Thread of Glass

Chapter 4

Los Angeles.

Pale morning light filtered through the blinds, cutting slanting bars across the ceiling. Zoya's heart was still hammering, her breath shallow, her face damp and cold.

Riyana was draped half across her back, small hands locked around her neck, cheek pressed into her hair. She'd climbed into the big bed sometime in the night, performed her quiet rescue, and drifted right back to sleep.

Zoya reached up and covered one of those small hands with her own.

Two and a half years, and apparently her subconscious still hadn’t learned to leave the past alone.

Outside, Jack barked on the porch. The world was waking up. Zoya didn't move for a long time.

Riyana woke up like a light switch, instant and complete. She sat up.

"Mommy." Her voice was still thick with sleep.

"Good morning, baby." Zoya's voice came out rougher than she meant it to.

Riyana rubbed her eyes with the back of one fist, then studied Zoya's face, head tilted. "Mommy. Is Daddy still busy?"

She leaned in and pressed a small, sleepy kiss to Zoya's cheek before pulling back to wait for the answer.

"Yes." Zoya kept her voice light.

Riyana reached out and framed Zoya's face with both hands. "Are you sad, Mommy?"

"No, baby. I'm okay." Zoya held her gaze so she wouldn't have to lie twice.

"Promise?" Riyana's eyes didn't leave hers.

"Promise." Zoya squeezed her little hand.

Riyana watched her for another second, quiet and serious in a way that always made Zoya feel more examined than questioned. Then she seemed satisfied. She gave Zoya a short, decisive kiss on the nose. "Okay."

***

Toothpaste ended up on the mirror, the counter, and the front of Riyana's pajama top.

"Oops. Mommy's sorry." Riyana pouted at the wet fabric.

"Clean it up," Zoya said, handing her a small towel. "Come on."

Downstairs, the quiet, competent sounds of Aunty Glenda moving through the back of the house made the LA property feel less like a temporary landing pad and more like an actual home.

Zoya was cracking eggs when the weight hit her foot. She looked down.

Brownie.

The four-month-old Persian kitten was a ball of golden brown fur, staring up at her with an expression of absolute ownership. Zoya took a sharp step back, her pulse spiking.

"Stop it." Her voice came out thinner than she intended. She forced the air into her lungs and held still, refusing to let the panic break her composure.

"Mommy is a scaredy cat?" Riyana asked, standing in the doorway with a blanket draped over her shoulders like a cape.

"I was not scared," Zoya insisted, her voice climbing an octave higher than she wanted. "I was startled. They are different."

"You are scared." Riyana giggled.

"No, I am not." Zoya crossed her arms, entirely unconvincing.

Riyana crouched and scooped Brownie up with total confidence. "Bwownie. We don't stand on Mommy."

Brownie looked entirely unbothered by the correction.

"She keeps doing it," Zoya muttered, to no one in particular.

"Mommmyyy. She likes you." Riyana beamed.

"She likes my feet specifically." Zoya sighed.

"Mommy, Brownie needs a mommy too." Riyana deployed a small, deliberate pout.

Zoya looked at her daughter for a long second. "She has you already. Now go sit down."

By seven thirty, Amy had arrived. As Riyana launched into her star-shaped pancake theory for an audience of Amy and one uninterested kitten, Zoya slipped away.

***

Every morning, Zoya ran before she had to become anyone for the day. Just her feet, the quiet street, and a city that didn't need anything from her yet.

Four blocks in, her lungs started to burn.

Good. She needed that.

The case came next, uninvited. The trial date. Mansoor Corp. The name she'd been rehearsing to herself in private for a year so that hearing it out loud in a courtroom wouldn't unmoor her.

She pushed harder.

By the time she turned back toward the house, her face was wet and the thoughts had gone quiet. Not gone. Just quiet. That was all she asked of the run, not resolution, just enough room to breathe before the day closed back in.

She stopped at the front steps, hands on her knees, breathing.

She looked at her wrist. The scar had gone silver and faint, the way old things did once the world stopped paying attention to them.

She traced it once with her thumb, then went inside.

…

She stood in front of the mirror long enough to confirm everything was in place. Blazer. Hair. Heels.

Then, without warning, she felt his hands.

Not a memory she'd chosen. Just the warmth of fingers at her collar, settling it the way he always used to, without asking, like it had always been his job.

It lasted three seconds, maybe less. Zoya blinked hard and looked at her reflection again.

Nothing. Just her.

She picked up her bag and went downstairs.

"Mommy." Riyana was already crossing the room toward her.

