Chapter 3: Mommy

Raiyan straightened, adjusted his cuffs, reset his expression to its operational setting with the efficiency of a man who'd practiced this for years.

"Michael."

"Sir." Michael was already reaching for his tablet.

"Whatever Zoya Al Fayez has against Mansoor Corporation — I want all of it." A pause. "Everything."

Michael's pen paused over the screen. For the first time that morning, he didn't answer immediately. "Personal as well?"

His eyes never left the corridor ahead. "Everything."

Michael scrolled once, confirming the entry before answering. "Harrison filed it yesterday morning."

"Yes, sir." Michael looked up briefly. "Yesterday afternoon."

"Good."

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

"I want us ahead of opposing counsel at every stage."

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

"I don't intend to lose because we reacted late," Raiyan said, and something in his tone made Michael stop writing for half a second before he caught himself and kept going.

Still Al Fayez. Not Malik. Not whatever name she might have taken since.

He walked out. The door closed behind him. Michael stood still for a moment before Armaan appeared beside him, and neither of them said a word.

"Come on," Michael said finally, and they followed.

⸻

The summit venue operated with quiet precision — security checkpoints, private entrances, delegations moving according to schedules measured down to the minute. Michael walked half a step behind him.

"The organizers have requested a press stop after the keynote," Michael said, not looking up from his phone.

"No." Raiyan didn't slow his pace.

"They've asked twice," Michael said, glancing at him sideways.

"They can ask again," Raiyan said, flat, already scanning the corridor ahead.

Michael nodded once. "I've arranged the private route."

"Good." A short breath out through his nose — the closest thing to approval Michael was going to get.

Michael glanced at the notification before locking his screen. "Another institutional investor has requested an emergency meeting."

Raiyan didn't slow.

"And?"

Michael's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Three European outlets have picked up yesterday's financial leak. The regulators have acknowledged receipt of the complaints."

Raiyan smoothed an invisible crease from his cuff before answering.

"Contain it."

Michael didn't defend the team. "We're working on it."

Nothing else needed saying. The Geneva Global Climate & Technology Summit looked like transparency designed by people who didn't trust it — glass walls, silent security, conversations kept just soft enough to feel like secrets.

Raiyan Al Mansoor arrived, and the room adjusted to make space around him. He stepped onto the stage without building up to his point, without trying to be liked, spoke about corporate accountability and enforcement gaps with a voice as level as a blade, and when he finished he took the award, handed it to Michael without so much as glancing at it, and walked off.

The applause followed him beyond the stage. He never looked back.

Behind the security barrier, cameras flashed in quick succession. Several voices called his name. One asked for a comment. Another asked for only a moment.

Michael accepted the crystal award before Raiyan had fully left the stage. "No interviews," he said calmly. "No photographs."

Raiyan glanced down at his sleeve and straightened it — an old reflex.

"Michael, the scholarship committee?"

Michael glanced at his tablet, thumb scrolling once. "Final interviews are next week."

"The committee stays exactly where it is." Raiyan didn't look up. "Nobody loses a place because of my schedule."

"No, sir." Michael didn't argue — he never did on this particular subject.

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

Then — that was when he saw her.

Raiyan stopped walking. His feet rooted to the floor while everything else in the corridor kept moving around him, and his pulse kicked once, hard, against his throat.

She turned slightly, then looked at him, raised one hand in a quiet gesture to the delegates waiting for her, and stepped toward him.

"Mr. Mansoor," she said, her expression giving away nothing.

He looked at her without answering.

She inclined her head once, measured and almost formal. "Sophia," she said simply.

That was all she said, and it was enough to catch him somewhere under the ribs before he could stop it.

Recognition should have been immediate. Instead, it arrived carrying doubt.

"That was very impressive," she said, tilting her head slightly, studying him the way a person studies something they already half-suspect they'll need to remember later.

"The problem with systems," she went on, "is people spend too much time looking for dramatic failures." Her smile was polite, nothing more. "It's usually the assumptions that do the real damage."

"Congratulations on the award," he said, watching her face for something he couldn't name yet.

She held his gaze exactly three seconds longer than politeness required, then turned and walked away — no hesitation, no backward glance — and disappeared into the crowd.

He stood there a moment longer, staring at the empty space where she'd been standing, one hand curling loosely at his side.

Michael closed the distance by a single step, careful not to draw attention. "Sophia Roseann Reyes. EU climate infrastructure. Very low media presence."

"Get her full profile," Raiyan said. "Everything. Her family. Her history. Find out if she has any connection to Zoya Al Fayez."

Michael had already opened another file. "Already on it."

Raiyan started walking again, his pace and his face giving nothing away. Only the name, somewhere underneath all of it, refused to stay buried.

⸻

She was running through a corridor where the air tasted of blood and metal. Every breath burned. No matter how much she pushed, her feet moved like they were underwater. She could feel them ahead of her — both of them, close enough to touch, then gone into the shadows.

She turned too slowly.

Not the man she remembered. This version looked at her with a quiet, devastating certainty. He didn't shout. He never shouted in the dream. He just stood there, eyes like cold obsidian, and said the words that gutted her every time.

"Look what you did to us."

She had no defense in the dream. Her voice was gone, her throat filled with ash. He kept looking at her, and his judgment landed on her like a hand closing around her throat.

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.