I collapsed into my chair. The only piece of furniture still standing.
My body was failing. My empire was crumbling. My daughter was being mutilated.
And there was nothing I could do.
I looked at the photograph again. At the ear. At the earring.
At what Prentice had done to my child.
Something wet slid down my cheek.
I touched it. Looked at my fingers.
A tear.
I had not cried since I was seven years old. Since I watched my father beat my mother unconscious on that kitchen floor in Detroit. I had made a vow that day—no more tears. Tears were weakness. Tears were surrender. Tears were for men who had given up.
But now, sitting in the wreckage of my study, staring at my daughter’s severed ear, I felt another tear fall. And another. And another.
I did not wipe them away.
What was the point? There was no one here to see. No one to judge. No one to witness the great Rashid Muhammad finally breaking.
I was dying. My daughter was being tortured. My protégé had become my enemy.
And I had no one to blame but myself.
I had created Prentice. Molded him. Shaped him into the perfect weapon. And now that weapon had been turned against me with a precision I had instilled in him myself.
The student had surpassed the master.
I sat there for a long time. Minutes. Maybe hours. The blood dried on my hands. The tears dried on my face. The coughing fits came and went, each one leaving me weaker than the last.
Finally, I pulled myself to my feet.
There was one more thing I needed to see.
Yusef’s roomwas silent when I unlocked the door.
The boy was not on his prayer rug. Not at his desk studying Arabic. Not sleeping on the thin mattress I had provided.
He was sitting on the floor. Back against the bed. Knees pulled to his chest. Eyes fixed on the wall across from him.
Staring at nothing.
“Yusef.”
No response.
“Yusef, look at me.”
Nothing. Not even a flicker of acknowledgment. His eyes remained fixed on some point in the distance, seeing something that wasn’t there.
I stepped closer. Knelt down in front of him, my knees protesting the movement.
“Boy. I am speaking to you.”
His eyes didn’t move. His expression didn’t change. He was breathing—I could see the slight rise and fall of his chest—but there was no life behind those eyes. No fear. No defiance. No hope.
