Margaret appeared just as he finished his second cup. She wore a long sweater over leggings and soft slippers, her face bare, her hair down, the scars more visible now in the daylight. She didn’t acknowledge him at first, moving instead to the coffee pot and pouring herself a cup.
I didn’t know you drank coffee, he said, surprised at the sound of his own voice. I drink everything, she replied simply, taking a cautious sip. They stood there for a moment, the silence between them stretching again, less tense this time, more uncertain.
Can we talk, Jamal asked finally. She set her mug down and nodded, moving to the table. He joined her.
Last night you said you’ve been a target since you were nine, he began. I need you to explain what that means. Margaret stared at her hands for a moment, as if weighing how much to say.
Then she looked up. It was a fire, she said, at our house in Connecticut. I was nine.
My mother and I were home alone. I don’t remember much, just smoke and heat and screaming. She died.
I didn’t. Jamal leaned forward, silent, listening. I was pulled out by a neighbor, she continued.
My face was burned, skin grafts, multiple surgeries. I spent a year in a hospital. My father didn’t come to see me until week five, and when he did, he was different, detached, cold.
Was the fire an accident, Jamal asked. That’s what they said at the time, Margaret replied, electrical fault. But later, when I was older, I overheard a conversation.
My father was yelling at someone over the phone, something about how they sent a message, and this can’t happen again. I asked questions. No one answered.
I started putting things together. What things? My mother was working on something, something legal. She had a folder she never let anyone touch.
One day, it disappeared. A week later, she died in that fire. Jamal exhaled slowly.
You think it was a hit? I don’t think. I know. He sat back, absorbing her words.
She was watching him now, her expression guarded but not hostile. She wasn’t trying to manipulate him, he realized. She was telling him the truth, or at least her truth.
So why didn’t your father protect you better, he asked. Margaret smiled bitterly. He did, in his own way.
He moved me from place to place, hired private security, built houses like this one where no one could get in or out without clearance. But he never brought me home, never let me back into his life. I became an inconvenience, a loose thread.
And now, now he wants to cut that thread. Jamal frowned. So he married you off? To me? She nodded.
It gives him plausible deniability. If I’m married, I’m legally independent. My inheritance can be rerouted.
I’m no longer his burden. The realization settled in Jamal’s chest like lead. It wasn’t just that he had been used.
It was that the entire arrangement had been engineered as a form of abandonment, a cold, legal exile disguised as generosity. But why me, he asked. Why some mechanic from Detroit? She shrugged.
Maybe he saw something in you, someone poor enough to be grateful, smart enough not to ask questions, clean enough to pass scrutiny, and stupid enough to walk into a war. At that, she smiled. Not a mocking smile, but a weary one.
You’re not stupid, Jamal. You’re just alone, like me. Her words struck a chord he wasn’t prepared for, because they were true.
Despite his family, despite his neighborhood, despite everything, he had always felt alone, isolated by his ambition, by his refusal to surrender to the circumstances of his birth. He looked at her differently now, not with pity, not with judgment, with recognition. They spent the rest of the morning in uneasy truce.
They didn’t talk much, but when they did, it was less strained. Jamal asked about her childhood, what little of it there was, and Margaret spoke of tutors, security details, endless therapy sessions, birthday parties with no guests, and of Christmas mornings that began with private screenings and ended in silence. He told her about Detroit, about the broken windows in the corner stores, the bus rides to school, the sound of gunshots at night, and the warmth of his mother’s arms after a bad dream.
Their lives couldn’t have been more different, and yet the result was the same, two people shaped by neglect and isolation. That afternoon, Margaret showed him a photograph. It was a faded Polaroid of her and her mother on a swing set, taken just weeks before the fire.
Her mother was smiling, radiant, with curly blonde hair and a gentle face. Margaret, much younger, was mid-laugh, her face unscarred, her joy untainted. She was a lawyer, Margaret said softly.
She believed in justice. That’s probably what got her killed. Jamal studied the photo, then handed it back.
Do you still believe in it? Margaret hesitated. I don’t know, but I want to. That night, they shared a meal together at the long dining table, a silence less heavy than before.
