Chapter 14 Melek Dilay helps me walk to the bathroom, where with a pair of scissors she finish tearing my dress apart. She doesn't ask any questions, but I can see her frightened and surprised expression when she sees my bruised body. Even I am amazed, my whole torso is bruised, I have bruises that have different colors, yellow, red, orange... It's honestly grotesque. She covers her mouth after exhaling in complete panic, I look in the mirror and realize I have my grandfather's boot marked on me. "Don't worry, it's not the first time he's marked my skin like that." I tell Dilay with a smile. "When I was eleven, I accidentally broke a house ornament, he slapped me so hard, I wore his hand for three days mark on my face." "Who did this to you?" she asks with tears in her eyes. "My grandfather, Çakir Erdoğan, the cruelest man you could ever meet." "And why would he beat you like this, what did you do?" "I married the wrong man." The bathtub is already full because Dilay set it to f

Melek "Generally speaking, for the kind of blows she received, she's doing well." Says the doctor, a somewhat young man for a doctor. After palpating the wounds, and performing an echo to detect internal bleeding. "There are no broken ribs, no internal bleeding, only the bruises remained." "That's good news, how nice." Habbab celebrates, looking relieved. I guess he doesn't want to carry with him the burden of having murdered me through Çakir's wrath, although it was a close call. However, just because he brought a doctor just now, doesn't mean it's all forgotten. It is because of him that I almost died at the hands of my grandfather. "There is only one problem left, the dislocated shoulder, it's actually good news that it's not broken." "It's not broken, but say dislocated, how wonderful." I venture sarcastically. "I can treat it right here, I wouldn't have to go to a hospital, which is what we're avoiding, right?" He's kind, but that doesn't mean I like him, he's complicit Habba

Chapter 15 / Part OneChapter 15Esat ErdoğanTwo days, I've been wandering the riverbank, I've barely eaten and slept. I can't believe I've lost Melek. I saw her jump and did nothing, instead, Habbab fucking Argent jumped like it was nothing, he went after her, without even hesitating. He's known her for a year, not her whole life, like me, so why did he go after her and I allowed? I was a coward, one who let his cousin, and the love of his life die in front of my eyes, because there is no way to get out of a fall like that unscathed.Melek is dead, she got what she wanted, I know because I looked for her and found nothing. She arrived in front of the doors of my home, where we grew up together. I have loved her for so long that I have forgotten how much. I guess the day I fell in love with Melek was when I was twelve years old and she was only six. I had fallen off my bike and my knee was injured.We knew my grandfather would lose his mind and beat me up, so my cousin got a first ai

Chapter 16Hazar ErdoğanI can't believe what is happening, my daughter, my child, has been kidnapped by that man who has hurt us so much in the last few days. I never wanted Melek to be involved in all this, less when it was my responsibility to take care of her. I look at my wife who is still lying on the floor, crying non-stop. It hurts my soul to see her like that, to know that I have caused her so much damage, because all this is my fault, it is my fault to have loved before a woman who did not belong to me, or who was taken away from me.It was so long ago when I fell in love with Ceren, Habbab's mother. It was love at first sight, she was walking down the street and we bumped into each other among so many people, after seeing her blue eyes, I could never forget them. That same week I found out where she lived and what she did. She was a maid at the Arslan's house, her mother had worked for them all her life and after graduating from high school Ceren followed her mother's foots

I go over the financials again and there is something that just doesn't fit in all the number crunching. My responsibilities as administrative assistant have certain limits, however, just before retiring, Mr. Montiel asked me to review the company's finances, as he had noticed certain mismatches regarding payments and collections from some distributors. At first I imagined that Rodolfo's concern was unfounded and he was nervous about leaving the business in the hands of his inexperienced son. However, now that I have checked the numbers, I think he was right to be concerned and that we should audit the work of Gutierrez, the VP Finance. I make a couple of calls, confirming costs with the companies we are associated with. Valderrama y Montiel Foods is a food export company, with more than five hundred farms around the country, and in addition to that, we maintain a frozen food line. Our major partnerships are with transportation companies and exporters of fertilizers, pesticides and o