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ABE TRIED NOT TO STARE AT Imara as they ambled down the street, but how could he resist? Her eyes looked like the night sky. The flecks of gold in her black irises completed the illusion by looking like starlight. Her ebony skin was soft and lush, which accounted for only some of the thrill that passed through him every time they touched. But best of all was the sweet smile she wore, even brighter than anything he had seen in the catacombs.
It had been three full weeks since the catacombs, and each day Imara seemed a little brighter, a little happier. A little better.
She squinted, probably trying to pick out the bubble car they were supposed to take back to the airport. He didn’t have one himself, since he had dumped all of his savings into getting his jet. So, they were forced to order one of the self-moving cars every time she came to Cairo.
She didn’t mind. The only thing she seemed to hate was the same thing he hated. When it was time to say goodbye.
He touched her arm, and she stopped in her tracks. She turned toward him and seemed to wish he had an excuse for her to stay, even for a few more minutes. At least, he hoped that’s what she was thinking because that’s what he was thinking.
As he brushed his thumb over her ebony skin, he stared into her eyes trying to think of some excuse. Any excuse. But when he looked at her eyes this time, he noticed a thin film of something in the corner of her right eye.
Again.
He’d cleaned it earlier today, but now the tiny yellowish film was back as if it had never gone. With a frown, he said, “You have something in your eyes again.”
He lifted his hand toward her face without a thought, but just before his finger reached her eye, he pulled back. “Do you mind if I get it?”
She shook her head and tilted her chin up. At the same time, she leaned into him. When her shoulder brushed against his chest, a feeling dropped through him landing somewhere around his navel.
He wrapped his free arm around her back. Not strictly necessary, but it definitely made the task more enjoyable. And then, he gently cleaned the corner of her eye with his pinky. When finished, he wiped the tiny bit of goop onto his pants and pulled Imara closer. With both arms.
She nuzzled her head into his chest until the curls on her head tickled his chin. How had he ever lived without this?
Lanterns lit up the street with an orange glow. Not a single light was burnt out or broken, marking this as one of the safest streets in Cairo. The road was busy with bubble cars, but so far, no pedestrians had bothered them.
He ran his hand over her back when his eyes fell on a familiar building just across the street. A building where his life had changed.
Imara pulled her head up to look at him, but then quickly shifted and followed his gaze to the building.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I don’t think you should go home yet.”
She snickered and pulled away from him, using her head to point at the building. “What is that building? It’s important to you.”
“It’s...” he said, starting to deny it, but her surety caught him off guard. He cocked his head to the side and asked, “How did you know?”
“Your muscles twitched,” she said. “And then I looked up and saw your face.” She shrugged. “I could tell.”
“That’s not fair,” he said shaking his head. “Even without your hila, you know exactly what I’m feeling.”
Her eyes grew wide before she dropped her head away to look at the ground. “Sorry,” she said under her breath.
He understood why she reacted that way. At least sort of. She had explained to him how guilty she felt knowing people’s emotions even when they wanted them secret. But this was different. He wasn’t afraid of her knowing things about him. Not anymore. In fact, the more time went on, the more he wanted to share. Needed to.
Something about her made his secrets jump to the surface, begging to be let out. “It’s fine,” he said. “I don’t mind that you can tell how I feel. I actually kind of like it.”
She glanced up, and a glimmer of the brightness returned to her expression. He traced his fingers down her spine, and she seemed to take courage in his touch.
“What is it?” she asked again. “Why is the building important to you?”
The air around them stilled as he formulated his response. At last, he squished up his mouth and pointed to a nearby bench. This close to the Egyptian Council chambers should be safe, even this late at night.
After sitting, he ran his thumb along his chin, still not ready to explain. Imara stared into his eyes, and he could see the conflict inside of her. She wanted to know, but she didn’t want to pry. Apparently that was all he needed to get the words out. Knowing she cared that much made him open his mouth.
“The first time I saw that building, I was twenty-one. I had just graduated from college and was supposed to start working for my dad. Except I didn’t want to work for my dad. Owning the best hila school in the world was his dream, not mine.”
Although, he was extremely grateful his dad had started Nazari Academy of Hila. Without it, he might never have met one of the top students. Imara.
Abe slipped an arm around her waist and pointed at a window near the top of the building. “Right up there is where a lawyer named Aida worked. She’s about the same age as my dad, and she was his lawyer for about seven years. My dad sent me here to get some things from her for the school. I’d met her a few times, but that was the first time I’d ever been to her office here in Cairo.”
He chuckled to himself. “The moment I walked in her door, Aida knew I was smitten with the city.” He shrugged. “So, she did the only logical thing after that and offered me a job.”
“What?” Imara said as her eyes widened. She started to chuckle. “While you were in the middle of running an errand for your dad?”
“Yep. And I took it. Aida and my dad had a habit of poaching employees from each other. It was a friendly competition between them.”
Her eyebrow rose as a mischievous glint appeared in her eyes. “Friendly?” she asked. “In a romantic way?”
He snorted and gave her a sideways glance. “Romantic?”
“Yeah, I figured that wasn’t likely,” she said with a shrug. “He’s not into romance of any kind, is he?”
“Not anymore,” Abe said before he clamped his mouth shut. Not that secret. Not yet. He gulped, hoping his reaction hadn’t been too obvious and then continued. “Definitely not a romantic thing, but still friendly.”
“So, how angry was he when you took the job?”
“Not angry at all,” he said with a shrug. “My dad is extremely supportive of everything I’ve ever done. I sort of wished he’d been mad because I felt guilty about quitting the school, but he never was. He just wanted me to be happy. I think he always knew his school wasn’t where I wanted to be.”
