Mehar was crying too. Quiet tears sliding down her cheeks as she watched us embrace.
“Thank God,” she whispered. “Thank God.”
I pulled back from Serenity, wiping my face with shaking hands. “He’ll be here in an hour. I need to… I should…”
“You should sit down and breathe,” Serenity said firmly. “We’ll get everything ready. Food. Clean sheets for his room. Whatever he needs.”
“I can’t just sit?—”
“Yes you can. You’re pregnant, remember?” She squeezed my shoulders. “Let us take care of things. You just focus on being ready for him.”
My baby.
He was coming home.
The hour felt like a year.
I sat by the window, watching the driveway, my phone clutched in my hands like a lifeline. Every car that passed made my heart jump. Every sound made me turn toward the door.
Serenity and Mehar moved around me quietly, preparing things, giving me space. I barely noticed. All I could think about was Yusef. His face. His voice. The way he used to hug me so tight after a nightmare, like he was afraid I’d disappear.
I was going to hold him again. Hear his voice again. Tell him I loved him and watch his face soften the way it always did.
Everything was going to be okay.
Then I saw the Bentayga pull into the driveway.
I was at the door before I even realized I’d moved. Yanking it open. Running down the porch steps. Not caring about the cold or the fact that I was barefoot.
Prime stepped out of the driver’s side. He looked exhausted. Worn down in a way I’d never seen before. But I barely registered it because the passenger door was opening and?—
Yusef.
Standing there in clothes I didn’t recognize, his face thinner than I remembered, his eyes?—
His eyes.
I ran to him. Threw my arms around him. Pulled him against my chest so hard I could feel his heartbeat against mine.
“Yusef. Oh my God, Yusef. My baby. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, baby, I’m here now. I’ve got you. You’re safe. You’re safe.”
I waited for his arms to come around me. For him to bury his face in my shoulder the way he always did. For the tears and the trembling and the relief of being home.
Nothing.
His arms hung at his sides. His body was stiff. Rigid. Like he was made of stone.
I pulled back. Looked at his face.
And my heart shattered.
His eyes were empty. Hollow. The warm brown eyes that used to light up when he played piano, that sparkled when he won a chess match, that softened when I told him I loved him—they were gone. Replaced by something flat. Dead. The eyes of someone who had retreated so far inside themselves they might never come back.
“Yusef?” My voice cracked. “Baby, it’s me. It’s me, Zainab. You’re home now. You’re safe.”
Nothing. Not even a flicker.
I looked down. Noticed the bruises on his wrists. The blisters on his knees, visible through a tear in his pants. Evidence of whatever horrors he’d endured in that basement.
