Chapter 6: The Name

CHAPTER 6

Zoya didn't sleep. She had checked every window in Joseph's manor twice, stood outside Riyana's door for a while, and blocked a number that would only be replaced by another one. By dawn she had built a case against Raiyan, and it kept falling over at the same point: he was capable of watching her, and he had every reason to want her rattled, but that didn't mean he had done it.

At nine, her junior associate appeared in the doorway with one hand on the frame. "Ma'am. Mr. Zayed Al Mansoor is here. He wants to see you," he said. "Harrison's office confirmed that Mr. Mansoor requested to speak with you directly," he added.

Zoya didn't look up from the file, and her pen kept moving across the page. "Fine. Five minutes."

Her junior nodded, but Zoya made Zayed wait twenty minutes anyway. She didn't need twenty minutes. She just wanted him to wait.

She capped her pen, set it beside the folder, and stood, and on her way out she paused by her associate's desk and lowered her voice. "Log his arrival. Time, parties present. I'll dictate the substance afterward."

The associate straightened. "Of course," he said.

Zayed Al Mansoor was standing by the conference room window with his hands folded behind him, looking out at the city as though it were waiting on him. Almost three years ago she had called this man family, and today she didn't offer him coffee.

She sat down across from him. "Mr. Mansoor. You have ten minutes."

"That's generous." He took the chair opposite hers and smoothed his tie. "I'll be direct, since I know you prefer it."

"Please." Zoya leaned back, her face perfectly neutral.

"Drop the case, Zoya." He said it gently, the way he might have suggested she try the tea. "The affected communities receive full compensation, above anything a court would award. We fund an independent remediation programme across every affected region. No admission of liability, and everyone walks away with what they actually need."

She let him finish, and then she folded her hands. "No."

He blinked once. "Zoya."

"No." Her expression didn't change. "They want accountability. They want the truth on the record, not buried behind an NDA and forgotten in five years. I intend to give them that."

"Of course." He nodded as though she had agreed with him. "I only wonder whether you've counted the cost. A case this size runs for years, and your firm will feel every one of them. You'll feel them too, I think. Personally."

"The firm's cost is the firm's concern." She held his gaze, though she could feel the old pressure starting behind her ribs. "The rest is mine."

He studied her kindly, which was worse than if he hadn't. "Sophia was a woman of principle. She understood what idealism cost."

"Stop." Her voice didn't rise, but her fingertips flattened against the cool surface of the table. "Don't say her name in this room. Don't talk about what happened to her as if you had any standing."

"Forgive me." He inclined his head, entirely courteous, and the courtesy never reached his eyes. "I forget you still don't like hearing her name." He let that settle before he went on. "My grandson made the right decision, you know. I was wrong about you. When he finally understood the truth, he protected what mattered."

Zoya didn't answer, and he noticed.

"The innocent always deserve protecting," she said at last, quieter than she had meant to.

"They do." Zayed rose and buttoned his jacket, his voice low and warm, like a man offering condolences. "Joseph and I were friends for thirty years, you know. He used to sit in my study on Sunday evenings and tell me I was too hard on people. Then you came into my family and tore through it. He hasn't spoken to me in years because of what followed." He sighed, as if he were the injured party. "I've lost my oldest friend, Zoya. I'd like you to understand what that has cost me."

Something tightened in her throat, because Grandpa had never told her. She swallowed once, slowly, and kept both hands flat on the table.

"And your father." His voice cooled, and for the first time the courtesy slipped. "In the end, you proved blood is thicker than water. I regret every decision that led Raiyan to you. Every one. Betrayal runs in your blood, my dear. Omar taught it to you, and I'm sorry to see you've learned it so well."

That one landed differently. Zoya looked away before she could stop herself, only for a second, toward the glass wall, and she hated that he had managed even that. She pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth and waited until she trusted her voice. "My family is not your concern, Mr. Mansoor."

"No. But your reputation is." He paused at the door with one hand resting on it. "Every journalist in this country will ask what Zoya Al Fayez really wants. And once they learn you were married to Raiyan, they'll have an answer before you ever give them one. A lawyer suing her former husband's family, with a father she won't speak to and a past she won't explain. That may become the only question anyone asks. Careers have ended under less scrutiny."

"Is that a threat?" Zoya asked.

"It's a courtesy." He smiled. "And do think of Liyana, before you put this family on a witness stand. Some names ought to be left in peace."

The words went in cleanly, like a blade into cloth. Her stomach turned over, but her face stayed composed and her fingers closed hard against her palm. To Zoya it felt deliberate, as if he had reached into the one grave she never visited and picked out the name.

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Mansoor," she said. "My associate will show you out."

"Of course." He adjusted his cuff and walked out as though she had said something charming.

She didn't move until the door had closed. Then she pressed her palm flat against the table and held it there until the tremor stopped, because she could not remember the last time anyone had said that name aloud in front of her.

She had barely drawn a breath when voices carried through the glass wall of the corridor, two associates passing at speed. "...Mr. Raiyan just arrived," one of them said.

Her heart seemed to stop before slamming back into rhythm, hard enough that she felt it in her throat.

"Across the plaza. Harrison's building. His daughter is with him," the other one said, and the footsteps faded down the hall.

His daughter was Liyana, and Zoya knew that name.

The car idled at the curb across the plaza from Harrison's building. In the backseat, Liyana sat buckled into her car seat, narrating a long story about her Barbie to a patient stuffed rabbit, her small hands gesturing wildly with every word. Miriam had woken with a migraine, so Liyana had come along to Harrison's, and Raiyan sat beside her, barely listening, with his eyes on the steps of the tower opposite.

Zayed was coming down them, moving across the stone faster than usual.

"Michael," Raiyan said quietly, and his gaze didn't leave the window. "What is he doing here?"

From the front seat, Michael glanced at his phone, already prepared. "He went in half an hour ago, sir. No appointment on record."

There was only one firm in that tower that Zayed could have wanted. Yesterday he had sat across from Raiyan in his own study, and he hadn't said a word about seeing her.

"Daddyyyy." Liyana tugged at his sleeve. "I want ice cream."

Raiyan looked down at his daughter, and his face softened before he could stop it. "Lily, it's ten in the morning."

"I knowwww, but you promised." She widened her hazel eyes dramatically, and then her gaze drifted past his shoulder toward the plaza, and her whole face lit up. "Great-grandpaaaa!" She fumbled at the clasp of her harness. "Come sit down! Let's have ice cream!"

Across the pavement, Zayed stopped mid-step.

Raiyan's hand closed gently over Liyana's fingers before she could undo the buckle, and he looked at his grandfather through the tinted glass. "Not today, baby girl. Great-grandpa is busy."

"He's not busyyyy, Daddy," Liyana said.

"He's busy standing there," Raiyan murmured, and he held his grandfather's eyes across the plaza for a long second. Zayed looked back at him without a word, his face unreadable, and then he turned and got into his waiting car.

Liyana sighed with all the offense a toddler could muster and sank back into her seat. "Fine. Just us."

A faint, rare smile touched Raiyan's mouth as he reached over to straighten her harness. "Just us," he said.

The car pulled away from the curb, and he kept his eyes ahead while his grandfather's car turned in the opposite direction behind them. What did you want with her, he thought, and he found he didn't like not knowing.

Zoya was out of the conference room almost as soon as Zayed had left it. She crossed the corridor and took the elevator down, and her heels rang on the marble of the lobby, quick and uneven, as she walked straight toward the glass doors.