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…
Tag: dailyprompt
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 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 COMC Files Book V chapter 9
The Meeting Morning pries itself through Istanbul’s glass and minarets—a blue-gold light, soft and sleepless.Sleep claimed me late, but the city’s hum—street vendors, ferry horns, muttered prayers—is relentless. The scent of Tarmo’s cologne, mint and pistachio from sweets untouched, clings in corners and to my skin. Istanbul’s lesson: nobody gives up their pieces—only moves them…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 8
The Wolf’s Silence After Tarmo leaves, the room is louder—his absence thickens the air, the old mosaic and high ceilings seeming to absorb and amplify every unspoken word. On the side table, pastries glint under the lamplight: pistachio shine, sheets of syrup stiffening with neglect. Mint tea, untouched, sends up a last drift of steam,…
The COMC Files: Book V chapter 6
Back to the Hotel By the time I drift back toward the Pera Palace, Istanbul’s sky has sunk into velvet indigo and the Bosphorus exhales with the sharp tang of salt and iron. My camera is heavier now—the weight of images is memory pressing into my palm. Dust follows me to the hotel’s illuminated façade….
The C.O.M.C. Files 