Chapter 46 Geneva
GENEVA
I FROWN, CONFUSED AT FIRST. THEN THE MEMORY BEHIND THE bloodstain unlocks and I’m seven years old again. Sweating in the heat of Uganda. Clinging to this elephant in the makeshift medical tent my mother worked out of.
Someone’s coming.
There’s the sound of snapping twigs and dragging footsteps before he bursts through the flaps of the tent, clutching his stomach. Blood pours through his fingers like water through a broken bowl.
Mama doesn’t scream. She never screams.
Her voice turns sharp. “Get the kit. Now.”
Nurses scatter. A stretcher appears like magic. My father’s hands land on my shoulders, gentle but firm.
“Sweetheart, come with me. You don’t need to see this.”
But I don’t want to go. I want to stay with Mama. I want to watch her fix him. Like she does with everyone else.
I nod like I’ll listen. But when Daddy turns to help, I slip away and crawl behind the boxes and press my back into the canvas wall with my knees tucked under my dress. My elephant is squished tight in my arms, its fur damp with the heat and my hands.
The injured man groans and Mama speaks to him in his language. Unfortunately, I can only make out a few words. I peek through a crack in the crates and see her kneeling beside him, pressing something to his wound. The bottoms of her sleeves are already soaked with red.
The man looks in my direction. I hold my breath and go still, as if that’ll make me smaller. His eyes are glassy and wide. He looks straight through the crates like he knows I’m there.
Mama’s voice stays calm. She says something to the nurse, something about gauze and saline. Her hands are quick and steady, even when the blood keeps coming.
I think he’s going to die. But then Mama leans close and says something to him and he stops fighting. The panic in his eyes goes away. And slowly, the blood does too.
“Pressure’s holding,” my mama says, switching to English. “Get the IV started. We’ve got him.”
They continue working on him. Wrapping his torso. Taping the tubes to his arm. His eyes shut, and Mama finally stands, rubbing her forehead with the back of her wrist. She looks tired in a way I don’t understand. Not sleepy. Just… worn out.
She steps out of the tent, probably to wash her hands or find Daddy. The others follow. The man’s not alone, but no one’s paying attention to him anymore.
I creep from behind the crates, careful not to make a sound. My elephant dangles from one arm, its leg brushing my bare calf. I approach the bed slowly. The man looks asleep, but I can tell he’s not. His eyelids twitch. His breathing is too perfect.
I stop at the edge of the cot. “I’m sorry you got hurt,” I whisper.
His eyes open, just a little. One corner of his mouth rises like he wants to smile, but it hurts too much. He doesn’t speak.
I hold the elephant tighter. “My mama helped you. She’s really good at fixing people.”
He nods once, slowly.
I reach out and place the elephant on the cot near his shoulder. “You can hold him for a while if you want. He’s brave. And soft. I’ll take him back when you’re all better.”
The man doesn’t move, but his eyes flick to the toy. “Thank you.”
“Welcome,” I say, pleased I know how to say that in his language.
The man shifts, just barely, and lets out a slow breath. “You remind me of my daughter.”
I smile. “You have a daughter?”
“Had,” he murmurs. “She was brave too. Small. Kind.”
I nod, not sure what to say. I glance down at my fingers, still a little sticky from the mango I ate earlier, then curl them tighter.
“She worked in the mines,” he says, his voice so quiet, I have to lean closer to hear him. “She didn’t belong there. But that’s where they put her. Where they… forgot her.”
I don’t fully understand what he means, but the sadness in his voice makes my chest hurt. I inch the elephant closer to him.
“Did she like animals?”
He lets out a broken chuckle. “She liked stories. She would’ve made you a hero in hers.”
“I’m not a hero.”
“You gave away your elephant,” he whispers, his eyelids flickering shut again. “You are to me.”
The memory begins to fade, becoming fuzzy around the edges, and when I blink, the warmth of Uganda is gone. The canvas tent fades. The smell of dust and disinfectant vanishes.
The toy is still pressed to my chest. The years have worn it down, but the weight of it feels the same.
I run my thumb absently along its belly, tracing the faded mark without thinking. I do the same with the little tail, only to find a loose thread near the back leg. I tug at it gently, expecting it to come free, but it doesn’t.
Frowning, I angle the elephant closer to the light. What I thought was just a frayed seam is… stitching. Haphazard but intentional. And black. Not gray like the rest of the toy.
Medical thread.
I tilt the elephant slowly in my hands, fingers brushing the seam again. The stitches aren’t obvious unless you’re paying attention. But they’re there.
I look at Ghost. He’s quiet beside me, watching. Always watching.
