Blood and Money Read Online Free PDF

to keep trouble from their own door. The bazaar lived on a basic premise: it’s always someone else’s problem.
    “Money?” Faris snapped, only hearing the one word and ignoring the rest as he blustered and struggled to rise. “You’ve had your money, and I’ve still no proof that the bastard is dead. Without his body, I cannot claim his place, so you can forget all about money.”
    So, when it came down to it, this was all about money after all.
    Blood and money.
    Isra removed the scarf from his face. He savored the shock and fear as it crept over Faris’s own.
    “How…?” The man sank back down. He looked, quite literally, as though he had seen a ghost, which of course he had. “You’re dead… I saw…”
    “The question isn’t ‘how,’ brother, it’s ‘why.’ Why would you want me dead? Why did you think that you’d be able to take my place? If you had asked me for anything, I would have given it to you. Anything at all.”
    “Give?” Faris spat. “I don’t want your charity! I want more than that. I deserve it!”
    Isra was torn. He wanted the best for his sister, Sana, and for his nephew. They were the innocents in all of this, but they were the ones that were going to pay the highest price. Killing Faris would destroy them, even if they never knew who was behind his death.
    “There’s only one thing you deserve, Faris,” he said slowly. “But fortunately for you, I love my sister more than I hate you. So there has to be away out of this—some way we can both get some sort of satisfactory resolution that doesn’t involve spilling your guts all over this tent.” He thought about it for a moment. “You want to be in charge? You want control over the family interests? You’d consider that a victory?”
    “Of course,” Faris said. “But that’s not going to happen now, is it?” He gestured to the two dead men.
    Isra followed the direction of his movement, but his mind was elsewhere.
    This was the moment. It all came down to this.
    Could he trust Faris? What would happen if he gave the man the opportunity to play the part he wanted so desperately?
    Suddenly, Isra wanted to laugh. They were in the middle of a fortune-teller’s tent, dead men left and right, and he was trying to look into the future. He might as well look into the crystal ball now and ask the mists to part…
    “What are you thinking, Isra?” Faris suddenly sounded like Isra’s brother-in-law again, rather than the man who’d paid money for his death. “Talk to me.”
    And then, as Isra knew it would, came the question he had hoped his brother-in-law wouldn’t ask.
    “Where did you learn to fight like that? How did you manage to overcome…?” Faris didn’t quite finish the thought. He didn’t need to.
    “The assassin you sent to kill me?” Isra said bluntly.
    Faris nodded.
    Isra made a decision. “I have a secret, Faris. I’m going to tell you something now that will change the course of your life, and mine; a secret that has been gnawing away at me for a long time now. It is an itch that needs to be scratched.” He locked eyes with the man on the floor. “You might say that I’m two people. There’s the Isra you know—or think you know—and there’s the other me, the other Isra that’s now consuming my life. Making money offers no thrill. There’s no pleasure in a deal well struck. Not compared to my other life.” He crouched down so that the two of them were on the same level. “You see, I am the one they call the Nightwalker.”
    The cogs whirred away behind Faris’ eyes. “You? No…” The fear returned, yet as quickly as it came, a look of cunning stole in to replace it.
    “Here’s what I’m thinking, Faris,” Isra said. “If you want to be the head of the family so desperately, then why not? I could disappear. It wouldn’t be difficult. I haven’t been seen since the party, and it’s not such a huge stretch of the imagination to pretend that your assassin succeeded.”
    Faris