3. Adelaide
THREE
ADELAIDE
The door slammed behind while the screams of a naked, wailing, running toddler left me stunned while I took my shoes off.
Ayeza Ali wasn’t what I expected. She was blunt and wanted me out of her space. The quick memory of her broken-down house, her saddened expression, and the disbelief in her eyes were enough to fill my empty cup of morals with shame.
“You should be on your knees, begging for an apology. Yet you’re here trying to explain yourself.” Another humourless laugh. “If it weren’t for—” She stopped herself short with widened eyes.
Who could’ve helped her? Was it the same person impersonating me or someone else?
“Yunus,” A clean diaper hung from Hasan’s hands as he sternly marched after his son. “ Agar aap mere paas abhi nahi aayi, toh koi storytime nahi ho ga. ”
“He’s threatening Yunus that there'll be no story time.” Umaima’s arm came around me and rested on top of my left shoulder. I surrendered to its warmth. “He should know by now that threatening a three-year-old will do more harm than good, and his wonderful Khala will take over and secretly do storytime.”
Hasan turned his head to us. Despite the comforting smile on his face, I shrivelled under it with ignominy.
Letting down strangers I was in charge of was one thing but letting down a brother was the equivalent of being choked and not liking it.
“Shouldn’t you be the good aunt that you are and help your dear brother with his kid instead of doing nothing?” He worded the question for Umaima but looked between both of us.
Right then, Yunus crouched on the ground and took a big, fat, clumpy shit .
Umaima let out a low whistle.
Hasan pressed his lips together, muttering sabr under his breath. I definitely would not have the patience for that. For someone so small, the smell protruded through the whole house in hellacious waves.
Umaima laughed at the grimace on my face. Children were adorable menaces, but I didn’t want any of their horrid smells and dopamine rushes right now.
You love saying that you don't want kids, don’t you? We all know that you can’t have them.
Infertility was only one possible negative of polycystic ovarian syndrome. It didn’t mean anything.
Layers of stress lines bulged on Hasan’s forehead. He kneeled before Yunus and gently lectured him with a harsh tone. Yunus scrunched his whole face together before releasing another glob of muck and then proceeded to cry. Poor Baby .
“Hide that pout before Hasan sees it and says you're next on diaper duty.”
A shiver snaked down my back and washed away the sullen expression. “Definitely don't want that happening.”
We let Hasan deal with Yunus while we cleaned up the mess he left behind.
By we, I meant me because apparently Umaima was on her period and the poop was making her cramps worse.
It was when the three of us slumped down on the couch with Yunus sleeping in the other room that Hasan stared me in the eyes and asked, “Where were you?”
So much for diverting their attention.
“On a walk,” I caught onto a flyaway thread from my dress and tightened it around my finger to the point of numbness.
“Why?” He pushed. Hasan sat across from me which made this feel more and more like an interrogation than sitting with two of my closest friends. Hasan was like that. Unnerving but loving—right now, he was downright scary.
I shifted in my seat. “Because I needed to clear my head.”
Silence ran around the room in laps and its legs were not getting tired. It felt like an eternity before Hasan spoke again. “So, when I got the alert on my phone that you were in one of the shadiest parts of New York—might I add, near Ayeza’s house—that you were on a walk ?”
“You went to Ayeza’s?” Umaima’s shock felt thick on my skin. Something like wool. “Even after we told you it wasn’t a good idea?”
Hasan raised a hand in Umaima’s direction. “She probably has a reason. Let her talk, Guriya .”
The thread broke and a heavy weight of disappointment, judgement, and suffocating attention weighed on my head. Tears brimmed on the outer corners of my eyes. Another blink and they would start pouring—adding to my embarrassment.
Maybe if I cried long enough and hard enough, I could drown in my tears and avoid this situation altogether.
But I doubt that’d get me far.
“Adelaide,” Hasan said. “I’m talking to you.”
“I…” My voice shook. Umaima’s hands reached out and curved around mine. It was tense and I knew she didn’t want to, but she knew me better than I knew myself and was always there for me. She also understood what it was like to be interrogated by Hasan. “I went to go talk to her about everything.”
“Why’d you go talk to her when it would only make things worse?”
I couldn’t refute his question.
Because it did make things worse.
“Someone helped her,” I whispered instead.
Hasan’s gaze caught mine and all I could see was worry.
My heart quieted for a moment because Hasan wasn’t mad at me. He was just concerned and so was Umaima.
Being worried about myself and the company made me forget how this affected them too. I’d been selfish as usual by not noticing when all they did was stand by me.
“I don’t know what it was, but she let it slip out that someone was there to help her up.” I continued despite their burdensome gazes.
Umaima released my hand, and I instantly missed the comfort and courage it gave me. Her and Hasan were thinking—albeit with more frustration by rubbing a finger over his brow.