"Hi, baby." Zoya set her bag down by the door.

Riyana walked over and touched the lapel of the blazer, looking up at the version of Zoya the world saw. "You look soooo pretty."

Zoya crouched down, heels clicking against the hardwood. "Yeah? You'll get your chocolates tonight either way."

"Mommy, thank you." Riyana's arms locked around Zoya's neck like an anchor. "Come back soon?"

"I'll try." Zoya kissed the top of her head.

Zoya set her down before the try could turn into a stay, then headed for the door.

"Mommy."

Zoya turned. Riyana stood in the middle of the room, clutching her blanket, the kitten circling her feet.

"Pleaseeee. Come back." Simple. A command and a plea in the same breath.

"Always," Zoya said, and walked out.

***

Forty-first floor.

The woman who stepped off the elevator had nothing to do with the one who'd stood at the kitchen counter watching her daughter flex her arm after one bite of spinach.

Alan fell into step beside her before she reached her office. "Opposing counsel filed a—"

"Delay motion." Zoya kept walking. "I saw it last night. Response is already in your inbox."

He checked his phone and slowed. Zoya kept walking.

…

Partners meeting, ten o'clock.

Zoya was three minutes into the evidentiary summary when Katherine Hale cut in.

Katherine Hale, fifty-two, was a senior partner and sharp in the way of women who'd had to be sharper than everyone else in the room just to get into it.

"Opposing counsel filed a motion to disqualify lead counsel this morning." Katherine set her pen down. "Conflict of interest."

A few pens stopped moving around the table.

Zoya finished the line she was writing before she looked up.

"The motion is without merit." She met Katherine's eyes. "Personal history was disclosed at engagement. If opposing counsel believed it had merit, they'd have filed it nine months ago. They waited until six days before trial." She looked around the table, then straight at Adrian. "I can only continue if—"

"You'll continue this." Adrian cut her off before she could finish. "The rest is mine."

Katherine looked at her.

Zoya looked back, steady.

"Continue," Adrian said again, quieter.

After the meeting, she walked to the elevator alone and watched the numbers drop.

The doors opened. She walked out and went back to work.

…

At night, Geneva, the Fairmont was too quiet. Not the kind that soothed anything. The kind that just forced you to listen to your own thoughts.

A place built for discretion. To Raiyan, tonight, it felt like a cage.

He sat at the desk, his laptop the only light in the room. Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass, the lights of the city blurred into the lake. He wasn't looking at the view.

He opened the Mansoor Corp case file again.

Six days until trial.

His eyes stopped on Zoya Al Fayez's name on the opposing counsel report.

He opened her file.

Her professional history was almost irritatingly clean. Case after case, won cleanly, no obvious weakness anywhere he looked. He went through the file twice and found nothing he could use.

That bothered him more than it should have.

He closed the file and reached for his phone before he'd fully decided to.

"Sir," Michael answered on the first ring.

"Update." He didn't sit back down.

"The victim coalition is moving." Michael's voice was already all business. "Someone's funding them through shell accounts. We don't have a name yet, but whoever it is knows what they're doing. And there are real victims here, water contamination cases near the Mansoor chemical plant.”

"Keep digging." Raiyan's voice dropped into the register Michael had learned to take seriously. "I want every connection Zoya Al Fayez has, beyond the case file. Family, funding, anyone standing behind her."

He hung up and called Armaan.

"Sir." Armaan picked up on the first ring, halfway to the car before Raiyan finished dialing.

"Flight status." He was already moving toward the door.

"Ready. Wheels up in forty minutes." A pause. "Liyana's already in Los Angeles."

"I know." His voice gave nothing away.

He ended the call and walked out.

The tarmac air was cold, sharp enough to strip everything down to what actually mattered.

He boarded the jet.

Mansoor Corp files. Environmental reports. Legal filings. He worked through all of it, but six days kept ticking at the edge of his attention no matter how much he tried to concentrate.

He'd spent two and a half years convincing himself he was over it.

He wasn't.

And in six days, Zoya Al Fayez would be standing across from him in court.

She really thought she could stand across from him and talk about justice after what she’d done. After taking his peace. After taking a piece of his life he would never get back. And now she wanted to come for the Mansoor family legacy too.

“In your dream, Zoya,” he murmured.

He leaned back and watched the runway lights slide past as the plane began to taxi. A tired laugh escaped him. Two and a half years, and apparently the anger had survived just fine.

He closed the laptop and let the dark of the cabin take him.

…

The elevator doors opened on the forty-first floor.

Zoya walked out.

And stopped.

She saw him.

…