God. I wonder if he went into that looking for me?”

  “Maybe. He has contacts with men in France and Belgium who provide the boats and pilot them. Dima’s father isn’t happy about the trafficking. I’m not sure he knows the extent of it, or even wants to know. He prefers to think of Dima running his fashion chain. But he loves his son and even if Arkady can do nothing to stop Dima, he’ll do everything to defend him.”

  Zain thought about that. “Dima’s linked to Artur Sheripov? That’s why I’m in danger?”

  “Artur Sheripov’s son disappeared in the UK. His father came to find him and presumably got too close to the truth, whatever that truth is.”

  Zain shuddered.

  “Dima’s car was out of action, so he used mine. He and Qash killed Sheripov.”

  “Oh God. So I’m a threat to Dima, Qashim and Arkady because I found the wallet and the blood-stained T-shirt. And they want me dead to make sure I can’t tell anyone?” Bile surged into his throat.

  “It’s not going to happen. And Qash does not want you dead.”

  Zain felt himself shrinking.

  Roman put his hand on Zain’s knee and squeezed. “It’s not going to happen,” he repeated.

  I want to believe you. “Do you know how Dima and Qashim met?”

  Roman shook his head. “I have as little to do with them as I can. I know that Qash is Dima’s shadow, his muscle, his protector. Maybe Dima is your replacement obsession.”

  “I’m glad but not glad. I can’t believe that me finding that wallet has put Qashim back in my life.”

  “It’s bad luck.”

  “More than bad luck. Will you tell me what part you play in all this?” Please don’t let it be as bad as that.

  Roman sucked in his cheeks. “I can’t.” He took his hand from Zain’s knee.

  “Do I have to resort to thumbscrews?”

  “You can’t come up with something better than that?”

  “No more sex unless you tell me.”

  Roman laughed but he still hesitated. “I’m a fixer, facilitator, architect—though not of buildings. Arkady’s assistant. When he needs something to happen, I make it happen. When he wants something not to have happened, I arrange that too.”

  “So it was him who wanted me at the party and not you?”

  “Yes. Not you specifically, though. A type. Along with the majority of Russians, he’s homophobic. But when it’s business, he’ll do whatever’s necessary to get what he wants including the provision of gay sex.”

  Zain had a painful lump in his throat. “He’s okay with you being gay?”

  Again, Zain heard the hesitation before Roman replied. “He doesn’t know.”

  “Would he care?”

  “Probably.”

  “You’re his tool. Maybe his weapon too.”

  “Tool yes. Weapon no. I’ve never killed for him. He’s never asked me to until now.” Roman sighed. “And even then, I’m not sure he really did. Maybe it’s a test. Maybe it’s all a test. The wallet being left. The violence against you. Asking me to deal with you. It’s out of character for him to involve me in that way.”

  “Y
ou think I’m part of that test. Some sort of honey trap?”

  Roman stared straight at him. “It had occurred to me. But no, I don’t think that. I think he’s genuinely worried about Dima getting arrested for Sheripov’s murder. I did point out that finding you now you’d left your job and your studio was virtually impossible but he thinks I’m a miracle worker. I’m going to disappoint him.”

  “Why did you invite me to the party?” Zain whispered. “What type am I?”

  “Young. Innocent. Cute. Open to suggestion. The guy you coincidentally ended up standing next to, Glen Foley, is someone Arkady wants to make a deal with. Foley isn’t out. He wanted to go to a private chemsex party, meet a guy who was young, innocent, cute and open to suggestion. Yeah, well not you.”

  “Why wasn’t I right?”

  Roman gave a tight smile. “You were right. You were perfect, but while you stood next to him, I was having difficulty not planting my fist in his face. Foley’s a fool. He thought he was safe because he was at the private residence of a well-known guy, an actor, someone who values his privacy, and Foley believed he could hide behind that. He wasn’t safe at all. Gay men who aren’t out, those who have careers and families, can be ruined very easily. Pictures were taken at the party. If Foley doesn’t come to an agreement with Arkady, he’ll quickly understand the consequences.”

  Zain was dismayed. “What sort of business does Arkady have?” What bad things do you do for him?

  “He’s a procurer. He finds homes for rich Russians, arranges jet charters for them, sources fine art, large yachts, expensive musical instruments, jewellery, businesses, football clubs, golf clubs and I don’t mean the ones that go in a golf bag.”

  Zain got it. “To launder money.”

  “I knew you were smart. Sadly not smart enough to leave that wallet where you found it and say nothing. Not even smart enough to take the wallet and deny ever having seen it. You could have done some money laundering of your own. Though not all of what Arkady does is illegal.”

  Zain gave a mirthless chuckle. “My honesty has got me into trouble?”

  “Unfortunate but true.”

  “I read about money laundering. It’s the sort of thing they might ask about in the reasoning section of the UCAT.”