Chapter 22
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They slipped out a side door. Hurried toward the conference room at the far end of the resort. Hena reached for the doorknob.
“Hena! Wait!”
Reza. He raced toward them.
Beside her, Nasir stiffened as he drew closer.
“You can’t go in there alone,” Reza said. “Not with him.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
Reza didn’t take his eyes off Nasir. Stepping closer to Hena, he lowered his voice. “He’s gone for years and shows up without warning? You need to be careful.”
A funny feeling passed over her. After ignoring her all day, Reza wanted to tell her who she could and couldn’t talk to?
“Do you know something I don’t?” she asked. “If you do, now’s the time to tell me.”
“I’m just saying three years is a long time to be gone. And to come back like this? Crashing your sister’s wedding?” Reza ran a hand through his hair. “Something’s wrong, Hena. You know it is.”
That much was true. Something was wrong. Deeply wrong. Which was why she needed to talk to him. Alone. She turned the door handle. Reza stuck out his hand to stop her.
“Why roll the dice?” he asked. “I’m not saying don’t talk to him. Just…be careful. Let me come in with you. As a precaution.”
“It has to be just us, Hena,” Nasir interjected. “Please.”
A crowd was gathering behind him. It was growing by the second.
“I don’t have time for this,” she told Reza. “Stay out here and stand guard if you want. I’m going in and I’m talking to him alone.”
They stepped into the room, and she locked the door firmly behind her.
Nasir’s breathing was shallow. This close up, she noticed he was thinner than she’d realized. His skin was sallow. There was a scar beneath his left eye. As she took him in, the shock slowly faded—replaced by horror.
“Why, Nasir?” she asked. “Why would you come back?”
“I had to.” He studied the carpeted floor. “I’m sorry.”
Angry tears blurred her vision. “You’re always sorry.”
Before she could stop him, he stepped forward and pulled her into his arms.
“Don’t—” She tried to shove him away, but her body betrayed her. She melted against him. She hated how familiar this felt. How much she had missed him.
He was here. He was alive.
But—she wrenched herself away—he wouldn’t be for long.
“They’re going to kill you.” She held on to the conference table to steady herself. “You were supposed to stay gone. Stay safe.”
“It stopped being safe.”
“They found you?”
“No. They found you.”
Hena shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I—I don’t check socials. I’m always scared they’ll—I don’t know, trace me or something. The other day, though, I—god, I’m so stupid—I looked. I saw Irum’s posts about the wedding.”
He swallowed hard. Met her eyes.
“I saw you. In the background. And I saw…I saw them. They were here. I panicked. I created a fake account and messaged them. Told them to back off and leave you alone.” His mouth pressed tight. “Stupid, I know. I made everything worse.”
“They finally made contact,” she whispered.
“They realized you were the way to smoke me out. They started sending me messages. All the ways they were fucking with you. The snakes. The way they coated the elevator buttons with nut residue.” He shook his head.
“They said it would only get worse until I came back to face them. When they showed me your body, the blood pooling around you…I thought you were dead. For a good five minutes, I was sure you were gone.”
Gita.
“They called it a preview,” he said. “If I didn’t come forward tonight, they said they would finish what they’d started.”
“Who are they?” Hena asked. “Tell me.”
He looked away. “I can’t. You don’t know them like I do. What they can do.”
“After everything that’s happened, do you honestly think you’re protecting me?”
“It wasn’t about you,” he said. “It was to get to me.”
“They’ve been stalking me all week. I deserve to know who it is. Is it a guest? A staff member?”
She glanced at the closed door. She was afraid to ask, but she had to.
“Is it…is it Reza?”
“Please. Don’t.” He shut his eyes. “If I tell you, they’ll kill you. They’ll kill my family. You have no idea what they’re capable of. They could be listening right now.”
She wanted to call him paranoid, except someone had filmed their fight three years ago. Someone had been watching.
A ringtone chimed on the other side of the door. People were surely pressed against it, trying to catch a snippet of their conversation.
She lowered her voice. “So now what?”
“They kill me.”
“Nasir—”
“They kill me and it’s over. It’s as simple as that. Honestly, I’m tired of running.”
“Nasir. That’s insane. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“They promised it would be quick. I’ve made my peace.”
They promised it would be quick?
“I don’t care if you’re fine with it, I’m not fine with it!” Her voice rose.
“This is how it has to be.”
He looked serene. Broken but calm. Before she could press further, his phone buzzed. He looked down. His expression darkened.
“What is it?” she asked.
He fidgeted. Then—“You’re not safe here.”
“What do you mean?” Her pulse stuttered. His expression had gone from weary but calm to tense in a matter of seconds. What kind of message did he get? “You said they weren’t after me.”
“Should we really take someone like this at their word?” He shoved his phone in his pocket and drew a shaky breath. “There were other ways to fuck with me. Irum’s here too. But it’s only been you.”
He moved to the French doors in the back. The ones leading to the back gardens and pathways. He scanned the scenery before shifting his focus to the conference door.
“Every way out has some risk,” he muttered. “Leaving the way you came is the best bet. More eyes mean more safety. Besides, if we step out together, no one will notice you. All eyes will be on me.”
“Wh-What are you saying?” Hena stammered.
“Lay low. For a little while. Until this blows over.”
“Nasir, do you hear yourself?”
“Look! I haven’t—I haven’t thought this all through, okay? I just know as long as you’re here, you’re in danger. Here, take my car, it’s not like I’ll be needing it.”
He fished his car keys out of his pants pocket. His sunglasses slipped out as he shoved the keys toward her.
“It’s a black Honda. Toward the back. Make sure no one is following you. They’ll be focused on me first. You’ll get a head start.”
Hena’s head spun.
“And then?” she asked. “What next? I’m supposed to go on the run? Hide out in a different motel each night and sleep with one eye open?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry, Hena. I—I just know being here isn’t safe.”
Her attention dropped to the fallen sunglasses. Leaning down, she picked them up. They were oversized. Tacky. Not his style. Unease crawled up her spine. The man from Las Olas. The one Kiran had mentioned.
“You were at Las Olas,” Hena whispered.
He nodded. “I was hoping to catch you at one of the outings. I had to warn you, but I didn’t trust calling you on the phone. They could have tapped it.”
Hena turned the sunglasses over in her hands. Fragments of the fortune teller’s words passed over her: Darkness obscures their face…someone tried to hurt you.
The fortune teller’s prophecies were a party trick, Hena reminded herself. This was just her nerves. Reza getting in her head.
She didn’t care what anyone said. Nasir would never hurt her. There was so much she could doubt, but never his love for her. Yet as he moved closer, she found herself involuntarily taking a step back.
She’d said something else, too, the fortune teller:
They have done dark things to survive. They will do what they must.
She took in the scar beneath Nasir’s left eye. The dark circles. When Mariela had said Hena was in danger, was it possible she’d meant from Nasir?
No. She stopped herself.
Those visions weren’t real.
They weren’t.
But what if they were? There was no way to know for certain.
“Is that really what you want?” Hena asked. “To keep me safe?”
He startled. “What else would I want?”
It’s Nasir, she told herself. I know him.
And that was the problem. She recognized the fear written across his face. The guilt.
There was something he wasn’t telling her. Something serious. She looked past him to the large French doors lining the back room. The garden outside.
Something told her to run.
So she did.