All eyes turned toward the gunshot. There was a man with a gun in his hand at the door. The man was looking around frantically left and right. As if there was something he was searching for. Of course, I don't need to mention that meanwhile he was randomly firing shots into the air here and there and people were running away.
"Araf!" shouted the armed man suddenly.
All of our gazes found Araf. Okay, while there are millions of Arafs in Turkey or in the world, our directly thinking of our Araf as a scapegoat might be quite unfair-
"Araf doesn't fear!" shouted the man at the entrance who found no good in the gunfight.
My God, I said to myself, this was all we needed.
Now Araf must have bothered to make an explanation because we could finally hear the gentleman's voice.
"Quick, this place has a back door, let's get out through there. Angel, you get in front of me, Variant you get behind Boş. Let's get out without a hair on any of your heads being harmed. We'll deal with the aftermath later."
"I don't need you to protect me, partner," I said and took out my gun that I never separate from my bag and closed my bag back up. I got my gun ready to fire and pointed ahead with my eyes to Araf. "Lead the way, gentlemen."
After Araf looked at me for a second or two in a way I couldn't understand, he nodded and moved. My eyes shifted to Variant, their situation wasn't different from ours either.
In one word, fantastic. We're literally risking death so that the men we came to kill don't die. If my uncle saw the current situation, what would happen to Variant and me was very uncertain.
I shook my head. Thank God we were somewhere in the back, which made it harder for the man to see us. Well, the man was acting so unstable and absurd that even if we were right in front of his eyes, he might not have been able to see us.
We got past the man behind us who didn't even know how to hold a gun and reached the exit. My God, if he had tried a little, it became too easy like this.
While walking from the exit toward where our cars were located, I grabbed Araf by the arm and stopped him.
"Don't you think the weather is perfect weather for making explanations?"
"I don't understand, Ms. Glory."
Of course, dear, I'm a first-class idiot too. I moistened my lips. "Now, dear Araf, either you tell me what's happening without dragging it out." I pressed the barrel of my gun to Araf's heart.
"Or I'll do what that man over there couldn't. Oh, and I hope you won't make the mistake of confusing me with that idiot over there." While the gun was pressed against Araf's heart, I got a little closer to Araf. "I don't miss, especially not from this distance."
After Araf and Boş left the venue, they had probably put their guns back in place so we wouldn't be scared and were waiting on alert, so right now Araf couldn't reach for his gun against me. As for Boş, I think he tried to reach for his gun in response to my move, but Variant acted before him and pressed his own gun to Boş's head. "Don't even think about it, buddy."
"Okay, I was going to explain anyway, but since you're asking so nicely now, let's not disappoint you. That man... He's my blood feud."
"Your blood feud? What does that mean? Did one of you steal the other's blood and submit it to court?" I was confused. I always hated things I didn't know about.
Araf smiled slightly. "No, it's not like that." He looked at the gun pressed against his heart and turned back to me. "I think it would be easier for me to explain if you lowered that."
I looked at the gun and then turned to him. "If you're thinking of any trouble-"
"No, especially not against you after this hour, ma'am."
"Well done, you're learning fast, partner." I lowered my gun and signaled Variant to lower his too. Vari lowered the gun, but his expression while lowering it almost made me laugh, breaking away from the seriousness of the situation. His facial expression was like the trending meme recently, come on, this isn't a goal either.
We were all listening to Araf while being alert to both our surroundings and each other. "This is actually something common and normal in our area. Someone kills someone, then the grieving party tries to kill the killer. This continues in such an endless cycle. That's what we call a blood feud."
"Hmm, so are you saying that you killed someone and the family of the person you killed is after you and won't rest until they kill you?" This story seemed familiar to me from somewhere...
"No, I didn't kill anyone. One of my cousins shot and killed him this morning."
"Then why do they want to kill you, let them go and clean up your cousin."
Araf and Boş looked at each other and smiled. Their smiles seemed to contain some pain.
"Unfortunately, in the wolf pack, the law is whoever can eat whom."
I nodded my head. How nice, as if we didn't have enough things on our heads, now we would deal with this too. Though, sitting and thinking about it, we were going to do the same thing. Their lives in return for the lives they took from us...
I guess it was true that some things had no religion, language, or race...
"But don't worry, this cycle won't spill over to you in any way. We're going to Mardin with Araf now to handle this matter."
"Boş," I said and locked my gaze on his eyes. "In this life, I'm only afraid of two things; one is my uncle, two is Variant's cooking experiments. As you can see, what you mentioned doesn't fall into these two categories. So we're coming with you too."
"No," they said at the same time. "This is too dangerous."
"Look, gentlemen, I understand you and I appreciate the effort you're making so we don't get hurt, but Angel is right. Let us help you."
"Whatever we say, you're going to come along anyway, aren't you?"
"Well done, Boş, you know us well."
Araf sighed. "Well then, we're going to Mardin on the first flight tomorrow."
"What's the reason we can't go to Mardin now? Is it because there are no flight times?"
Araf nodded in agreement. "In that case, be ready at Sabiha Gökçen Airport in two hours so we can drop you off in Mardin."
While Araf's eyes widened, I heard Boş's voice. "Do you have a plane?"
No, no, I won't be nasty by saying "don't you?" right now... "You know that as a company we say we are sufficient for ourselves. Eh, naturally, that's why we don't have any foreign elements in our structure. Of course, this includes international flight companies too." I took my gaze away from Boş and signaled Vari as if to say let's go, turned my back and headed toward my car. "Remember, we are sufficient for ourselves. In every sense."
We had come to the front of my car, I had told Vari to get in my car. When we got inside the car, Araf and Boş were talking while looking at us.
I started the car and drove toward home, we had a short Mardin trip ahead of us.
"Isn't it very ironic?"
I took my eyes off the road and turned to Variant. He seemed like he was going to continue his previous sentence. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth.
"We're risking our own death so that the man we came to kill doesn't get killed."
I was surprised. "You know what, Vari, I formed a similar sentence a little while ago too, but I think there's something even more ironic."
Vari raised one eyebrow. "What is it?"
"That we're going to do the same thing we're trying to prevent... I think we also have a blood feud with the Arafs, we just didn't know its name."
Vari smiled. "I wonder what my father will say about this situation."
"I don't know, but we can't risk sending Araf there alone. No one else can take credit for all that effort." This possibility annoyed me so much that I gripped the steering wheel.
"I agree with you, Angel." I felt Variant's gaze turn to the window. After staying quiet for a while, Variant spoke again. "If my memory doesn't deceive me, unlike Araf, his family was continuing their lives in Mardin. This means our probability of encountering them is high."
"Stop dragging it out, Vari, and say what's on the tip of your tongue."
"Okay, since you insist. I'm just curious." I looked at Variant, he took his eyes off the window and turned to me.
"Is your constitution ready to see these people who burned your family alive? I mean, okay, Araf is also a product of them in theory, but he has no intentional hand in this business, so your constitution might not have a problem with him, but for the others, especially for the family elders..." Variant couldn't complete his sentence and sighed. He paused again for a few seconds and locked his gaze into the depths of my eyes. His gaze seemed to hope to find something in my eyes.
"Are you ready, Angel? Look, if you say you can't handle seeing your family's killers in flesh and blood this early, we can try to solve this matter from a distance. Know this and tell me: are you ready to see these murderers in person?"