Chapter 3: Mommy

CHAPTER 3 — MOMMY

Raiyan straightened and adjusted his cuffs, his face settling back into the calm, unreadable expression he wore around everyone else.

Michael caught up beside him. "The investors are already upstairs. Regulatory moved the expansion meeting to ten-thirty."

"Fine."

Michael glanced at his tablet.

Raiyan noticed. "What?"

"Harrison filed our opposition to the motion to compel yesterday afternoon."

"Good." Raiyan kept walking. "Whatever Zoya Al Fayez has against Mansoor Corporation, I want all of it." A pause. "Everything."

Michael's pen stopped over the screen. "Personal as well?"

His eyes stayed on the corridor ahead. "Everything."

"Litigation is reviewing every procedural avenue before the next hearing," Michael added, glancing up to gauge whether that landed.

"I want us ahead of opposing counsel at every stage." He didn't break stride to say it.

"Yes, sir." Michael's pen moved again, faster now.

"I don't intend to lose because we reacted late." Michael's pen stopped moving for half a second before he caught himself and kept writing.

*Still Al Fayez.*

Armaan was waiting by the car when they came outside.

The car hadn't even cleared the gate before Michael's tablet lit up again.

"Sir, before the next round of calls." He turned the screen so Raiyan could see it. "The export credentials trace back to someone inside litigation. Not IT, not the board. Our own side."

Raiyan's gaze didn't leave the screen. "Who."

"We're narrowing it. Whoever it is knew exactly which files would land hardest." A pause, careful, like he was choosing which part to say first. "And it went out the same week Al Fayez took lead. That's not luck."

Raiyan's hand rested on the door, unmoving. "So this isn't just Zoya."

"I don't think it ever was only Zoya." Michael met his eyes. "I think the lawsuit is one piece of something bigger, and we're only seeing the piece that's supposed to be visible."

Silence stretched between them, long enough that Armaan glanced back once from the front seat before facing forward again.

"Find that person," Raiyan said. "Quietly. I want a name before anyone else does."

Michael glanced up from his notes. "And the Al Fayez case?"

"Stays exactly where it is." His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. "That's still the one I care about."

Michael nodded once and started typing.

***

That evening, the Geneva summit was already underway by the time Raiyan arrived. Michael stayed beside him as security moved them through the private entrance, tablet in hand and speaking quickly enough that Raiyan knew something had changed.

“The lawsuit is getting picked up,” Michael said. “Two financial outlets ran it in the last twenty minutes. The summit press team also has it on their question list.”

Raiyan looked at him. "Take it off."

Michael didn't need him to explain which part. "The question list?"

"All of it. No lawsuit on the summit broadcast, nothing about it in the press package attached to my appearance, and nobody asks me about Zoya—" Raiyan cleared his throat. "Zoya Al Fayez tonight. If the press wants a statement, they get Harrison's."

Michael was already typing. "I'll handle it."

Raiyan went onstage eleven minutes later.

He spoke for less than twenty minutes about corporate accountability, environmental responsibility and the gaps companies exploited when regulation moved slower than money. By the time he stepped offstage, Michael was waiting near the private exit.

"Nothing on the official feed," he said. "None of the summit coverage is leading with the lawsuit. One trade outlet still has the original story up, but it isn't leading."

Raiyan handed him the award he'd just been given. "Good."

Cameras were still calling his name from behind the barrier when he started walking again.

The security detail opened a quieter corridor, and within seconds Raiyan had disappeared from public view.

***

Hours later, in Los Angeles, a man sat in a parked car across the street from Zoya’s house, watching the dark windows.

His phone lit up. He read the message, then deleted it.

He typed two words back.

*It's done.*

***

She was running through a corridor that smelled of blood and metal. Every breath burned, and no matter how hard she tried to run faster, her legs wouldn't move the way she needed them to.

She could feel them somewhere ahead of her. Both of them. Close enough that she thought she could reach them, and then suddenly they were gone into the shadows.

She turned too late.

Raiyan was there.

In the dream, he always looked at her the same way. He never shouted. Somehow that was worse. He would just stand there, looking at her like he had already decided there was nothing she could say that would change his mind.

"Look what you did to us."

Zoya tried to answer, but nothing came out. He kept looking at her, and she knew he didn't believe her anyway.

Then small arms locked around her neck from behind.

"Mommy."

Zoya jerked awake with a broken cry. Both hands flew to her abdomen before she was fully awake and found nothing there.

She kept them there anyway.