I found a spot on the opposite end from where the Uber dropped him off and watched Yusef walk toward the entrance. He looked so normal. So unbothered. Just a kid going to the mall on a random afternoon.
He had no idea I was watching.
I waited a few minutes before getting out. Grabbed a baseball cap from the backseat and pulled it low over my face, tucking my hair underneath. Sunglasses. Plain jacket. Nothing memorable.
The mall was crowded since it was a weekday afternoon, full of teenagers skipping school and moms with strollers and old people doing their walking laps. Easy to blend in. Easy to disappear.
I spotted Yusef near the directory, studying the map like he was looking for something specific. He headed toward the baby stores: Carter’s, Buy Buy Baby, one of those places that sold overpriced onesies and tiny shoes.
He was shopping for Zainab’s baby.
Something twisted in my gut. This boy—this traumatized, broken boy who’d spent months in captivity at my father’s compound—was out here buying gifts for the woman who’d ruined my family. Playing the doting nephew. Moving on with his life like nothing had happened.
Like Daddy was nothing. Like Kasim was nothing. Like everything we’d lost was just collateral damage in someone else’s love story.
I followed him into the store, keeping my distance. Pretended to browse through a rack of tiny dresses while I watched him out of the corner of my eye.
He was looking at stuffed animals. Picking them up one by one, examining them, putting them back. He finally settled on a soft gray elephant with floppy ears and a little bow around its neck. He smiled when he looked at it—actually smiled, like a normal kid having a normal day.
I wondered if he’d smiled like that at the compound. Probably not.
He took the elephant to the register and paid with cash. I hung back near the entrance, watching him leave with a small shopping bag in his hand. He looked happy. Proud of himself.
Enjoy it, I thought. Enjoy this moment.
He wandered through the mall for a while after that. Got a smoothie from one of those kiosks. Sat on a bench and scrolled through his phone. Walked past the sneaker stores and the electronics stores and the food court, just existing in the world like he had every right to be there.
And I followed. Always a few steps behind. Always watching.
What would Rashid do?
The question echoed in my head, the same way it had been echoing since I got on that plane to LA.
Rashid wouldn’t hesitate. Rashid would see an opportunity and seize it. Rashid would make them pay, all of them, for what they’d taken from us.
But Rashid was also strategic. Calculated. He never made a move without thinking three steps ahead.
Yusef wasn’t my target. He was just a kid. Collateral damage in a war he didn’t start.
But Zainab…
Zainab was trapped in that house. Ankle monitor. Can’t run. Can’t hide. Completely dependent on the people around her to keep her safe.
And right now, the only person around her was nobody.
I watched Yusef check his phone and start heading toward the exit. Probably texting Zainab to let her know he was on his way home. Being a good boy. Following the rules.
I let him get ahead of me. Didn’t need to follow him anymore. I knew where he was going.
What mattered was what came next.
I found a bench near the parking structure entrance and sat down. Pulled out my phone. Opened the camera roll and scrolled through the pictures I’d taken over the past hour. Yusef at the directory. Yusef in the baby store. Yusef with his smoothie. Yusef on the bench, alone.
So many pictures. So many angles. So many ways to prove I’d been close enough to touch him.
Close enough to take him, if I wanted to.
But I didn’t want him.
