The Zargari lead tips his cap. Time. Caravan forms in shadow—horses shifting, Dom carts bleeding into market chaos. Flight in every gesture: a glance, a tap, the syntax of vanishing. Asdar’s hand finds my hip. Signal, not tenderness. My skin still sparks from the interrupted bath, slick and wanting. I shove it down—longing braided with…
Tag: women
The COMC Files Book V chapter 30
“ENOUGH!”* My breath stops. That grunt—familiar. The blindfold is torn off in one motion. Light stabs my eyes. I blink, heart hammering, searching the crowd for the shape behind the voice. For a beat, no one moves—Romani faces flickering between suspicion and relief, Azerbaijani bystanders holding back. Somewhere in the tangle, I know the wolf…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 27
Inside, the hiss of brakes and the chime of departure boards blend into one constant undertone. The high‑speed train to Ankara waits, silver and intent, its nose angled toward the tracks stretching east. Tickets pass through the gate with soft clicks. We find our seats, stowing bags overhead. Outside, the last few passengers hurry along…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 26
Istanbul Dawn The city stirs, a thousand lives resuming. Cracked windows carry metal shutters clattering two streets over, bus brakes hissing, the simit-seller’s rising cry. Horns thick with impatience, heat building. The warehouse holds night’s breath. Mitra—cardigan-armour—coaxes the camping stove to a blue flame. Coffee bitters the cold air. She moves with dawn-departure muscle: crisp,…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 23
Elena lay there, wrapped in a blanket on a makeshift bed in the far corner of a warehouse. Her hair spilt messily over the pillow, her lips parted in the vulnerable slackness of sleep. The only light came from a single streetlamp, its beam cutting through the fractured glass high on the wall. He stepped…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 19
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…
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 C.O.M.C. Files 