Out Toward the Golden Horn The drizzle has cooled the air, dragging a silk haze over the water. Tourists jam shoulder-to-shoulder along the balustrade, camera phones angling for a glint of ferry lights painting shimmer across the Golden Horn—a wide, grey boundary, as much mental as it is geographic. Mitra’s warmth at my side is…
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The COMC Files Book V chapter 18
Istanbul: 72 hours ago Sandi felt the pulse of Istanbul, its call to prayer echoing through the alleys as the city’s night took on a spectral glow. She was ostensibly a buyer, working for Tarmo’s shipping interests, but below the surface: she was tracing Turkey’s quietly intensifying maneuvers in Africa, missions that stretched beyond logistics…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 17
The Persian at the Table I cross Istiklal, tram bell shrilling and simit vendor’s shouts echoing off marble façades and old Beaux-Arts apartments. The phone buzzes hot in my hand—you trust the wrong one—but my eyes stay locked on the lace-curtained window. Asdar falls into shadow-flank, no words; all fine-tuned presence, golden eyes watching for…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 16
The Persian in the Window Istanbul, now. The phone still hums from that last text — You trust the wrong one. Karim is scanning the street; Asdar is studying me, every muscle reading the wind. And then, in the café window opposite, the curtain twitches back just enough for me to see her face. Mitra…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 15
At the Threshold We step out from Pera Palace, sunlight slicing Istanbul into blue‑gold ribbons. My Iran notebook is tucked tight under my arm, the city restless—a thousand stories caged just before the moment their fate is decided. Asdar walks close, copper hair catching the glare, golden eyes scanning every face with a wolf’s decisive…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 14
Goddess, Codes, and the Next Move Breakfast debris scatters sunlight across the table, the city’s thrum filtered to a poised edge. I’m staring at my coffee, mind on codes and threats, when the energy in the room tilts and I look up—actually see him. Asdar. Young, copper-haired and golden-eyed, tattoos peeking from his sleeves to…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 13
Tarmo Most women, for me, are beautiful cities: worth savouring, never worth staying. Elena was never a pin on my map. She’s the one place I keep circling, whatever the longitude: Pärnu, Zurich, the nights where, against every adult instinct, I bargained with powers older than strategy. Called on Odin like some northern fool in…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 12
The bathroom is a sanctuary—steam blurring the shards of strategy, suspicion, and Burçu’s steel-edged words. Hot water scours off every diplomatic layer until nothing’s left but pulse and skin, the day’s political foreplay rinsed down to soap and heat. Stepping out, I’m my own ghost in the mirror: hair dripping, towel knotted at my hips,…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 11
Elena Discovers Sandi’s Real Value Burçu’s warnings cling like residue, and in the sharp chill after her words, all the pieces realign: Sandi wasn’t just leverage. She was a courier—carrying business intelligence designed to shift regional bonds, physically holding information volatile enough to tip alliances against Erdoğan if it landed in a rival’s hands. Someone…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 10
The Coffee Tightens Burçu’s spoon traces deliberate, silent circles in thick coffee. Her gaze is fixed on the swirling grounds, as if they might condense themselves into the neat bullet points of a diplomatic cable. “Since the EU accession dream ended,” she says, “Türkiye’s rewritten its own rules—always in motion between West and East, between…
The C.O.M.C. Files 