“How long did you work for Aida?”
“Uh,” he said as he tugged at his collar. “Not very long. It got complicated.” So many secrets, he didn’t know if he wanted to share them all.
She flashed him a smile, coaxing the story out. “Tell me,” she said, reaching for his hand.
When their fingers touched, he intertwined them and leaned into her. Even with her this close, it wasn’t close enough. But it was enough to get him to talk.
A moment later, he looked down and sighed. “Aida had this neighbor. They weren’t close friends or anything, but they saw each other on their way to and from work, that sort of thing. And the neighbor had a daughter. Edrice.”
Imara cocked her head in surprise.
“Yes, that Edrice.” He frowned. “A few months before I started working for Aida, the neighbor, Edrice’s mom, died.”
Imara clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Yeah, I know,” he said looking down. “I didn’t know Edrice at the time. Aida didn’t know her either, not really. She just knew her name and that she was put into the care of the Egyptian Council after her mom died. I’d only been working for Aida for about two months when she suddenly decided to get a birthday present for her dead neighbor’s daughter. I don’t know how she knew Edrice’s birthday, but she did, and she was determined to get her a present. She contacted the Egyptian Council to find out in which care home Edrice was living.”
Imara nodded along with the story until her nose wrinkled. Her lips fell into a frown and every muscle in her face seemed to slacken. “But the Egyptian Council couldn’t find Edrice. There was no record of her?” she asked.
“Exactly,” he said. “The Egyptian Council insisted they had never had a child named Edrice in their care. They did, they just didn’t remember. With Edrice’s records deleted they had no way of remembering her or finding her or anything. Aida was furious and spent weeks trying to figure out what happened. She uncovered Sef’s slave cartel and how he was kidnapping orphans and then deleting their records. Eventually, she found Edrice and helped free her. The only problem was she didn’t do it legally.”
He shrugged. “Sef has a ton of power here. The Egyptian Council isn’t corrupted... yet. But the police are completely useless because Sef has about half of them in his pocket. When Aida discovered his slave cartel, he made sure Aida got caught and received the highest possible punishment. She’s in prison and will be for another two months.”
“Abe, that’s...”
“I know. It’s terrible. I only worked with her for a few months before she was sent to prison, and Edrice barely knew her at all, but she helped us start our business. We told her what we wanted to do, and she helped us do it. She insisted we do everything legally to make sure we never got into trouble like she did. Oh, and that’s how Edrice and Husani met. When Edrice was first put into a care home, she lived with Husani for a couple months. He got taken by the slave cartel first, and then she was a little while later. Once we started our business, Husani was the first orphan we rescued.”
“No wonder Husani is still working for you then. Even after all this time.”
Abe cocked his head to the side as he shrugged. “Well, he just turned eighteen a year ago so he’s only been working since then. Global working age laws and all. Edrice is the one who figured out how to make money though. I just wanted to rescue orphans. She convinced the Egyptian Council to pay us for every orphan we find. And, you already know, we also do contract jobs as a security firm, which pays a lot better than the Egyptian Council does.”
She squeezed his hand. “You’re pretty fresh, you know that?”
He tried to laugh off the compliment, but he sat up a little taller. If he had impressed the most impressive person in the world, then he must have done something right. With a smile, he said, “Aida is also the reason I hate the taggers so much.”
His lips curled up as he mentioned the taggers, and so did Imara’s. Not only had the leader of the taggers tried to kill them all, she had also hurt Imara immensely. The Judge had turned out to be Imara’s favorite teacher at his dad’s hila school. Since Carlotta Santini was dead, he probably still shouldn’t hate her, but that didn’t stop him from doing it.
Besides, his hatred of the taggers began long before he met Imara. The taggers wanted to add a tag to the end of people’s names, branding them with their crimes.
He shook his head as his teeth clenched together. “Aida is in jail, and she did break the law, but she did it to save an innocent girl from a slave cartel. If the taggers had their way, Aida would be tagged as a thief for the rest of her life. But she’s the farthest thing from a bad person.”
“That makes sense,” Imara said, tucking her head under Abe’s chin.
He lifted a hand to brush his fingers through the shaved hair on the side and back of her hair. When he reached the curls on top of her head, he wrapped his finger around one of the coils. “That’s why I’m glad you’re here,” he said.
He rested his head amidst her curls and let out a sigh. “Things are... they’re a little rough right now. The conflict with Sef is escalating, and the security jobs we do are getting more and more dangerous. We’ve had a lot of employees quit, and we’re having a difficult time doing enough jobs to cover our expenses.”
Imara pulled away, and he saw a gulp trail down her throat. She opened her mouth, but he waved away her concern.
“I have money in savings. So does Edrice. We have a lot of assets and equipment, so the business is still worth a lot of money.”
He pulled his hand away from Imara, and immediately cold seeped into the spots her skin had been a moment ago. He wrung his hands together and said, “I just want to save my business. If we can find Sef’s list and get him arrested, then Cairo won’t be so dangerous. We’ll still get security jobs, but they won’t be life threatening, and our employees won’t quit all the time. We use to have twenty-five people working for us, and now we just have three: me, Edrice, and Husani.”
“Four,” Imara said, forcing her hand in between his to stop him from wringing them.
He looked up with a smile, and something swirled around inside of him. His endless hope never left, but for the first time in a long time, he felt like it had a foundation. Wrapping both of his arms around her, he said, “I’m really glad you’re here.”