“What is it, Doc?”
“I’m not sure.”
I place the stuffed animal in my lap with the head down and study the seam. It’s not professionally done. The spacing is uneven, the tension inconsistent. Whoever sewed it wasn’t trying to be neat, just careful enough not to draw attention.
“I don’t remember this being here,” I murmur. “This thread is surgical. Maybe I tore the elephant when I was little and gave it to my mom? She had the thread, but… she also had the skill. Her stitches would’ve been neat and precise.”
And I don’t remember ripping it. Not once. Not ever.
“I would’ve noticed a tear,” I say quietly.
“If it had been there back then. I held this thing every night for years. Slept with it. Took it with me everywhere. The only time I was separated from the toy is when I gave it to one of my mother’s patients because I thought he was going to die. Unfortunately, he did.”
Ghost leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “You think he opened the toy?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why he would’ve. It doesn’t make sense. Unless…”
I glance sideways at Ghost. He’s watching me with the same unreadable expression he wears when he’s putting together a plan.
His gaze dips to the elephant in my lap, then flicks back to mine. Without a word, he grabs the knife on the nightstand. Then he holds it out to me, handle-first. His fingers brush mine as I take it.
I look down at the elephant, my pulse racing. The fabric is soft, thinned from years of being held too tight, cried into, carried across continents.
I press the tip of the blade to the seam, just beneath the crude black thread, and slice. The thread gives with a soft snap, one loop at a time. I keep going until the fabric parts enough for me to slip my fingers inside.
Whatever’s there is cold. Hard. Jagged.
I grip the edge of the opening and spread it wider. Something glints in the light. I reach in and pull out the object.
An uncut, unpolished diamond.
My hand starts to shake. I reach in again to find another. And another. And another. Five in total, wrapped in a yellowed piece of gauze now stained with time.
Twenty-one years to be exact.
I stare at them with my mind rapidly firing in different directions, all at once. “These are the missing diamonds.”
I’m holding the very thing Stanton killed my parents for.
And they’ve been with me the entire time.
Ghost leans in, eyes fixed on the diamonds glinting in my open palm. “Do you think your parents knew?”
I shake my head slowly, the weight of that truth hitting me harder than I expect. “No. If they had, they would’ve handed them over… to protect me.”
Ghost nods once, like he already knew that. Like he just wanted me to say it.
I stare down at the stones in my hand. “Do you think the man—my mom’s patient—was smuggling them? That he got hurt in the process?”
Ghost shrugs. “Depends.”
I close my eyes and try to summon the memory, crisp and hazy all at once.
The man’s voice. The way he bled. The way my mother was moved with compassion when she saw him, but couldn’t hide the disconcerted expression that briefly crossed her face.
As a child, I assumed that was because of his injuries.
Not his hands.
“His palms were rough,” I murmur, opening my eyes. “Scarred. Calluses on the fingers and palms. But deep, not from farm tools. Like he’d been working with rock.”
Ghost tilts his head. “Compressed skin patterns?”
“Yeah. Like from a jackhammer or breaking stone.” I tilt my head. “You’ve seen that before?”
“In forced labor sites. They all have the same hands. Blisters in the same places. Like a signature.” His tone darkens. “And you only get them that deep when you don’t have gloves. Or a choice.”
I wrap an arm around my stomach as it churns. “My mom said something about conflict diamond mines. She knew they were nearby. But she thought we were far enough away to avoid the danger.”
Ghost lets out a breath. “She was wrong.”
I nod, heart thudding. “That man wasn’t just hurt. He escaped. Probably from Stanton’s people.”
“And he hid the diamonds in your toy,” Ghost finishes, “because he knew they’d find him before he could heal.”
“The man told me his daughter worked in the mines before she died.” I swallow, my throat dry. “He didn’t have anything left to live for and knew he wasn’t going to make it. Maybe he saw the diamonds as a payment for my mother’s kindness.”
Ghost is quiet again, but his hand finds mine, curling around my fingers still holding the gauze-wrapped diamonds.
“Stanton must’ve figured out they went missing,” I whisper. “Traced them back to the area. To my parents. And me.”
“So we use them.”
I frown. “What?”
Ghost leans closer, his eyes glittering with strategic thoughts. “We use the diamonds to fuck with him.”
“How?”
“We let Stanton know they’re not lost. Or forgotten. Men like him fear loss of control and exposure. So we don’t go for the kill yet. We go for the illusion. The image he’s spent decades building. And we burn it. Publicly.”
I swallow hard, heart pounding. “And then?”
“Then we finish what your parents never got the chance to.”