Jia ended the call with the feeling that Idris blamed her, that on some level this was her fault. That the entire city was on the verge of self-destruction because she hadn’t acted sooner to stop it. And she knew he was right. She’d shunned the old ways of doing business in her pursuit of a shake-up, but if she wanted to keep control, she was going to have to do some of the things she hated her father for.

CHAPTER 40

He pulled the collar of his jacket up around his neck and blew into his hands to warm them. The holding cell was cold. He didn’t know how long he’d been there and he didn’t know long it would take for his father to realise he was missing. The police had picked him up at the Cuedos snooker club in Burlington. He’d gone there after the shooting to blow off some steam. After dropping him at home and saying goodnight, his dad had driven off with Jia. Ahad knew he would be more concerned about her than him tonight.

He’d been in a place he shouldn’t be in, doing things he knew he shouldn’t do. The officers had been heavy-handed and he’d mouthed off, tried to resist arrest, and had ended up paying the price. He traced his finger over his eyelid, afraid, hoping he would be able to see once the swelling went down. He wondered how he was going to explain this to his father. His bravado was gone; waiting alone in a police cell took him to dark places. He had never been caught before. He thought of Jia and wondered what he would have felt if she had actually died today. He thought of his dad, and the disappointed look that would flash across his face. When were the police going to call him?

Ahad had always been a clever child, even labelled ‘gifted’ by the child psychologist who had seen him at the age of six on the school’s recommendation. That was when things had changed. He’d begun being disruptive in class, throwing ink on his school bible and using indelible pens to write complicated equations on walls when his teacher’s back was turned. The teachers had been more excited by the possibility of his ability than worried. They’d worked hard with him and he realised ‘gifted’ didn’t mean anything without work. He lacked focus; he didn’t really know what he wanted other than to learn the things that interested him. He didn’t need therapy to know that his ‘no fucks given’ hardwiring for everything other than his father was his mother’s fault. It was all her fault.