“I took pepper spray with me and the only danger I came across was a high school couple asking me if I wanted to have a threesome.” With widened eyes, the blubbering nonsense continued. “Well not really a threesome but the girl asked if I wanted to join them, which was absurd, I refused. Of course. But the guy was looking at me all weirdly and I didn’t like it, so I ran. I ended up finding Ayeza’s place and?—”
“Addie,” Umaima smiled at me, and all the words vanished. “Breathe.”
I took a hefty breath in and let it out with a slump in my shoulders. “I swear I was safe,” I said to Hasan.
“Okay,” he breathed out with a slight shake of his head. “I believe you but next time,” a stern finger pointed in my direction. I hated finger-pointing. It made me feel like I was five years old again. “You’re not doing anything stupid like this again.”
“Without me,” Umaima corrected with a nudge to my shoulder.
And finally, my lips curved into an honest smile for the first time that night.
“Since you did go,” A strand of wet curly hair fell over Hasan’s eyes as he leaned back against the chair. “What else did you find out?”
Hasan was more relaxed than I assumed he’d be. He wasn’t exactly known for being calm and collected. Maybe I should give him credit for being chill more often.
“Other than there being another person involved? Nothing.”
Hasan nonchalantly played with his wedding ring, something I’d only seen him do when he was anxious. “Do you think this person and the person sending the emails are the same?”
Umaima shook my head like she couldn’t believe it. “It’s two different people. It has to be. Why else would they pay her to stay silent and then tip off a bunch of news stations to expose the situation?”
“They could have done that if they wanted Adelaide to step down from her position as CEO.”
Umaima’s finger poked my arm. We looked at each other with knowing expressions. “Harry!” She abruptly stopped and ran to her room.
Static sensations of newfound anxiety rested on the grounds of my stomach, electrifying the soft curve from left to right. “My gut is telling me the shareholders are involved.”
Especially with how they looked when Albert mentioned Ayeza. Their unusualness stuck to me like honey. The sweetness was overbearing to the point of nausea and there had to be a reason for it.
Harry Samuels was a man of force. He pushed through everything in his way and right now, I was standing on what he wanted the most.
Shame wrecked through my body like a hurricane. Because of me and my inadequacy, Ayeza went through something traumatic. On top of that, I handed Starlight straight into the hands of those men.
“We shouldn’t make assumptions,” Hasan pulled me back to reality. “We can add him to the suspect list, but for now let’s think of ways we can work on Starlight’s reputation because as CEO,” he moves his hand in my direction. “You have to get your position back to investigate this.”
He was right. I knew he was. I had to figure out how to bring Starlight back up from the ground through Eda’s directions. I was so stupid to give up my power so easily. If I’d stopped to think when they talked about it, I would’ve never lost it.
“Actually,” Umaima jogged back into the room with her laptop in tow. “We can make assumptions because it’s true.”
She turned her screen around, so it faced us.
In the video, Harry grabbed Ayeza’s arm and whispered something in her ear. Ayeza’s face blanched white before she hastily nodded and sped away.
“There’s just one slight problem, though” She flipped the screen back towards herself.
“What?” I asked.
Slumping back on the couch with the laptop, Umaima fixed the dupatta from slipping down her shoulder. Her hair was tied neatly in a loose bun. I only ever saw her hair when she was at home, otherwise it was always cradled under her hijabs. “I went through our systems and found the emails tracing back to you.”
My heart sped up. “I didn’t do it.”
“I know but Harry knows how to run this game. All the evidence points to you, down to bank account transactions. The only odd part is that these emails aren’t pre-determined, which means he has access to your account.”
Straightening my slackened posture, Hasan and I listened with furrowed brows.
“You guys truly know nothing.” Umaima sighed, “Someone has access to Adelaide’s emails.”
“How is that possible?” I asked with a croak in my throat. “How are they being traced back to me?”
Umaima smacked her lips together. “I could hack into your email with my eyes closed. The part that’s weirding me out is a lengthy code I can’t translate. If I can decode it, I can figure out where this person is. But that explains that someone who’s really good with tech is working with them and that’s how they have access to bank details.”
Umaima caught the look on my and Hasan’s face. With astute quickness, she redirected the conversation with a cheery tilt to her voice. “Lucky for you, he doesn’t care much for your personal life. At least no harm there, right?”
My palms turned sweaty, and my vocal cords vanished into an unwritten song. Evidence, that I had no idea about, was pushing me into quicksand and all I could do was watch myself go down.
“Digital forensics took all my computers before I could find more information. I was only able to gain access to the emails and the footage for now.” Umaima squeezed my hand with comfort. “We have to find a way to hide it from them and figure out who’s behind this, but if I don’t have those computers, they’ll lock Adelaide up and this whole thing will go to shit.”
