Chapter 26 Zainab
ZAINAB
I pulled out my cell phone and shot Zahara another text.
“I’m sorry it’s been so long. Life has gotten crazy but you can probably see that. I swear I’m gonna get Yusef back. And look, Mehar and I are together again. Love you always. Z”
Mehar looked like a different person.
We stood in the middle of Nordstrom, surrounded by racks of clothes in colors she’d never been allowed to wear. Bright reds. Electric blues. Soft pinks. She ran her fingers over the fabrics like they were made of gold, her eyes wide with a wonder that broke my heart.
“I don’t even know where to start,” she whispered.
“Anywhere you want.” I grabbed a silk blouse in emerald green and held it up to her face. “This would look beautiful on you.”
“It’s so…” She hesitated. “Bright.”
“That’s the point.”
For the first time since I’d picked her up from Union Station, Mehar smiled. A real smile. The kind that reached her eyes and softened the bruises still visible beneath the makeup we’d applied this morning.
“Okay.” She took the blouse from my hands. “Let’s do this.”
We spent the next hour tearing through the store like teenagers.
Mehar tried on everything—dresses, jeans, tops that showed her collarbone, skirts that stopped above her knee.
Each time she stepped out of the dressing room, she looked more like herself.
More like the little sister I remembered from before Baba’s rules and Ahmad’s fists had beaten her down into something small and obedient.
“What do you think?” She twirled in a fitted red dress that hugged her curves. “Too much?”
“Perfect.” I felt tears prick my eyes and blinked them back. “You’re perfect.”
We hit the makeup counter next. The woman behind the register showed Mehar how to cover her bruises properly—color-correcting concealer, setting powder, the whole routine. By the time she was done, you couldn’t see the damage Ahmad had done. At least not on the outside.
“I feel like a new person,” Mehar said as we walked through the mall, shopping bags swinging from our arms. “Is that crazy?”
“No. That’s freedom.” I squeezed her hand. “You deserve to feel this way all the time.”
We stopped at the food court for smoothies. Mehar got strawberry banana—something Ahmad would’ve called “frivolous” and forbidden. She drank it like it was the best thing she’d ever tasted.
“Zainab.” Her voice went quieter. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Zahara.” She stirred her smoothie, not meeting my eyes. “Who killed her?”
The question hit me like a fist to the chest. I’d been waiting for it. Dreading it.
“A man. Someone she’d never met before.” I stared at my own smoothie, the memories rising up like bile. “He was looking for me. I’d witnessed something I shouldn’t have—saw him kill someone. He tracked me down, but I wasn’t home. Zahara was.”
“Oh my God.”
“He shot her.” My voice cracked despite my best efforts. “Shot her in the face because she looked like me. Because we were identical and he didn’t know the difference.”
Mehar reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“And tell them what? That I was working at an illegal gambling club? That I witnessed a murder and ran instead of reporting it? That my sister died because of my mistakes?” I shook my head.
“Besides, if I went to the cops, they’d take Yusef.
I had a record. Petty theft from when we first got to California.
They’d put him in foster care, or worse—give him to Meech’s family. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“So you became her.”
“I became her.” I pulled my hand back, wrapping it around my smoothie cup just to have something to hold. “Took her identity. Raised her son. Tried to give him the life she would’ve wanted for him.”
Mehar was quiet for a long moment. Processing everything I’d told her. Then she took a deep breath.
“Zainab, there’s something I need to tell you.” She set down her smoothie, her hands trembling slightly. “When we thought it was you who died—when Baba told us you’d been killed in California—I reached out to the authorities. I wanted to bring you home. Give you a proper burial.”
My stomach tightened. “What did they say?”
“Her body had gone unclaimed for too long. No next of kin had come forward, so they…” She swallowed hard. “They cremated her. I paid to have the ashes sent to me. I’ve had them this whole time. At Ahmad’s house.”
My hands started shaking. My sister’s remains. Zahara’s ashes. Sitting in that monster’s house. In the home where my Mehar was beaten and controlled and nearly destroyed.
“Excuse me.” I stood up abruptly, nearly knocking over my smoothie. “I need—I’ll be right back.”
I made it to the bathroom before the tears came.
Locked myself in a stall and sobbed as quietly as I could, pressing my hand over my mouth to muffle the sounds.
Zahara’s body had gone unclaimed. She’d been cremated like she was nobody.
Like she didn’t have a twin who loved her more than life itself.
Like she didn’t have a son who needed to know where his mother rested.
And I hadn’t been there. I’d been too busy running. Too busy surviving. Too busy being selfish. This was all my fuckin’ fault. The guilt would eat at me until the day that I died.
When the tears finally stopped, I splashed water on my face and stared at my reflection. Zahara’s face. The face we’d shared.
“I’m going to find him,” I whispered to her. To myself. “The man who did this. I’m going to find him and make him pay.”
I walked back to the food court. Mehar was waiting, her eyes red like she’d been crying too.
“We’re going to Ahmad’s,” I said, my voice steady now. Hard. “We’re getting those ashes. And while we’re there, we’re going to teach that piece of shit a lesson.”
