She squeezed my hands, tears spilling down her cheeks. But then something shifted in her expression. The hope dimmed. Doubt crept in.
“Wait.” She pulled back slightly. “Let’s think about this.”
“What’s there to think about?”
“The consequences.” She started pacing again, her mind clearly racing. “Let’s say we get Yusef back. Then what? Meech is out now. He’s Yusef’s biological father. And Rashid has money, connections, lawyers. What’s stopping them from going to the authorities? Filing for custody?”
“Rashid doesn’t involve authorities. That’s not how he operates.”
“But Meech might. Or Rashid might use the threat of it to keep us in line.” She stopped pacing and looked at me, her eyes haunted. “Prime, think about it. I stole my dead sister’s identity. I have a criminal record from California. I’ve been raising a child under a fake name for three years. If this goes to court—if any of this comes out—I don’t just lose custody. I go to prison. And Yusef ends up with Meech anyway.”
I clenched my jaw. She wasn’t wrong. The legal situation was a minefield. One wrong step and everything exploded.
“So what are you saying?” I asked slowly. “We do nothing?”
“I’m saying…” She pressed her hands to her temples, like she was trying to keep her skull from splitting open. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I can’t think straight. I can’t—” Her voice cracked. “I can’t lose him to the courts AND lose him to Rashid. Either way, he’s gone. Either way, I fail him.”
“You’re not failing anybody.”
“I already HAVE.” She was crying again, her whole body shaking. “I was supposed to protect him. That was the ONE thing I promised Zahara. Keep her son safe. And now he’s with that man, and I don’t even know if he’s okay, and I can’t DO anything?—”
“You can let me handle it.”
“HOW?” She threw her hands up. “You just said yourself you don’t know where Rashid is! And even if you find him, even if you get Yusef back, we’re right back where we started. Waitingfor them to make the next move. Waiting for them to take him again, or drag us to court, or?—”
“Zainab.” I grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at me. “Listen to me. I know Rashid. I know what he does to boys he’s trying to ‘shape.’ I lived it. The discipline. The punishments. The breaking down before the building up.” My voice dropped. “Every hour Yusef is with him, he’s being hurt. Maybe not beaten bloody, but hurt. In ways that don’t leave visible marks. I can’t let that go on. I WON’T.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Her voice was raw. “You think it’s not killing me? But if I move wrong—if WE move wrong—I lose him forever. At least if he’s with Rashid, he’s alive. He’s?—”
“He’s being tortured.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I DO know that.” I released her shoulders and stepped back, trying to contain the fury building in my chest. “Because Rashid did the same thing to me. For years. Broke me down. Rebuilt me in his image. Made me into a weapon.” I met her eyes. “Is that what you want for Yusef? You want him to become like me?”
She flinched like I’d hit her.
“That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair.” I started pacing now, too agitated to stand still. “But sitting here doing nothing isn’t an option. Not for me. I can’t watch you fall apart for another day while that boy suffers. I won’t.”
“So what, you’re just going to go rogue? Do whatever you want regardless of what I think?”
“I’m going to protect this family. By any means necessary.”
“Even if it destroys us in the process?”
We stood there, breathing hard, the argument hanging between us like a live wire. I could see her fear. Her paralysis. The impossible choice she was trying to navigate.
And I understood it. I did.
But I also knew what Rashid was capable of. Knew the techniques he used to break down young minds and reshape them. Knew that every minute we wasted arguing was another minute Yusef spent being molded into something he wasn’t meant to be.
“I’m not asking for your permission,” I said finally. “But I am asking you to trust me. I will get that boy back. And I will do it in a way that doesn’t blow up in our faces. But I need you to let me move.”
Zainab opened her mouth to respond?—
Her phone rang.
