Thread of Glass

Chapter 10

Two and a half years should have been enough.

Standing in the elevator, hands pressed flat against her thighs, Zoya decided it apparently hadn’t been.

Her hands were still shaking.

Adrian stood beside her, pretending to read his notes. He wasn’t reading anything; she could tell because he hadn’t turned a page in four minutes. He was just standing there being quietly supportive, trying not to make it weird.

The elevator opened.

“You look...” he started.

She glared at him.

“Adrian.”

“Terrifying,” he said. “In a good way.”

The corner of her mouth moved. She killed it immediately and walked out.

Deep emerald blazer. Structured at the shoulder, sharp at the lapel. Slim black trousers. Silk blouse. Diamond studs. Hair pulled back so clean it looked like a decision, because it was. A structured leather tote on one arm and eleven years of someone else’s buried truth in the other.

She walked into the courthouse corridor and something happened to the air. Conversations slowed. Heads turned. She never demanded it. She simply walked in and the room understood without being told.

Zoya saw them the moment she turned the corner.

Zayed sat in the front row of the gallery, upright in the way he always sat. The family patriarch had flown in personally rather than send a proxy, because a case with the Mansoor name was not something he trusted to anyone else.

He looked up when she entered. Their eyes met briefly, two people who had sat across from each other in Joseph’s study and were now on opposite sides of a courtroom. Neither of them looked away first.

Zayed’s expression didn’t change, but something in his face settled. It was the look of a man finally understanding that Zoya was not going to let this go.

She looked away first, and that was when she saw the rest of them.

Eleanor sat beside him in pale blue with her good pearls, present because she had not missed a significant day of her grandson’s life since he was six years old. Amirah sat on her other side, arms crossed, there because Raiyan hadn’t asked her to come and she’d come anyway.

Elena stood slightly too close to the group, phone in hand, positioned like a woman who needed to be seen belonging there.

Behind them stood Raiyan.

It was the first time she had seen him in two and a half years.

Don’t look for him.

Her eyes found him anyway, before the sentence had even finished forming in her mind. Her stomach dropped, hard enough that for one second she forgot where she was supposed to walk. Her pulse lurched against her throat.

No. Not here. Not because of him.

He stood with one hand in his pocket, sleeves rolled to his forearms. No ring.

Her eyes dropped to his hands before she could stop them. That irritated her more than anything. She knew those hands. Knew exactly how they felt at her waist, against the back of her neck, pulling her closer when she was already close enough.

He had said it was always her. She was the only one.

She had been such a fool.

She looked away.

Absolutely not.

She kept walking toward the small gate separating the gallery from the counsel area.

That was when Elena saw her.

Of course. Elena. Somehow it always came back to Elena.

The smile that appeared on Elena’s face had been sharpened by waiting.

“Zoya.” Warm. So warm. Poison always came warm. “You actually came.”

Her eyes moved over Zoya slowly, from her shoes to her hair. “I have to say, you’re braver than I thought.”

Eleanor’s voice followed immediately, without even looking at her directly. “Zoya. What else do you want from us? Haven’t you taken enough?”

Amirah touched Eleanor’s arm, quiet, trying to stop her.

Zoya stopped walking. She looked at Eleanor, then at Elena.

“Mrs. Mansoor.” Her voice came out pleasant, professional, and completely calm. “Please don’t make this personal. I’m here representing the victims of this case. Nothing else.” She gave a small smile. “Take care.”

She turned and walked toward the gate. Eleanor stood very still, watching her walk away.

This was the same girl who used to call her Grandma, bring her tea, sit listening to her stories and sort out her medication.

What had happened to that girl?

Two men from a different firm stopped talking as she passed. One of them broke off mid-sentence, looking twice.

Raiyan saw them do it before he understood why he was watching them at all. Something hard pulled low in his stomach.

Then his eyes found her, and everything else disappeared.

His gaze dropped once, taking in the line of her waist beneath the blazer before coming back to her face.

He remembered too much. That was the problem.

Her hair had grown longer. She’d lost weight, not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for him.

She looked exactly like the woman he’d loved. And she carried herself like someone who no longer needed him.

He looked away first.

Elena appeared at his elbow while the room was still settling, one hand landing on his forearm.

It felt wrong before she’d even finished touching him.