Chapter 10 - The Scent of Wild Thyme
The autumn rain returned to Fifth Avenue twelve months later, but this time it did not feel like an execution.
It was 11:45 PM on a Saturday night.
The dining room of the Bellweather Room was quiet, the last two tables of theatergoers from the Lincoln Center having departed twenty minutes earlier in a flurry of velvet wraps and polite compliments to the head sommelier. The crystal chandeliers had been dimmed to twenty percent, their amber facets throwing long, lazy shadows across seventy-two tables that had been cleared, reset with fresh linen, and left ready for the Sunday brunch service.
I sat at table twelve—the table by the southern window where Trent Mallory had once told me that I was an invisible servant who didn't understand the world.
On the table sat my laptop, an open ledger of municipal tax filings, and a small, white ceramic pot of fresh mint tea.
The numbers on the screen were clean.
The restaurant had posted a twenty-four percent operational surplus for the third consecutive quarter. The staff pension fund had cleared its initial five-million-dollar capitalization reserve; Toby had been promoted to assistant floor manager and was currently enrolled in night classes at Cornell’s hospitality school; and Hector’s son had just received a full scholarship to the culinary institute in Hyde Park.
A soft, measured step sounded on the parquet floor behind me.
I didn't turn around. I didn't reach for my phone.
A heavy, familiar wool overcoat was draped gently across the back of my chair, smelling of cedarwood, cold rain, and Cambodian agarwood.
Kareem Rahal sat down in the armchair across from me.
He wore an unadorned black cashmere sweater, a charcoal jacket over his arm, his silver-streaked hair damp from the New York rain, looking not like a mafia boss or a shipping titan, but like a father who had just finished a long day of travel and had finally found his own kitchen table.
He didn't speak. He reached out with two fingers, took the white ceramic teapot, and poured himself a cup of the steaming mint tea.
"Tariq said you were still at your desk," Kareem murmured, watching the steam rise between us.
"The quarterly balance closed at eleven," I said, leaning back in the leather chair, looking at the man who had bought my dignity for fourteen million dollars and had never once asked for a single cent in return. "We cleared eighty thousand dollars on the private catering for the UN delegation yesterday."
"I don't care about the eighty thousand dollars, Nia," Kareem said softly.
"I know you don't," I smiled. "That's why I keep the ledger."
He took a slow sip of the tea, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners as he looked at my face—clear, calm, the faint, silver line above my eyebrow completely faded into the smooth skin of my temple.
"The hospital in Zahlé admitted its first hundred patients this morning," he said.
My heart gave a quiet, joyful leap behind my ribs. "And the water?"
"The municipal council connected the mountain spring yesterday afternoon," Kareem replied. "They named the fountain in the central courtyard Ayn Maryam. The Spring of Maryam."
He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a small, flat brass key with three irregular notches, and laid it on the table between our teacups.
"What is this?" I asked.
"The key to the townhouse on 74th Street," Kareem said. "Between Madison and Park. It belonged to an investment trust that was liquidated last month. It has five bedrooms, a private garden with two fig trees that were brought from Sicily sixty years ago, and a library with four thousand books in three languages."
He pushed the brass key across the linen until it touched the edge of my laptop.
"Mateo needs a yard with grass, Nia," Kareem said, his voice dropping into that deep, unshakeable register of a patriarch who had already settled the architecture of the next fifty years. "And a director of an international hospitality trust should not have to take the subway to work when the snow is deep."
I looked at the key.
I looked at the small, worn brass that had replaced the twenty-dollar checks, the three-day eviction notices, and the fear that had lived in my marrow since the car accident on the Major Deegan twenty years ago.
I reached out.
My fingers didn't tremble. I picked up the key, felt its cold, solid weight against my palm, and slid it into the pocket of my black dress.
"Only on one condition, Kareem," I said, meeting his slate-gray eyes with the same steady, unbroken gaze I had given him in the foyer twelve months ago.
He raised an eyebrow, amused. "A condition? From my chief comptroller?"
"You come for dinner on Sunday nights," I said. "And you let my brother teach you how to lose at chess."
Kareem Rahal laughed—a deep, magnificent sound that filled the dark, quiet restaurant with the warmth of fifty years of survival, rising high into the amber chandeliers, washing away the ghosts of the past like the spring tide rushing down the mountains of the Bekaa.
"Deal, Director Brooks," he whispered, lifting his teacup toward mine in the quiet room. "On the honor of the little falcon."
May you like
I touched my cup to his.
The china chimed with a clean, bell-like ring that echoed across the empty tables, out through the mahogany doors, and into the wet, glittering night of Fifth Avenue, where the rain was falling on stone that would never belong to thieves again.
