Page 70 of Eight Years (The Trident Trilogy 1)

I finally find my voice. “When you murdered her.”

“Me? You think I killed my sister? She was the only good thing in my life after our parents—your grandparents—were killed in the war. I wouldn’t have hurt a hair on her head.”

“Everyone believes you killed her because she was pregnant. An honor killing,” I say, glaring at him.

“Yes, that was widely reported. I was supposed to do that. When the elders found out about you, they told me to kill you and your mother. I probably would have killed you eventually if your father hadn’t taken you from me. I’m assuming it was him that took you. I never knew for sure. I thought about tracking him for a while, but really he did me a favor by taking you. Your mother would have haunted me forever if I would have killed you.”

“If you didn’t kill her, who did?”

“When I got back to the house, and found her dead, everyone told me that her heart had just stopped beating, a reaction to delivering you. She looked so peaceful laying there. No gun wounds, no sign of a struggle. I believed them for years. But, then Amar told me what really happened. You met Amar, I believe. He’s probably the one who told you where to find Yusef’s dad. He didn’t tell me. You must have had some kind of effect on him, but then, you look just like my sister, and Amar was always in love with her. No bother, though. You led me right to Haroun. The fighters that you encountered in those hills around his house were my fighters. They found him right after you got away. You should have stayed. I was living only about ten miles from there at the time. We could have met much earlier.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Yusef start to shift nervously. The man who had driven the car grabs him by the shoulders and forces him to stand still. I glance over to him.

Sayid continues. “Yes, you see Yusef is getting nervous. He hasn’t realized until now that I know. I’ve kept him alive this long because Amar told me you were tracking him. His father told me that he told you where to find Yusef. He never loved Yusef nearly as much as Yusef loved him. He thought he was weak. Ironically, he always loved me. I think he wished I was his son. And, after all these years, well, what I’ve done with my life, he admired me even more. I think he actually hated Americans more than he hated the Serbs and, as you know, I’ve been able to kill so many Americans in the past few decades. Your father really inspired it all. After what he did to my sister. After he raped her.”

“My dad didn’t rape her. From what I hear, she was a very strong woman who made her own decisions.”

“She was headstrong, and I have no doubt that she wanted to be with your father in that way, but in my mind, it is the man who is at fault for having relations with an unmarried woman. It is rape whether she wants it or not. Yusef’s father did not see it that way though. He blamed my sister. Isn’t that right, Yusef?”

Sayid looks over at Yusef, who is still being held firmly by the other man. Sayid walks slowly over to him. Yusef starts to stay something, but Sayid holds up his hand, silencing him immediately.

“Amar told me that your father suffocated Nejra, Yusef. And, you moved him into the mountains to hide him from me. All these years you’ve lied to me, and told me that your father died of a heart attack. He didn’t. He died when I put a bullet through his head,” Sayid says.

“Sayid, Amar is crazy. You know that he lost his way when he moved his family to Spain. He always resented me because I was to marry Nejra. You know this. He was lying to you about my father,” Yusef says.

“But yet, you are the one who hid your father in the mountains, so you could still visit him, but make sure he was out of my sight. I didn’t even know that he had killed Nejra until a few months ago. Why did you think you had to hide him from me all these years?” Sayid says.

Yusef stares blankly at him and starts to visibly shake.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now. Your father confessed to me before I killed him, so I know now how she died. Finally, I know for sure. You know how unsettled it has made me all these years, and yet you have let me suffer.”

“Sayid.” Yusef’s voice is so quiet that I can barely hear him.

“No, it is much too late for any explanation. You have been a loyal soldier to me for years, but you know how much I have agonized over the years because of her death. And, you chose to let me suffer. It’s time for us to say goodbye, my friend.”

Sayid turns and walks away from Yusef. He gently takes my arm and starts leading me up the stairs. “My niece, will you help your uncle back up to his room?”

Since there are four men with guns all around us, I don’t feel like I have much of a choice. I take his outstretched arm, and steady him as he walks slowly up the stairs. When we’re about half-way up, I hear a gunshot and whip my head around to see Yusef falling to the floor, his head spurting blood everywhere.

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