Mayas pov
The sedan’s motion was a dull, steady menace. It felt like a dream ,a nightmare in motion and yet every ache and bruise that mapped my body was indisputably real. I pressed my hand to my stomach, feeling for life. The baby kicked and I wept because the kick was both a promise and a plea: still here, still fighting.
They didn’t speak much. The men who’d taken me were quiet, professional in the way of someone doing an unpleasant but necessary job. The older man held the USB drive like it was an ordinary possession not the detonator for lives and reputations. He turned it over in his fingers as if nothing inside could hurt him. But inside was my father’s years of work, smuggled and hidden and encoded everything he had given his life to protect.
We descended into a parking garag
