“Fine, I’ll show you,” she said, digging her free hand into the jacket she wore over a white tank top as she pulled out some papers. “This was from the year I was born. Check it out.” She flung the papers at me.
Taking my eyes from her, I picked up the papers, looking through them. Frowning as I read.
What in the world…
My mind was drawing a blank, and my heart wasn’t functioning correctly as my eyes went on, word after word. My signature was there, my name was there, on the page, with the MCSS dealings…
“Two hundred and sixty-six children were born into this business and trafficked that year. Alongside me. Two hundred and sixty-six out of thousands from the following years, the years before mine, up until now—all without identities because they were made for one thing and one thing only, to be used this way, to be sold. How could you, Elio?”
My head snapped upward as my eyes met hers, understanding the hate within them.
Her words… they were like consecutive slaps to my face.
Her accusation was cutting me more than the fact that this was what my father had needed my signature for when I was only eight.
She believed this. She believed I did this.
I tilted my head, watching her with disbelief as hurt made a home in the tightness beneath my chest.
It was that time all over again when my mother and siblings had burned in that church, my father had spread a rumor, I was accused, and no one had bothered to check the facts.
I dropped the papers, my gaze rising to the gun. I swallowed, letting the silence stretch as I looked back at her. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
She faltered at whatever she saw in my eyes.
“You have it all figured out. I hurt all those children and all those people… I am at the end of your gun. Kill me, get revenge once and for all, and end the MCSS and me. Then I won’t hurt any more children, and I’ll stop ordering my people to ensure all the trafficking is conducted perfectly.”
“Your fucked-up sarcasm isn’t really needed right now.”
“Oh, it didn’t sound like the truth? It didn’t sound like something I would do? Did it sound absurd to you, Zahra?”
“You can’t tell me you didn’t know this was happening under your name, Elio, because that would be a lie. It’s too huge to go under your nose.”
“I don’t know why you’re still here fishing for answers when you’ve already made assumptions. You already think I’m capable of doing all that is written on this paper. You already look at me with hate; you’ve already pointed a gun at me.”
I watched her throat work, her chest heaving.
We held our gazes for almost a minute, the doubt in her eyes filling the silence. The hurt I knew was in mine helped to accentuate the tension. I fought to control the dreadful heaviness on top of my heart. “You don’t love me, Zahra,” I said, my voice quiet as I swallowed. “You don’t feel the same way I feel about you; you don’t know what I’m capable of. You don’t know me—and if I’m being honest, your accusation and your assumption without even deeming it fit to ask me? Hurts.”
“How do you explain the signature—”
“Do I even have to explain anything to you?” The disbelief I felt made me wonder if this was really happening—if she was really asking me this. “Can’t you see I would never be a part of something like this with everything you know about me? Isn’t my—isn’t my character enough to tell you that I would never do a thing like this? Isn’t my love enough to show you that even if I knew about this happening under my name, I would tell you when you told me about your past?”
“Don’t turn this around, what the fuck was I supposed to think? Your name was everywhere!”
“These people existed before I was even born. I have never been involved in the MCSS business, Zahra; neither did I care about what they were up to because when I decided to end my life, I was going to end this whole empire along with it. That was why I needed to find the flash drives. I didn’t see one with my name, nor my empire’s, nor my father’s. The MCSS is sovereign. Do you know what ‘sovereign’ means?”
“I don’t fucking care,” she said, swallowing as tears welledin her eyes. “All I know is you are involved in the very thing res-responsible for this broken person that I am today.”
I frowned. “Even if you know I didn’t actively have anything to do with it?”
She didn’t answer…
She didn’t want to say something she couldn’t take back.
What did she come here hoping to achieve?
I sighed. “You won’t have to be at war with yourself if you just believe me—”
