CHAPTER 1: Everything Except You

PROLOGUE — ROAD TO EDINBURGH

Rain hammered the windshield as Zoya drove toward Edinburgh. The same headlights had been behind her for eleven miles.

She checked the rearview mirror. Her grip had gone painfully tight around the wheel. Her hands were shaking now, enough that she had to tighten them just to keep the car straight.

The headlights were still behind her. Too close. Too steady.

Her thumb hovered over one name.

*Raiyan.*

It stayed on the screen three seconds too long before she moved past it.

She called Mei. No response.

Faiyaz. She hit call. Ring. Ring. Nothing.

*The number you are trying to reach is currently out of reach.*

She was already sliding to Evan's contact when the phone buzzed in her hand.

Daniel. Her mother's security chief.

She answered before the second ring. "Daniel, I'm being followed. I'm almost—"

"Zoya, get out of the car. Right now." His breathing was uneven, words rushing together like he hadn't stopped running to say them. "They found you. He's—"

A gunshot tore through the phone.

"Daniel?" Her voice cracked. "Daniel!"

Nothing. The line stayed open. Rain hissed through the speaker, the only sound left on his end of the world.

She looked up. The truck was still there. Closer now.

The truck surged forward.

It slammed into the back of her car hard enough to rip the wheel sideways beneath her hands. Her car shot across the muddy shoulder, rolled once, and came down hard enough to knock the air from her lungs.

For a long second she couldn't move. The engine ticked somewhere ahead of her. Rain drummed against the shattered windshield.

She looked down. The seatbelt had cut across her stomach. Both hands flew there before she even realized she was crying.

The driver's door groaned as it shifted. Gasoline, faint, threading through the wreck.

Someone was walking toward the car.

She lifted her head. The man stepped out of the rain, stopped beside her window, and raised the gun with a calm that had nothing left in it to negotiate with.

She wrapped both arms around her stomach,

"Please," she whispered, voice breaking. "Don't hurt them."

***

CHAPTER 1 — EVERYTHING EXCEPT YOU

Three years later.

The study door opened without a sound, and Nelson stopped as soon as he saw them.

Raiyan looked up. Liyana was still asleep against his chest, one small hand tangled in his shirt.

"She refused everyone tonight," Nelson said, careful to keep his voice under the sound of her breathing. "Kept asking for you."

Raiyan glanced down at his daughter, fingers moving slowly through her hair. "I know."

"I'll take her upstairs when you're ready." Nelson reached for the light switch out of old habit, then stopped himself.

Raiyan's gaze went to the files spread across the desk, then back to Liyana. "Not yet." His hand didn't move from her hair.

Nelson nodded and stepped further into the room. "Miriam will be here before noon. I'll bring Liyana straight to the manor."

"Good." Raiyan didn't look up. "Don't let Miriam leave her side."

"She won't," Nelson said simply.

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Raiyan said without looking up, "If she cries when I leave."

Nelson weighed how honest to be. "She probably will."

Raiyan gave a short nod and looked down at Liyana again. "I'll tell her what I always do."

"Daddy always comes back," Nelson finished.

Raiyan looked at him then, something in his eyes loosening for the first time all morning. "Thank you." Quieter than anything else he'd said.

Nelson inclined his head. "She knows you'll come back, sir." He slipped out, closing the door behind him.

Raiyan's thumb kept moving through Liyana's hair long after the door had clicked shut. He didn't reach for the files for a long time. When he finally did, he read the first paragraph, reached the bottom of the page, and realized he hadn't understood a single sentence of it.

***

Geneva was already awake beyond the terminal glass. Raiyan walked through arrivals the way he always did, unhurried, like the airport was moving to accommodate him rather than the other way around.

Michael caught up before they reached the car. "Sir."

"What changed?" Raiyan asked, without slowing his pace.

"The plaintiffs filed a substitution of lead counsel." Michael kept pace beside him, eyes on his tablet. "It was approved this morning."

"Who took over?"

Michael cleared his throat, a tell Raiyan had learned to read years ago. "Lead counsel on the Mansoor Corp case is now Ms. Al Fayez. Zoya Al Fayez."

The name should have been just a name.