Mehar nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“And the man who killed Zahara—” I sat back down, leaning forward. “I don’t know his name. But I could never forget his face. Square jaw. Dead eyes. He took my sister’s life like she was nothing. Like killing her was just… Tuesday.”
“We’ll find him,” Mehar said firmly. “One day. We’ll find him and we’ll make him pay.”
“We will.”
We sat there for a moment, two sisters united by grief and rage and the promise of vengeance. Then Mehar’s face softened.
“You know what I want to do? After all this is over?”
“What?”
“Go to a club.” She smiled, almost shyly. “I’ve never been. Ahmad would never allow it. But I want to dance. Wear something pretty. Feel like a normal woman for one night. I know that was a random interjection, but all this talk of death was getting me down.”
I laughed—a real laugh, the first one in days. “We can do that. After we get Yusef back. After we handle Ahmad. We’ll go out. You, me, maybe Serenity. We’ll dance until our feet hurt.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She was glowing. My little sister, finally tasting freedom after years of captivity. Finally feeling beautiful and hopeful and alive.
I didn’t want this moment to end.
But as we gathered our bags and headed toward the exit, something prickled at the back of my neck. That sixth sense I’d developed from years of looking over my shoulder. Years of waiting for danger to find me.
I scanned the food court. Nothing obvious. Just families eating, couples shopping, the usual mall crowd.
But the feeling didn’t go away.
We walked toward the parking garage, Mehar chattering happily about which outfit she’d wear first, and I kept my hand in my purse. On my phone. Ready to call Prime if something felt wrong.
We made it to the car. Loaded the bags in the back. I pulled out of the parking spot and headed for the exit.
That’s when I saw the car behind us.
Black SUV. Tinted windows. Too close.
I turned right out of the garage. The SUV turned right.
I switched lanes. The SUV switched lanes.
“Zainab?” Mehar’s voice had gone tight. “Is that car following us?”
I looked in the rearview mirror. The sedan was one car length behind us. Close enough that I could see the driver’s silhouette.
Close enough to know this wasn’t paranoia.
“Hold on.” I gripped the steering wheel tighter. “And put on your seatbelt.”
Zoo
I almost missed her.
Keisha had been in my ear all goddamn afternoon—“Baby, let’s go to Sephora,” “Baby, I want those shoes,” “Baby, why aren’t you paying attention to me?”—and I was two seconds from telling her to shut the fuck up when I saw her.
Across the food court. Getting smoothies with some other woman I didn’t recognize.
My son’s killer’s mother.
The bitch who raised that little murderer. Who helped him cover up what he did. Who packed up her apartment and disappeared like Nigel’s life didn’t mean shit.
I reached for my phone, ignoring Keisha’s whining about some necklace she wanted. Snapped a picture. Sent it to Brandi.
Me: Is this her?
Three dots. Then:
Brandi: That’s her. That’s the bitch.
Brandi: Make her suffer.
Brandi: For Nigel.
My jaw tightened. I could still see my son’s face. Still hear his voice. Still feel the weight of his casket as I helped carry it to the grave.
This woman was living her life. Shopping. Laughing. Drinking fucking smoothies while my boy rotted in the ground.
Not for long.
“Baby, are you even listening to me?” Keisha tugged at my arm, pouting those overlined lips. “I said I want to go to—”
“Something came up.” I was already moving, eyes locked on Zahara across the food court. “Find your own way home.”
“What?” Keisha’s voice pitched up to that register that made dogs howl. “You can’t just LEAVE me here! How am I supposed to—”
“Uber. Bus. I don’t give a fuck.” I didn’t look back. “Figure it out.”
“ZOO! Are you serious right now? ZOO!”
Her voice faded behind me as I pushed through the crowd. She’d be pissed. Might even stop fucking with me after this. Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the woman walking toward the parking garage with shopping bags swinging from her arms like she didn’t have a care in the world.
I watched Zahara and the other woman exit through the glass doors. Followed at a distance, keeping enough bodies between us that she wouldn’t notice. She was laughing at something her friend said. Living her best life.
That was about to end.
They got into a nice car. Not the piece of shit she used to drive when she lived in Southeast. Something newer. Something expensive.
Prime’s money, probably. The Banks family treating her like a queen while my son’s blood was still on her hands.
“I jogged to my car—black Tahoe, tinted windows, the one I used when I didn’t want to be seen”
Found Zahara’s car heading for the exit. Fell in behind her. Not too close. Not too far. Just enough to keep her in sight.
She turned right. I turned right.
She switched lanes. I switched lanes.
The light ahead turned yellow. Zahara’s car slowed.
I closed the gap. One car length between us now. Close enough that she’d see me in her mirror if she looked. Close enough that she’d feel me back here.
I wanted her to feel it.
Wanted her heart to race and her palms to sweat. Wanted her to know that death was riding her bumper and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
The light turned green. She hit the gas.
So did I.
She had no idea who was behind her. No fucking idea that the last face she’d ever see was already in her rearview mirror.