Chapter 17
The world returned in layers. First, a low, steady beeping. Then, the sterile scent of antiseptic. Finally, a dull, all-encompassing ache that anchored her to the bed. Noor’s eyes fluttered open. Pale sunlight strained through half-closed curtains, painting the empty white walls of a hospital room.
Her arms were monstrous things, encased in thick plaster from elbow to wrist, lying heavy and useless at her sides. She tried to move. White-hot pain erupted from her ribs, stealing her breath. She lay still, breathing in shallow, careful sips.
Her mind, still wrapped in cotton, sent a sluggish command. Her right hand twitched, the fingers crawling an inch across the stiff sheet. They found the flat, empty plane of her abdomen beneath the thin gown.
The truth, which had been a shadow in the dark of the estate, solidified into a cold, hard stone in her chest. Gone.
A nurse entered, her shoes whispering on the floor. She checked a machine, her smile gentle. “You’re awake. Good. The surgery went well. You had some significant fractures.”
Noor’s throat was a desert. “The baby?” she croaked, already knowing, needing to hear it to make it real.
The nurse’s smile softened into profound pity. She touched Noor’s shoulder, a gesture of unbearable kindness. “I am so very sorry.”
The words were a final blow. Noor turned her face toward the window, the tears coming silently, a hot flood of grief for the life she’d never know and a terror for the two lives she had to find.
Yasmin. Amina. Faisal’s face, twisted in rage, flashed behind her eyes.
The tracker. He could be coming. Right now.
“Where…?” she began, but her voice failed.
The door opened, framing a silhouette against the bright hall. Noor’s heart clenched, a reflex of fear. The figure stepped in, and the light fell on a face that stopped her heart.
Samir.
Her boy. Her son who had vanished a year ago with a note about America.
He was here. In a hospital. He was taller, his frame lean and hard where it had been soft with childhood.
He wore dark, tactical clothing, and his eyes held a grim focus that was utterly alien. This was not the boy she remembered.
Confusion and a wild, desperate hope warred within her. “Samir?” The name was a dry rasp. “How…you were in America. The note…”
He was at her bedside in two strides, his hand reaching for hers but hovering just above the cast. “Ummi,” he breathed, the word thick with emotion. His eyes searched her face, taking in the bruises, the casts. “I came back. I’m here now.”
“Who are these men?” she whispered, her gaze darting to the door. “Who brought you here?”
Samir followed her look, then turned back, his expression willing her to understand. “The note was true. I did go to America.” He nodded toward the hallway. “He’s the one who took me. His name is Link.”
The pieces crashed together in her aching head. He had taken her son to America. He had brought her son back.
The sob that tore from her was one of staggering relief and renewed fear. “The girls, Samir. Yasmin and Amina. Faisal has them. He took them after he…” Her voice broke as her hand twitched again toward her empty stomach.
Samir’s jaw tightened. The boyish uncertainty was gone, replaced by a chilling resolve. “We know. Link is working on it right now. We’re going to get them back.”
“We?” The word was a question. She was trying to see the boy in this stranger, trying to understand the chain of events that led him from her side to this man’s protection.
Before he could answer, the door opened again. The man from the hallway entered: older, with a calm, assessing gaze that swept the room before landing on her. He had the same bearing as the others, but there was a stillness to him, a gravity. This, she now knew, was Link.
Samir straightened slightly. “Link, this is my mother.”
Link gave a slow, respectful nod. “Noor.” He said her name with a weight that acknowledged everything she had endured. “You’re safe here. My team will make sure of that.”
She stared at him, this man who was the answer to the year-long question of her son’s whereabouts. Gratitude and a deep, primal distrust warred within her. He had saved Samir. But he had also taken him. And now, he held all their fates.
“Where are my daughters?” she asked him directly, her voice gaining a sliver of steel.
Link met her gaze, his own unwavering. “We don’t have that answer yet. But finding them is our only mission now. You have my word.”
His word. From the man who held her son’s life in his hands. It was all she had.
She looked at Samir’s face. The fight for her daughters was here, now. And the soldier from the note was leading it. Her fingers, trapped in plaster, curled into the faintest, most determined fist.