A Price Above Rubies

Chapter Four

Hilal hears singing as she runs the towel through her damp hair. Passing across the door she makes her way into the living room and scowls as the singing gets louder...and worse. If whomever it is wakes Yorgo or Acelya, Hilal will make him reg... Wait...she recognizes that song... and the voice. Oh good grief... .

"Leon, shh! You're going to wake everyone."

That is Yakup.

"Oh, good point," Leon says in what Hilal guesses is supposed to be a whisper but it's too loud. "The babies are sleeping. We have to shhhh, to not wake the babies."

A loud thumping and shuffling.

Leon swears in Greek.

"Careful. I've got you."

Hilal rolls her eyes and opens the door.

Leon had been leaning against the door and almost falls in, but luckily Yakup catches him. Leon blinks and straightens, wobbly but able to stand up by himself. "Hello, my love!" A bright smile spreads across his face. "Guess what? We won! Or...wait, that's not right." He shakes his head.

"Leon, keep your voice down before I leave you here on this porch!" Hilal snaps. She looks past him to Yakup who gives her an apologetic shrug.

"Thank you for bringing him home but I thought the plan was to get Mahmout drunk?" Hilal asks as Yakup brings Leon past the threshold.

"Oh we did!" Leon exclaims exuberantly, his dark hair falling over his forehead in such a way that he looks more boyish than his twenty-eight years. "Shh!" he tells himself. "The babies are sleeping!"

Hilal bites her lip. She doesn't know whether to laugh or hit him. She feels like doing both.

"Did you leave me any leftovers from dinner?" Leon asks, in a very high whisper. "I'm starving." He starts to sway towards the kitchen when they're trying to set him down on the couch.

"Yes, but explain to me why you're drunk or I'm feeding it to Eleni's dogs."

"We were ceberating...um...cecebrating...No that's not it," Leon shakes his head.

"Celebrating?" Hilal asks.

"That's it!" Leon bursts before scowling. "Shh! The babies are sleeping!" He repeats to himself and Hilal can't help the small laugh that bursts from her. "You're so smart, my love." Leon strokes her face before falling down onto the couch. He wraps his arms around her waist and rests his head on her stomach before looking off to the side at Yakup and smiling dreamily at him. "Yakup, isn't my wife so smart?"

Yakup nods and looks at Hilal. "Let me explain. The plan worked. Mahmout is in debt to Omer for so much money that he'll never be able to pay it off. Azat and Omer agreed to clear the debt if Ahmet can come work for me."

"I was such a good loser, wife. You would be so proud!" Leon says, looking up at her adoringly.

He'd learned how to play poker from his brother Ali Kemal. Now, he wasn't quite as good as him, but Ali Kemal was brilliant with cards so to even come close to his level made Leon one of the best card players in the whole city... making the plan to have him deliberately lose to draw Mahmout in to the game all the more impressive.

"Yes, I'm proud, you silly man," Hilal admits. That much at least is true. "Even if you do smell like a brewery."

"Yakup got some new whiskey all the way from Ireland. Even you would like it and we let Ahmet have a little taste too. Shhh! That's a secret though."