It wasn't.

Michael made it another step before realizing Raiyan was no longer beside him. He stopped and looked back. “From what I found, she's taken on three major corporate defendants over the last two years. Won all three."

A dry chuckle left him. “Let her. There’s a first time for everything.”

He turned and kept walking.

His phone rang before they reached the car. He pulled it from his jacket, and the screen lit up bright enough that Michael stopped talking mid-sentence.

No one looking at that screen would have guessed the phone belonged to the man everyone else feared. They would have seen only a little girl, caught mid-laugh, dark wavy hair going in every direction, one sock missing, hazel eyes bright with a happiness that belonged only to her.

Raiyan answered before the second ring. "Hey, baby girl."

What came back wasn't a response. It was a weather system.

"DADDYYYYYYY!"

Michael quietly fell back a step.

"Hey." Raiyan slowed his steps. "I'm here. Right here. Tell me what happened."

"You went AWAY." The accusation landed like she'd been saving it up for hours. "I waked up and I looked and I looked and you weren't ANYWHERE."

"I know, baby." His voice dropped into the register he kept for no one else.

"I don't LIKE work, Daddy." A loud sniff. "I just misshh you."

"I miss you too." His grip tightened around the phone before loosening again.

"She hasn't eaten," Miriam's voice said from somewhere behind her, smooth and already tired. "I've tried everything."

"Lily. Tell me what you had for breakfast."

"...nothing?" A guilty pause. "Yes. Milk and eggs."

"Did you eat the eggs?" He already suspected the answer.

"...Some." He could hear her fingers picking at something within reach, a blanket thread, a sock.

"How many is some?"

Arithmetic she clearly didn't want to do. "...One. But Daddy—" She rushed ahead before he could answer. "It was a big one."

The corner of his mouth moved, and he caught it before it could go any further. "What about the toast?"

"The toast was dirty," she said, flat and final, as though the color itself had betrayed her.

"I've adjusted the toaster," Miriam cut in, brisk and already anticipating the complaint.

"Lily. Look at me."

"No," she said, miserably. "I can't look at you if you're not here."

"Then just listen." He leaned against the terminal glass. "When have I ever not come back?"

Dead serious now, the kind of serious only a two-year-old could manage over a question this size. "...Never."

"Right. Never." He let a moment pass before pushing further. "So what does that mean?"

"...You're coming back?" She worked it out loud, thinking as she talked.

"I'm coming back."

"Pinky promise?"

"Pinky promise." He said it like it was a binding legal document.

"How many sleeps?" Already calculating.

"Two." He almost regretted saying it out loud.

Fingers counting somewhere on the other end, and not liking what they landed on. "That's SO many."

"It's really not." He kept his voice light, though he already knew from the silence that she was building a case against him.

"It IS. That's two whole nights, Daddy. And you won't be there for ANY of them."

"Everyone else will be there."

"No one sings the song right." Aggrieved. "They do the slow part fast."

Raiyan let the silence stretch, listening. He was standing in a private terminal in Geneva, a legal case building across two continents, and losing a debate about song tempo to someone who weighed twelve kilograms.

"Two sleeps," he said. "And I'll sing it so slow you'll fall asleep before the second verse."

A sniff, then a considering hush. "...Okay," she said finally, small and real now, all the earlier performance gone.

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"I love you the most in the whole world."

His chest went warm and full the same way it always did. "I love you the most in the whole world."

"You love me the most, Daddy," she corrected, gently but firmly, as though they'd arrived at the right answer together.

"Say goodbye, sweetheart. Daddy is busy," Miriam's voice said, quiet and even.

"Bye, Daddy." Then, smaller: "Come back quick."

"Quick as I can."

He waited until she hung up first, and stood there three full seconds before slipping the phone into his pocket. He looked at Michael. "What else changed?"

"Sir." Michael opened the folder under his arm. "Three anonymous complaints reached the regulators this week. Two major investors have put new commitments on hold, and confidential financial figures were leaked to the press yesterday. None of it is unusual on its own. All of it in the same week is."

"So Al Fayez takes lead, regulators get complaints, investors pull back, and internal numbers end up in the press — all in the same week."

