Page 63 of Wild Card (The Trident Trilogy 3)

Sarajevo, Bosnia, 1995

“Sayid, you know the baby would be better off with me,” Azayiz said to her nephew. “Please let me take her to Pakistan.”

Sayid shook his head as he hugged Yasmine tighter. “She’s all I have left of Nejra—of my family. She has to stay with me.”

Azayiz walked over to him slowly and placed her hand gently on his shoulder. “I know how much you miss her. I miss her, too, but we have to think of what is best for Yasmine. You have to work. I will be able to stay home with her. Or maybe you can move to Pakistan with Fareed and me. We can be a family there.”

Sayid shook his head as the tears started falling down his face again. He knew she was right, but he couldn’t imagine giving up the only piece of his family he had left. Yasmine’s eyes were starting to turn green, just like Nejra’s. That made him feel connected to her despite her extremely fair skin and the red hair that was becoming more prominent.

“Do you want to tell me again who impregnated Nejra?” Sayid hissed. “I know you know who it was, and it certainly wasn’t anyone who lives in this town. It happened at that job, didn’t it? I knew she lied to me about who she was working for.”

“She was raped, walking home—”

“Stop!” Sayid yelled, causing Yasmine to start crying again. Sayid pointed at her head. “Where does she get this skin and this hair? It can only be from a Westerner. Was she working with Americans? I heard they were in town—trying to bring the war to an end. Did one of them rape her? I can’t even leave the house without covering the baby up completely. They already want me to kill her. If they saw her, they would want that even more.”

“She is my daughter,” Amar said, walking over quickly from the corner of the room. “I was married to Nejra. I want to take her to Italy as we planned. She will blend in better there.”

“You know as well as I do Nejra didn’t want to marry you,” Sayid said with the biting anger that had been slowly enveloping him since Nejra died. “Yasmine is not your baby and you are not taking her.”

Amar took a step toward him but backed up quickly when Sayid glared up at him. He had never seen anything close to this kind of anger from Sayid.

“Sayid,” Azayiz said. “You are squeezing the baby too hard. That’s why she’s crying. Please let me hold her.”

Sayid loosened his grip on Yasmine but turned away from Azayiz’s outstretched arms. “I want you both to leave.”

Sayid moved out of Azayiz’s house two weeks after Nejra died and took the baby with him. He was living in a shabby one-room apartment. Azayiz visited every day to make sure he was taking care of Yasmine. Frankly, she feared that he would kill the baby, but it had been almost three months and he hadn’t yet.

“I brought you more diapers and baby formula,” Azayiz said quietly. “You need to feed her more often. She’s not gaining enough weight.”

“Leave,” Sayid said firmly. “Yasmine is my responsibility.”

As Azayiz and Amar walked out of the apartment building, Azayiz stopped and looked up at Amar.

“We have to contact him—”

“No,” Amar said, shaking his head.

“We were wrong not to send her letter. We have to contact him now. It’s the only way we can get the baby away from Sayid. She’s not safe with him.”

“He won’t come. He was using her. He won’t want anything to do with the baby.”

“We have to try,” Azayiz said. “I have American contacts in Pakistan. I will try to get his phone number from them. You need to place the call. He will take it more seriously coming from a man.”

“No, I won’t do it.”

“Amar, do you want Yasmine to die?” Azayiz paused and looked up at the sky. “You owe this to Nejra. We both do. It’s the only way.”

* * *

As Mack approached the door, he could hear the baby howling. He quickly picked the lock and found her lying on a blanket in the middle of the dark one-bedroom apartment. It was stifling hot in the room. Mack looked around quickly and put his gun back in his waistband.

As he bent over and picked up her sweaty body, he smiled as he saw the red hair that he’d seen through his binoculars the day before.

“Hey there,” he whispered. “I like your hair. It looks just like mine.”

The baby rubbed her eyes as she tried to focus on him. She whimpered as she looked up at him.

“Do you have a name?” Mack said, smiling at her. “We’ll have to figure that out. Shh. It’s okay, sweetie. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you ever again. I bet you’re hungry, but we have to wait until we get out of town. Okay? This will all be over soon.”

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