speak again, he rasped brokenly, “I watched you die. I watched you all die. I see it so clearly now—the screams, the blood, all of it.” He tapped his head. “But the drugs stole that from me for many years. They made it all go away. Jakhua made me his dog. I killed him for that, but worse, he stole my memories of you, of Anri, of all the family.” His face contorted. “I am still missing some years. Some things I can’t remember, but I always remembered you.” Zaal lifted his hand to touch his three moles. His eyes warmed as he did, and I whispered, “One, two, three.”
Zaal slowly nodded his head and his thick lips hooked into a shy smile. It quickly dropped, but he confessed, “The memories came back quickly, but so did the pain. I relived everything over and over again, and it’s been killing me, Zoya.” He clenched his hands, then added, “It killed me remembering you the most, reaching out your little arms for me to take. Screaming for me to save you. It kept me awake every night.” He shook his head in disbelief. “And now you’re here. Before me. But older and different. A woman. A strong woman.” Zaal smiled. “You think Papa would have been proud of me. I know he would have been proud of you. What you’ve been through…”
His eyes fell on Valentin’s arms holding me possessively, and I said, “He’s not leaving me. I’m not leaving him. I love him.”
Zaal sighed and dropped his head again. “He hurt you, Zoya. I saw it. And I fucking broke. I don’t know if I can get past it. You fell for your torturer.”
I held Valentin tighter and glanced behind me to see his scarred face relaxed in sleep. The face I once thought of as monstrous I now only saw as beautiful. Leaning in, I kissed the long scar on his cheek and said, “I love him. I know how it looks, but you only saw glimpses of him on the drugs, or fighting for his sister.” With a final stroke of his cheek, I turned back to Zaal. “You would have done the same. Tell me, if Jakhua had me locked away and on the Type B drug, if you had to watch me get raped by men but were promised that if you just killed one more hit I would be free, would you have done whatever he would have asked?”
Zaal’s jaw clenched, and he said darkly, “I wouldn’t have had a choice if I was on the drugs.”
“So was Valentin.”
“Not all the time,” Zaal argued.
“And if that was you, what would you have done?”
Zaal’s silence told me I’d finally gotten through. Shaking my head, I said, “I do not want to argue, sykhaara. But I won’t give him up. Our lives have been so hard. I have forever dreamed of finding my true love. I never imagined it would be through this dark path, but I find myself here and happy. I find myself in love with this man.”
Zaal stared at Valentin’s hand in mine. I brought it to lie under my cheek and proclaimed, “Zaal, I shall make you a deal.”
Zaal frowned. A ghost of a humored smile spread on his lips. He waited for me to speak. Hope stirred in my heart. “Kisa and I spoke at length. She helped me see things clearly. I”—I coughed, finding the next sentence difficult—“I would like to know Talia. I would like to know your love, because she is yours.” I forced to the side the pain of who her family was, and I continued, “She is your present and your future. As sad as it makes me, I am your past.” Making sure Zaal’s eyes were fixed on mine, I said, “We knew each other as children, Zaal, when life was simple and easy. I would very much like to know you now.” I fought the thickness from my throat. “I would very much like you to be my best friend again.”
“I want that, too, so much,” Zaal admitted hoarsely.
I smiled on noticing the tension leave his shoulders. “But you have to accept Valentin. He is mine; I am his. That’s how it will be. You do not know what he has been through, though if you took the time to speak to him you might find you are not so dissimilar.”
Zaal glanced away but curtly nodded his head. “I asked him to speak to me