"That's what concerns us."

"It should. Trace all of it. I want to know if this is one hand or several."

Michael nodded. "And the Al Fayez case?"

"Harrison proceeds. Nothing changes." Raiyan adjusted his cuff, an old reflex. "For now."

The order landed quietly. He turned toward the exit, three steps from the door when he saw them.

***

In Los Angeles, Zoya was halfway through a motion to compel the remaining internal reports when her assistant appeared at her office door.

"Harrison Cole."

Zoya didn't look up. "Tell him opposing counsel knows how to use email."

"He said you'd say that."

That made her pen stop. "Of course he did."

"He says it's about settlement."

"How generous." She reached for the phone. "Harrison."

His voice arrived first, smooth and patient in the particular way of a man who thought politeness made him harder to dislike. "Ms. Al Fayez."

"If this is another attempt to explain civil procedure to me," she said, turning back to the document in front of her, "I'm charging you by the minute."

He laughed softly. "I heard you were difficult."

"You called during my filing deadline." She didn't look up from the page. "You're meeting the better version of me."

"I'll remember that." A short pause, his tone shifting. "Mansoor Corporation is prepared to discuss settlement before this goes any further."

That got her attention. "How prepared?"

"Ninety million." He let the silence stretch before he went on. "Confidential settlement. No admission of liability. Your clients are compensated immediately, and this ends before trial."

Zoya's eyes moved to the file beside her. "And the internal reports?"

"They remain confidential."

"The remaining production?"

"Ends with the case."

She looked down at the open file. A six-year-old's blood test sat on top, the elevated lead result highlighted beside pages of medical reports and photographs she knew almost by heart.. Beneath them were the names of children whose parents had trusted her with something more important than winning.

"My clients have already instructed me." Her voice didn't rise. "No confidential settlement."

"Even at ninety million?" A trace of disbelief crept into his voice.

"Even at ninety million." She didn't blink.

"Zoya, we're talking about ninety million dollars."

"I heard the number."

"And you're sure that's still their position at ninety million?"

"I'm sure." She sat forward. “The families aren’t doing this just for money. They signed on because they want to make sure this never happens to anyone else's kids. A confidential settlement keeps the rest of it buried, and I'm not letting your client bury it."

Harrison was quiet for a moment. "He knows you're lead counsel now."

Her fingers stopped against the edge of the file. "I assumed he would."

"He's not going to make this easy on you."

"I never expected him to." She ended the call.

Her assistant leaned into the doorway a few seconds later. "Well?"

Zoya reopened the discovery motion. "We're filing."

"Ninety million?"

"Still filing."

Her assistant stared at her long enough that Zoya finally looked up. "What?"

"Nothing," her assistant said.

"That's not your nothing face."

"It's my I-would-have-at-least-thought-about-ninety-million face."

Zoya's mouth curved despite herself. "That's why I'm lead counsel and you're standing in my doorway being nosy."

"Cruel," her assistant said, already backing out.

"Close the door."

Her assistant did, still muttering under her breath.

When the office was quiet again, Zoya stared at the same paragraph for a few seconds before forcing herself back into it.

*Raiyan knew.*

She had known this moment would come. Knowing hadn't made it easier.

For one second, her thumb found the pale line along the inside of her wrist. She stopped herself almost immediately, picked up her pen, and went back to work.

***

Back in Geneva, Raiyan was almost at the terminal doors when a woman near the seating area laughed at something her companion said and moved her coffee too quickly. A little spilled over the rim, nothing more, but Raiyan stopped anyway.

Michael glanced back. "Sir?"

Raiyan didn't answer.

The woman was already wiping at the cup with a napkin, still laughing, completely unaware that he was watching her.

He didn't know her. There was no reason the sight should have meant anything.

But the coffee, the careless movement, and the sound of her laugh brought Heathrow back before he could stop it: the private terminal, her midnight-blue trench, dark hair falling loose from a careless knot, and those hazel-green eyes looking at him like she'd known him for five minutes and had already decided he was ridiculous.

Six years earlier, Zoya Al Fayez had walked straight into him with a cup of coffee in her hand.

*My eyes are on vacation.*