My eyes slightly widened, and my brain raced for any answers when I met Umaima’s gaze. She gave me nothing but a reassuring smile.
Nothing was going the right way. I was moving in circles while standing in one place.
It should be easy enough to get three steps ahead of them and if I knew anything about digital forensics and HR investigations it would be that they won’t start until Monday afternoon.
The quicker I bought those computers; the quicker Umaima could track the board member’s previous records and figure out who was behind the emails.
As if Hasan could read my brain, he said, “Harry blocked your business cards.”
Shock radiated through my pores. “He did what ?”
“Until investigations are over, he convinced the board to cut access to all your company accounts.”
My hand trickled upwards towards my neck and roughly rubbed circles right above my chest, lessening the constriction tightened within it. “But that’s where most of my money is. Mine doesn’t even have a thousand dollars in it.”
“Why the fuck would he do that?” Umaima spat out. “She handed him the company temporarily and all of a sudden, he’s finding ways to keep her out? Asshole .”
Thick tension made its way around the room. One by one, heating us like an oven ready to explode. I could feel the timer in me ticking as the seconds went by, but I couldn’t let loose like Umaima or even Hasan. It simmered beneath my skin, tightly shut and inaccessible.
Bricks of stiffness built themselves around my shoulders, keeping me upright but dizzy all at once. This was too much weight. Too much pressure.
Hair stuck to the back of my perspired neck. My senses sucked into suffocation, feeling a hitch of overstimulation and uncontrol—my breaths quickened at pace. There were three of Hasan’s, two cou ches…
Starlight was my parents’ biggest accomplishment. They were gone and all they had was me, here, in this world able to take care of it for them—but even I couldn’t… I couldn’t. I was a failure; I always would be. Solving this would solve nothing. No one would care. People would still stare at me like I was a female nobody, acting like I knew what to do. Then Starlight would be Harry’s and my parents would be disappointed in me. Eda would hate me. She’d disown me and I’d be left with nothing. I had no money. No place to truly call home. And I was alone with two of my best friends who were struggling to help me out. I was a lost cause, this would never work out, I would never work out. It would be better to quit now, call the police and tell them it was me; I’d save myself the shame of trying to solve this when all fingers are pointing at me and only me.
The air remained hidden behind my cheeks and back into my esophagus. I tried to breathe but the air inside of me was too scared just like my mind was. It wanted to hide like the rest of me and all I could do was wait for my senses to kick in—for my brain to remember how to breathe.
I am okay.
I am okay.
I am okay.
Sound started coming back into focus. Distant conversations of Moonshine and Osama Taimoor drifted into my ears with?—
“…Christian Hayes.”
The world took mercy and revived me with air.
Hasan came back into focus.
The buzzing hum from the air conditioner was back.
But his name echoed a thousand times over in my ears like a permanent panic attack.
“What about him?” Dryness scratched every corner of my throat but all I could do at the moment was clear it and continue with this conversation like I didn’t have a panic attack in the middle of a serious discussion.
“Moonshine is our only option right now. They’re the only ones that haven’t redacted their offer of working together.”
Moonshine.
Osama.
Christian .
The stone-cold expression on his face the day we broke up coated my skin in heavy layers of hatred. Every time I was close to forgetting that day, a memory of him popped like an explosive pimple.
Hasan studied me with an unquestionable look, but Umaima continued talking.
“Whoever Moonshine works with, their reputation flourishes and you know this. Look at Ardele, they were bankrupt before Moonshine swooped in. Now they’re multi-millionaires.”
“And the real mastermind behind it is Christian Hayes.”
There had to be another option. Different doors opened at times like this, and it wasn’t like the world was gonna end if I went to jail. Starlight would find its spot again no matter what kind of unethical man was in charge.
“Adelaide,” Umaima walked over to me with a look of sympathy and understanding. They didn’t know that part of my past—the memories of riding away on a surfboard and still haven’t reached ashore. They were floating endlessly, surviving a turmoil of storms, each stubborn and immovable no matter how much I tried to push them off.
Instead, here they were, pulling the board back to me by the string I attached to my heart from the last memory I have of him.
“Just this once,” she pleaded. “I know you’re scared because he’s known to be ruthless, but there’s a reason why they want to work with you and haven’t taken back their offer.”
Your feelings don’t matter, Adelaide. Think of what Ayeza went through, the possible girls in the future if you don’t give in. Think of all the sadistic ways those board members will use them. Do you want that to happen?
My heart pounded against my chest as nails dug into the palm of my skin. “Okay.”
Umaima let out a relieved breath of her own, and Hasan’s shoulders slumped down with ease.
Time for a little reunion.
I think my anxiety just got anxiety from thinking that.