Chapter 32
Abrahim’s house is not like I expected, and somehow also exactly what I feared.
It sits behind tall walls and iron gates in a neighborhood that feels curated down to the last blade of grass.
The hedges are sculpted, not grown. The stone walkway gleams as though it’s never known dirt.
Lights are positioned to flatter the facade, to suggest warmth without actually offering any.
Everything here whispers control. Wealth and respectability.
The kind of compound where neighbors wave politely and never ask questions.
The kind of place where no one imagines violence happening behind closed doors.
My palms are damp when Jagger reaches for me. I hadn’t even realized I was clenching my hands until his thumb rubs a slow, grounding circle against my knuckles. The gates slide open with a smooth mechanical hum, and the Jeep rolls forward. Crossing a line I won’t be able to uncross.
“You don’t have to do this,” he insists quietly, for probably the tenth time today. The words are gentle. They’re not meant to dissuade, just to remind me I have a choice.
“I do,” I answer, also not for the first time today. If I don’t, no one will say the things that need saying. And Maryam will disappear back into the silence of the archaic patriarchy like she never mattered.
The front door opens before we knock. Abrahim stands on the other side in pressed slacks and a crisp shirt, his dark hair neatly combed. His expression is carved from impatience and restrained fury. He looks… normal. Successful. Safe.
“Who is this?” Abrahim demands, his gaze sliding past Jagger and locking onto me like I’m an unexpected inconvenience.
“I’m the doctor who saved your sister,” I say, consciously ensuring that my voice sounds steadier than I feel. “And your niece.”
His dark eyes sharpen instantly with interest. “Where are they?”
“Safe.”
“Where?” he demands, stepping back and gesturing stiffly for us to enter.
The living room he leads us to feels like a showroom. Everything matches. Everything is clean. Everything is pristine and devoid of any signs of a home that’s lived in. Abrahim paces instead of sitting, restless energy vibrating through him.
“Where is my sister?” he repeats, each word more clipped than the last.
I ignore his question, and I take a breath that feels like inhaling glass. “Do you know what kind of man she is married to?”
He stops pacing and looks at me like I’ve asked whether the sky is blue. “What kind of question is that?”
“A necessary one.”
His lips thin. “You’re avoiding my question.”
“Yes,” I reply honestly. “Because it’s not the most important one.”
Jagger shifts restlessly from the door frame, a warning presence, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“We called him,” I continue quietly. “When she was brought into the hospital. She was pregnant, bleeding, and terrified. We needed consent for emergency surgery.”
Abrahim’s jaw tightens, but he says nothing.
“He told us,” I say, my voice shaking now despite my control, every word carving itself into my memory, “that if she lived or died, it was God’s will.”
The silence is immediate, Abrahim’s jaw tightening.
“That sentence is one I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”
Abrahim scoffs softly. “You don’t understand our tradi—”
“I understand fear,” I cut him off. “I understand it intimately.”
Hawk, Gunnar, and Jagger look like they’re ready to muzzle me, but none of them attempt to silence me.
“I have never,” I say, each word slowly and deliberately, “seen a woman so afraid to wake up from surgery. Afraid that surviving would be worse than dying. Because in her mind, death meant escape.”
Abrahim’s hands curl into fists at his sides. He tucks them behind his back in an attempt to hide his reaction.
“That is when I learned he beats her,” I continue. “That beautiful, gentle woman has had more broken bones than I can count. Old fractures. Most of them poorly set at that.”
My throat tightens, and I swallow hard, fighting to keep my nerve. For Maryam… And Aliyah.
“As a doctor… As a woman… As a human being, I offered her everything I could to ensure she didn’t have to go back there.”
“She could stay here,” Abrahim says suddenly, his tone devoid of emotion after hearing about his sister. “With her family.”
I meet his gaze steadily. “And all the times he beat her within an inch of her life… could she have stayed here then?”
He stares out the window, but I don’t miss his jaw clenching as he turns his back to me. “Of course.”
“And you would protect her?
“Yes.” That’s a lie. I can feel it in my gut.
“My friend,” I say softly, my voice cracking slightly, “was nearly killed because Maryam’s husband wants her back. He will not stop. I will do whatever I have to do to make sure she stays safe.”
Abrahim turns back to me, anger finally cracking through his composed exterior. “It is not your right to keep her from her family. She belongs with her family.”
“You mean her husband?” I clarify. “Back with the man she belongs to.”
“Yes, you fucking bitch,” Abrahim snarls, fury tearing free from his restraint as he lunges at me.
He is on me in an instant. My breath rips out of me in a strangled gasp as his hands close around my throat before I can react.
His face is twisted with ire, and he digs his fingers into my flesh until I can’t breathe, shouting, “Where is my fucking sister?”
I claw at his hands, panicking when I am unable to fill my lungs with the air they are desperately screaming for.
My vision blurs at the edges, and I expect it to go black when Abrahim is torn from me.
I scatter backward, coughing, grabbing my throat, and violently sucking in a much-needed breath as Jagger puts his body between Abrahim and me without hesitation.
Jagger slams him into the floor with brutal efficiency, his fist landing against his jaw with a crunch that causes me to cringe.
“You don’t touch her,” Jagger growls, landing blow after blow with powerful strength.
By the time he stands, he is breathless.
Blood splatters across his shirt and face, more of it dripping from his battered knuckles.
“I’ll let you live,” Jagger pauses to spit on the limp man at his feet, “so you can tell the others that any man who touches her won’t be walking away.
Jagger turns to me immediately, his face tender and hands gentle as he cups my face. “Blake. Look at me. Are you okay?”
I nod, still coughing, my throat burning. “I had to know,” I rasp. I had to… I needed to know if she’d be safe.
He pulls me into his chest, holding me like he’s daring the world to try again.
And in that moment, despite the fear and fallout still to come, I know one thing with terrifying clarity: Maryam cannot go back to her family. Ever.
Chaos still crackles through the room when Hawk steps forward. His jaw is set, and his eyes are cold as they flit from Abrahim on the floor to Jagger’s body shielding mine and back to Abrahim.
Stepping over to the bleeding man, his expression stripped of diplomacy, he gruffs. “Our contract with you is over. Effective immediately.”
Abrahim jerks against the men restraining him. “You don’t get to decide that—”
“I do,” Hawk replies coldly. “And I just did.”
I pull back enough to look at Hawk, my throat still on fire and pulse hammering in my ears.
“You asked us to find your sister,” Hawk continues. “You did not tell us she was being beaten or that your solution to domestic violence was silence and sending her back.”
Abrahim’s face darkens. “She belongs with her family.”
Hawk’s mouth twists with something like disgust. “If this is how your family treats women”—he gestures sharply toward me, still shaking in Jagger’s arms—“then, no. We will not put her back in that situation. Not now. Not ever. Aegis is not in the business of reuniting battered women with their abusers.”
Hawk finally looks at me, really looks at me, and something in his gaze softens before he addresses Jagger and Gunnar, “We’re done here.”
Jagger’s arm tightens around my shoulders, and he leads me outside. In the Jeep, I lean into him to steady myself with the resolve of his strength.
Pressing his lips to the top of my head, Jaggers angrily whispers, “That was fucking foolish, Doc.”
I know it was…