FAZER LOGINThe first thing I felt was the floor.Cold stone beneath my cheek, hard and indifferent, pressing into the side of my face with a permanence that told me I hadn't just dozed off somewhere. My head was screaming. Not a headache, something deeper, more violent, the kind of pain that sits behind your eyes and pulses with your heartbeat like it's trying to push through your skull from the inside out.I pushed myself upright slowly, one hand flat on the floor, the other pressed to the back of my head. My fingers came away clean. No blood. Small mercy.The room was dim. A thin line of light bled under the door, just enough to make out shapes, a bed, a chair, a table. I was in the same room they'd put me in last night, but something was different. My shoes were gone. Someone had removed them while I was unconscious, placed them neatly beside the bed like a hotel turndown service, like a person who cared about my comfort, and that careful, deliberate detail unsettled me in a way the locked
"Ava, he's behind us!""I know, I know, just—" She cut the wheel hard and I slammed into the door, Rayyan screaming in the back seat."Mama!""Don't look baby, don't look—"I looked. Khalil's headlights filled the entire rear window. My heart was in my throat. We'd been running for four minutes and he hadn't dropped back once, not even when Ava pushed the car past every speed it should have been doing on a road this narrow."He's getting closer Ava—""Sophie I need you to stop talking—""He's going to take my son again, he's going to—""SOPHIE." Her voice cracked like a whip. "Let me drive."I bit down on everything rising in my chest and spun back to face the front. Rayyan was curled against the back seat crying quietly, and the sound of it was doing something terrible to me, pulling at every instinct that wanted me to stop, to hold him, to make it okay. I couldn't. All I could do was keep moving.Ava swung into a side street, then another, then cut through what looked like a residen
I dropped to my knees before Noura could take another step, my hands closing around her leg like she was the only solid thing left in the world. "Please," I begged, the word tearing out of me raw and ugly. "Please, let me leave with him. I'll bring him back, I swear it, anytime you want to see your grandson, I'll bring him myself, just please, don't do this to us—"She looked down at me the way you'd look at something inconvenient on the floor.Then she pulled her leg free and walked away.One by one, they followed her, Khalil first, then Safiya and her sons, then Amira, who paused for half a second like she might say something, before she too turned and left. The courtyard emptied until it was only me, kneeling on cold stone, my cheek still throbbing from the slap, my dignity scattered somewhere in the dust around me.I don't know how long I stayed there before I finally forced myself up and made my way back to the room.Rayyan was already asleep, curled small under a blanket too bi
"Away from here." I didn't step back, even though every instinct told me to. "I'm taking my son and I'm leaving. Tonight.""You're not going anywhere.""I don't want to stay in that house." My voice cracked, but I kept going, because if I stopped now I'd lose whatever courage I had left. "I don't like this place. I don't know any of you. Something about your family makes my skin crawl, and I am not raising my son in it. We're leaving."Khalil's jaw tightened. "This isn't your decision to make.""He's my son.""He's also my brother's." The words landed flat, final, like a door closing. He turned his head slightly, toward the man standing near the second car. "Reza. Take him.""No—" I lunged, but Reza was already moving, already lifting Rayyan gently but firmly out of my reach. My son's cry cut through the night, and I fought against Khalil's grip as he seized my arm."Let go of me. Let go of my son, let go of me—"He didn't let go. He didn't even slow down. He pulled me back through th
I took Rayyan’s hand the moment we stepped back outside. "Let's go," I whispered, though I had no idea where ‘go’ even meant in a place like this.We hadn't made it three steps before I saw her.Noura was collapsed over the coffin, her body folded over the polished wood like it might still hold warmth. Her wailing filled the courtyard, raw and unguarded, the kind of grief that strips a person down to something younger and smaller than themselves."My son," she cried, her hands pressed flat against the lid. "My boy, my only boy, why didn't you come home sooner, why did you let this happen"I froze. Whatever anger I still carried toward her evaporated in that moment. I understood grief. I was drowning in my own. But watching hers unfold in front of me, I felt something close to compassion, even after what she'd screamed at me minutes before.Then she rose.It happened fast. She grabbed Khalil by the front of his thobe, fisting the fabric near his throat, her face inches from his. "Punis
The gates opened onto something that didn't belong in real life.Three mansions, each the size of a small hotel, circled a fountain so large I could hear the water from inside the car with the windows up. I'd grown up thinking I understood wealth, London had taught me that, glass towers and private clubs and men who never checked a price tag. But this wasn't wealth. This was a kingdom. I pressed my hand against the window, half expecting the image to dissolve like a mirage in the desert heat.I barely registered the car stopping before I was out of it, running toward the SUV ahead, toward my son.Then I saw the men.They stood at the edges of the courtyard, dressed the same as the others but carrying rifles slung across their chests, different kinds, some sleek and modern, one I recognized without wanting to as an AK-47. My stomach turned to ice. This wasn't a home. It was a compound. A fortress dressed up in marble and gold."Khalil." My voice cracked as I reached him, reaching for R







