It meant that every document pertaining to the immigration services of World Wide Tours was heading into the shredder. And it meant that he himself had to act quickly before the world as he'd known it for twenty-six years crashed in on him.
He'd left the factory. He'd gone home. He'd started to put his own plans in motion.
Haytham was dead - praise whatever Divine Being was convenient at the moment - and he knew that there was no way on earth that Kumhar would talk. Talk and he'd find himself deported, which was the last thing he wanted now that his chief protector had been murdered.
And then Yumn - that ugly cow whom he was forced to call wife - had begun her business with his mother. And she'd had to be dealt with, which is when he'd learned the truth about Sahlah.
He'd cursed her, his slag of a sister. She'd driven him to it. What did she expect to happen when she acted like a whore with a Westerner?
Forgiveness? Understanding? Acceptance? What?
She'd let those hands - unclean, defiled, corrupt, disgusting - touch her body. She'd willS44 ingly met that mouth with her own. She lay with that bloody piece of shit Shaw under a tree on the bare fucking ground and she expected him her brother, her elder, her lord - to walk away from the knowledge? From the sound of their breathing and moaning together? From the scent of their sweat? From the sight of his hand lifting her nightgown and sliding sliding sliding up her leg?
So yes, he'd grabbed her. Yes, he'd dragged her into the house. And yes, he'd taken her because she deserved to be taken, because she was a whore, and because above all she was meant to pay the way all whores pay. And once - one night - was not enough to impress her with the knowledge of who was the real master of her fate.
One word from me and you die, he'd told her.
And he didn't even need to muffle her cries with his palm as he was prepared to do. She knew she had to pay for her sin.
Once Yumn had spoken, he'd gone in search of her. It was the very last thing he knew he should do, but he had to find her. He was in a fever to find her. His eyes were throbbing, his heart was thundering, and his head was pounding with all of their voices.
Abort, Malik.
Am I meant to be treated like a dog?
She's ungovernable, my son. She has no sense of~
The police were here to search the factory. They were asking for you.
Abort, Malik.
Look at me, Muni. Look at what your mother Before I knew it, she had ruined the plants.
I don't understand why Abort, Malik.
. your father's perfect little virgin.
Abort.
Virgin? Her? In a few more weeks she won't be able to hide the They wouldn't say what they were looking for. But they had a warrant. I saw it myself.
Your sister's pregnant.
Abort. Abort.
Sahlah wouldn't speak of it. She wouldn't accuse him. She wouldn't dare. An accusation would ruin her because from it would rise the truth about Shaw. Because he - Muhannad, her brother - would speak that truth. He would accuse. He would relate exactly what he had seen pass between them in the orchard and he'd allow their parents to conclude the rest. Could they trust the word of a daughter who betrayed them by sneaking out of the house at night? Of a daughter who acted like a common slag? Who was more likely to be telling the truth? he would demand.
A son who did his duty to his wife, his children, and his parents, or a daughter who daily lived a lie?
Sahlah knew what he would say. She knew what their parents would believe. So she wouldn't speak of it, and she wouldn't accuse.
Which gave him a chance to find her. But she wasn't at the factory. She wasn't at the jewellery shop with her hag-faced friend. She wasn't in Falak Dedar Park. She wasn't on the pier.
But on the pier he'd heard the news about Mrs.
Shaw and he'd gone to the hospital. He was jusi in time to see them coming out, the three of them.
His father, his sister, and Theo Shaw. And the look that passed between his sister and her lover as he opened the door of their father's car for her had told him what he needed to know. She'd told.
The little bitch had