Father was waiting for me in the library, reading a yellow file and sipping tea from a cup on the table. When I came in he looked up.

"Rashed," he spoke in a voice not harsh yet not soft. We made eye contact.

Then he looked at the boy and nodded. The boy shrunk away and out of the room.

"It appears I need your help again," he leaned forward, "I'm willing to pay up to thirty thousand."

I bit my lip and inhaled deeply. Took in a duste and begged my nose not to start sneezing. It scarcely listened. Father stared at me.

"Can I be substituted?" I finally asked.

"No," was the answer.

"What is the job?"

Father put the file aside, "on next Saturday, You will visit the prostitution quarters of Vorapukuria. And you will demand the girl named Ghuri. She will be around seventeen to eighteen years of age; brown, tall for her age and birthmark is a dimple above her eyebrow."

"Okay," I nodded. There was no need to ask questions. If father doesn't tell me by himself, he isn't going to.

"She will be available for foreplay, but not for sex, because she is newly pregnant," he looked behind me, at the clock, and said nonchalantly, "You will try to rape her."

I stood with my mouth gaping for several seconds, and at last said, "I cannot."

"You can," he tapped his index finger on the table, "And you will."

"I cannot rape her," I stood firm, trying to harden my expression. Ooh, boy. I'm having a sentimental day, ain't I?

Father cooled down several degrees, "Then don't. Attempt to. Initiate a violent response from her and her peers."

"Does—Does she know about it?"I stammered, "is she informed?"

"No," he stared at me levelly, "I don't trust her to not gossip, and I need a genuine response."

"Okay, I try to rape her," I averted my eyes,"what then?"

"They beat you up," he picked up the file again, "you come home. We take care of the rest. You get your pocket money, for whatever use."

"How should I get there?"

Father opened the file, "I remember buying you a motorbike."

"Can I bring a companion?"

"No."

"Can I bring a—"

"Do you have a brain, boy?" My father cut me off.

I didn't know how to react.

"Well, do you?" He asked again.

"Yes," I nodded.

"Then use it," father leaned forward, "improvise. I want the results. How you get it done is your business. To compensate you is mine."

"Anything else?" Father asked, looking down on the files on the desk.

I wondered. Was there?

Father didn't seem to be in the best mood. Pulling it up might convince my father that I am obsolete. And obsolescence was not tolerated.

But last time I checked, father didn't operate on moods.

"I do have a request, father."

Father looked up at me, "aside from money? What?"

I licked my lips.

"I would like to ask for Reshma Khandakar, the granddaughter of Salim Khandakar's hand in marriage."

Father didn't hesitate a second before asking, "And why might you want that?"

"I need to form a strong familial alliance with the Khandakars," I held a gulp from traveling down my throat, "For... Future plans."

Father wanted me to take over the business after him. He never made it clear, but neither did he ever dispute it.

Could I play the master of the game?

Father kept looking at me, "I remember her engagement party being simply three days ago."

"Salim Khandakar is a man of business," I tried to keep a calm voice, but I don't know how much I actually succeeded, "One simply needs to make a more beneficial offering and he'll back out of any deal."

"How much do you intend to invest in this plan of yours?" Father's hands seemed to shift balance on the table.

"No more than I intend to benefit, father."

Father laid back on his chair, "We shall discuss this in details in a later time."

"Of course, father," I bowed, and was ready to leave, when father called me out again.

"Rashed," his voice sounded odd. Both ponderous and grieving, "Do you love this girl?"

I was quiet for a second. It was the quiet that comes when you suddenly pull your earphones out when listening to a song.

At last, I slung back to reality.

"Yes, father," I was standing in Mountain of lies, and I hoped this wasn't the stone to start the avalanche.

"Go, then," he said without looking at me. And so I went.

"And of course," father called out behind me when I was near the door, "Make yourself presentable by today afternoon. The Big Five are meeting."

And then I walked out the door.

Walking down the hallway, I began to think.

There's only one reason father would send me somewhere with the specific reason to get beaten. He wants an excuse to take over.

The prostitution quarters at Vorapukuria were common grounds for all the gangs around. They came and went as they pleased. There was no point in trying to monopolize the business. The business depended on generalization to thrive.

Off the hand, I could only think of a single purpose for taking over.

Shutting the place down and disbanding the prostitutes. A notion that may sound good, but is actually catastrophic for them. Most of them—and I mean a big most— don't even have birth certificates. Let alone as citizens, the state doesn't even give them the rights of being human. The quarters in Vorapukuria give more strength in numbers than anything.

So why would father do it? He usually doesn't conquer small areas such as these for the sake of conquering. Usually, it is because either the area has defied his dominance, or it's a gateway to a bigger mouthful.

And then there was the matter of Reshma. My mind avoided that, sensing a mental maze. Whatever I thought I did, in the end, I did the same thing as her grandfather. I took away the choice she never had.

"Hey," Shalik coming towards me in hallway, snapped my line of thought.

I looked at her, slowing down.

What would Shalik do when she finds out?

Shalik's expression turned a little confused.

Okay, I might've unintentionally glared at her, but she's used to it, "Uh, hey."

"Father called for?"

"Yeah."

She scowled, "Me too."

I stopped in my track, "Why?"

She scowled deeper, "Don't know. Gotta go find out."

And then she went through the door.

I waited about fifteen minutes before she came out. There was not an extra fold in her shirt and not a change in how she held herself. But her eyes had sunken just a few milimeters.

She met mine and said, "later."

And when Shalik said later, she meant later.

So off we went.