Page 48 of Wild Card (The Trident Trilogy 3)

Millie, Rome, Italy, 2020

Mason walks back in as Hawk’s taking the cuffs off Amar.

“What the fuck?” Mason says, running across the room.

Hawk stops him. “His nose is bleeding harder. He needs his hands unless we want the blood all over the couch. I’m not going to let him get near her.”

“Millie, switch seats,” Mason says. “Take the chair I was sitting in. I want you further away from him. And let’s wrap this up quickly.”

I nod at him as I sit in his chair. He’s standing right behind me.

“Amar, we don’t have a lot of time,” I say, looking back at him. “You need to get to a hospital, and then the authorities are going to want to question you. You keep saying you did something to my mom. What did you do?”

He takes a long breath and holds it for a second. His face starts to get flush before he finally releases it slowly. “I married your mother two days before she gave birth. She finally realized your father wasn’t coming for her, so she agreed to marry me. Sayid was our only witness. It was a legal wedding—officiated by a cleric. He went to school with us. He was a friend. He ignored that Nejra was obviously pregnant. We were going to move to Italy after you were born. Sayid was coming with us. We had it all planned out.”

His voice trails off as his eyes glaze over.

“But I’m not your daughter,” I say. “I know I’m not, Amar. I’m guessing you never even had sex with her.”

He lowers his eyes, but doesn’t say anything.

“You said she realized my dad wasn’t coming for her, but she never tried to contact him—”

“She did,” Amar says, dabbing more blood off his cheek. “She wrote him a letter.”

My heart stops for a second. I think I know where this is going. “He never got a letter,” I say slowly.

“I know.” He looks up at me—his eyes pleading for understanding. “She gave it to me to mail.”

I put my hands over my face. “Tell me you mailed it, Amar,” I whisper, but I already know he didn’t.

“I burned it.” He barely gets it out before I leap out of my chair and backhand him hard across the face.

My hand barely makes contact with him when Mason wraps his arms around my waist and lifts my flailing body off the ground—pulling me to the other side of the room.

“You motherfucker!” I scream, pointing at Amar as Mason drags me further back. “You let her die thinking my dad didn’t care about her.”

“Whoa, Mills,” Mason whispers. “Whoa.”

Amar starts to stand up. Hawk shoves him back down roughly.

“No! I told her what I did! Right after you were born,” Amar says, holding his hand over the bright red mark that’s developing on his cheek. “We were already married. She was so mad at me. She said she was going to send him another letter and divorce me when he came for her. I yelled at her. He never could have loved her the way I did. But in the end, she knew the truth. I knew you needed to know the truth, too.”

“You confessed to make yourself feel better. Do you think knowing this makes me feel any better?” I try unsuccessfully to pry Mason’s arms from around me. “My dad would have come for her. He would have brought her back to the U.S. We could have been a family, you fucking coward.”

He’s starting to cry again. “We fought after I told her the truth. When I left, you were sleeping on her chest. I came back to apologize and—”

“And what?” I say, slumping into Mason’s arms. He wraps them tighter around me so I won’t fall to the ground. “And what, Amar? Did you kill her?”

Amar jerks his head up to look at me. “No! I loved her. She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved, still to this day, but—”

“But what?” I’m so tired—my mind, my body. It’s all too much. My head’s spinning. I feel like I’m going to faint.

Amar looks down at his lap. “I was there . . . when it happened—when he killed her.” He’s whispering. I can barely hear him. “I could have stopped it if I reacted more quickly. If—”

I take a long, shaky breath. “If what, Amar? Who killed her?”

“Haroun Hadzic. He smothered her. I saw him.” He shakes his head violently, probably trying to get rid of the memory of Haroun killing Mom while he did nothing. “She didn’t suffer. She didn’t even wake up. It’s like it happened in slow motion. He put a pillow over her face. She didn’t fight back. She didn’t move. I think Haroun’s wife might have put some kind of sleeping medication in her tea. He held the pillow there for a few minutes and then just walked away. I could have stopped him, but I froze. And you were lying on her. I thought he had already killed you. After he left, I went in. She was dead, but you were still alive—sleeping so peacefully on her chest.”

I start shaking—my body’s vibrating against Mason’s chest.

“Millie, come on,” Mason whispers to me as he starts pulling me toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

I plant my feet to try to stop him. “No, Mason. Not yet.”

He stops but doesn’t let go of me. “You don’t need to hear anymore.”

“I do. Let go of me. I’m fine.” He hesitantly loosens his arms but stays glued to me as I walk toward Amar. I take out my cell phone and start the recorder. “Tell me the entire story of how she died, Amar.”

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