Read The Other Son for Free Online Page B

slower now, one at a time, as if the first handfuls had sated his hunger.
    She tried again.
    “You’re painting a rather unhappy picture.” She smiled. “But it isn’t true. Everything is carrying on the same as usual, even if Hector has to stay in hiding. There’s a warrant out for him, and we aren’t taking any risks….”
    Ignacio and Alfonse stared blankly at her. Ignacio said, “Hector’s brother, Eduardo Garcia, died tragically in Biarritz a couple of days ago.”
    The room grew darker. How could they know that? The urge to flee was getting stronger. But she remained seated, holding the sofa with her hands, trying to keep steady.
    Alfonse continued in a monotone. “Someone wants something of you, someone wants to say something.”
    He looked at her with his ice-blue eyes.
    “You must have someone in mind, Sophie?” he went on.
    “It doesn’t matter,” she said. Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat quietly.
    Alfonse smiled.
    “Don’t be scared. Who?”
    “There are several possibilities. Hector has a lot of enemies.”
    “But the most likely?”
    She gave up.
    “The Germans,” she said.
    “The Hankes?”
    An almost imperceptible nod from Sophie.
    “What is the story with Hector and Ralph Hanke?” Alfonse asked.
    “I think you know, Alfonse. Why do you ask me?”
    “Please tell us,” Don Ignacio said.
    Everything felt very scripted, each one knew when the other should take over.
    “It started innocently with competitive bids on a legal construction project in Brussels between Ralph Hanke and Hector’s father, Adalberto Guzman. It escalated beyond everyone’s control and took an upturn, when one of Ralph’s men did a hit and run in Stockholm, where Hector was hurt and hospitalized. Adalberto and Hector answered shortly after by attacking Ralph’s son Christian Hanke. Everything went wrong. Christian’s girlfriend died…”
    “And in the end?” Don Ignacio asked.
    In the end…
    Sophie was sucked back to the events on the motorway between Málaga and Marbella, a six months earlier. Two people on a motorcycle chased her and Hector. They shot straight into the car. Hector was injured, went into a coma. It was a planned assault, Adalberto was murdered in his home in the same moment.
    “In the end,” she said. “They killed Adalberto Guzman.”
    “So they won, didn’t they, Hankes?” Don Ignacio leaned back.
    She didn’t even shrug, just sat there and waited.
    “What is going on, Sophie, why Hankes now? If you’re just guessing?” he continued.
    “There’s something they want,” she said.
    He raised his eyebrows.
    “ ‘
There’s something they want
,’ ” he repeated theatrically, crossing one leg over the other.
    Sophie noticed his low black shoes, worn and dirty, the socks that were too short, a length of pale shin exposed.
    “What do they want?” he went on. Now he sounded like a schoolteacher trying to elicit a prepared answer.
    “Everything, they want everything, I guess.”
    Ignacio clapped his hands in a short round of applause.
    “Yes,” he said, as if she had given the right answer. “They want everything.”
    Ignacio leaned forward and whispered, “Now listen carefully, woman….We helped the Hankes to find Eduardo Garcia in Biarritz.”
    The cold that washed over her cut into her.
    “And I understand that you only just escaped with your lives in Istanbul the other week?” he went on.
    She realized she was staring at Don Ignacio. He acknowledged her stare with a look of amusement.
    He scratched the corner of his mouth with three fingers, still staring. “Do you understand what we’re saying? Do you understand the process of this conversation, the language? Can you appreciate what we’re saying? Is the picture clear to you?”
    “Istanbul?” she whispered.
    Ignacio nodded.
    “Istanbul,” he said thoughtfully. “You were lucky there. It was you and Aron, wasn’t it?”
    “What do you mean, lucky? Were you involved?”
    Ignacio