Jamal cooked, a simple pasta dish with garlic and olive oil, and Margaret set the table. It felt absurd, almost domestic, but somehow comforting. As they ate, Jamal found himself watching her more closely.
She was still guarded, still stiff, but they were flashes of something softer beneath the surface, a dry sense of humor, a quiet resilience, a fierce intelligence. You know, he said as they finished, I came into this thinking I’d be saving you. And now? Now I think maybe you don’t need saving, just someone who won’t walk away.
She looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. Later, as Jamal lay in bed staring at the ceiling again, he realized that something fundamental had shifted. He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but he knew this much.
He wasn’t going to run. Not yet. He was in this now, with her, for better or worse.
The next few days unfolded with a heavy, patient stillness that pressed down on everything like a weighted blanket. The estate, once merely cold and clinical, now felt like a trap. Jamal could no longer pretend it was a haven.
The silence wasn’t peace, it was surveillance. The tall hedges, the closed gates, the invisible presence of guards, they all whispered a single truth. This was a gilded cage.
Margaret had grown more restless since their conversation. She no longer seemed resigned, but agitated, pacing the halls like a caged animal. She barely ate, spoke even less, and often disappeared into one of the upper rooms with no explanation.
Jamal noticed the tension in her shoulders, the way she flinched at unexpected sounds, the way her eyes constantly scanned the windows. She was waiting for something, or someone. On the fourth evening, as the sun sank low and the sky turned amber, Jamal finally voiced the thought that had been growing inside him like a tumor.
They’ll come again, won’t they? Margaret didn’t answer. She was sitting by the window, her hands clasped in her lap, watching the tree line with that same unreadable expression. After a moment, she nodded.
It’s only a matter of time, she said. Jamal stood from the couch, running a hand over his short hair. Then why the hell are we still here? Why hasn’t your father done anything? Why hasn’t he sent more security or relocated us again? She looked at him then, and for the first time since he had met her, there was something like fear in her eyes.
Because he wants them to find me. The words hit him like a slap. He stared at her, searching for signs of sarcasm, for any hint that she didn’t mean it.
But her expression was flat, serious, tired. He’s done it before, she continued. He makes it look like protection, but it’s a setup.
He gives just enough security to create the illusion of safety, but he leaves the back door open. Jamal couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Why would he want you dead? Because I’m inconvenient, she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Because I know things I’m not supposed to know. And because I’m a reminder of everything he’s tried to bury. The rage that rose in Jamal’s chest was unfamiliar, molten.
He had dealt with injustice before. He had lived it, breathed it, but this was different. This was personal.
He had been dragged into this world under false pretenses, turned into a pawn, and now he was standing beside someone who had been groomed for slaughter. I’m not staying here, he said. I’m not waiting for someone to take a shot at us again.
Margaret stood. Where would we go? We have no IDs, no money, no safe place. I know someone, Jamal said.
Someone who owes me. Someone who can help. He didn’t wait for her to argue.
He grabbed the duffel bag he’d packed earlier that day, just in case, and told her to do the same. Ten minutes later, they crept through the servant’s corridor and exited through a maintenance door at the side of the estate using a stolen security card Margaret had found weeks earlier. The card beeped once, unlocked the door, and they slipped into the woods behind the property before the cameras could reset.
They walked for nearly two miles through brambles and darkness, guided only by the moonlight and the occasional flash of Jamal’s phone. By the time they reached the rural highway, they were both filthy, scratched, and breathless. Jamal flagged down a passing trucker, slipping him a few hundred dollars he had hidden in his boot.
The man didn’t ask questions. He never did. They arrived in Albany just before sunrise.
It had been almost a year since Jamal had spoken to Malik. They had gone to high school together, drifted apart, reconnected briefly when Jamal helped him out of a tight situation involving stolen car parts and an angry supplier. Malik now lived in a cramped apartment above a tire shop he co-managed.
It wasn’t glamorous, but it was off the grid, and for now it was enough. Malik opened the door in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, blinking at Jamal like he was a ghost. You look like hell, he said.
I need a place, just for a few days. Malik glanced at Margaret, his eyes lingering a beat too long on her scars. He didn’t comment.