Page 13 of Azrael

“If you don’t eat pork, I might have some chicken.”I put a plate down and she finally pulled out the chair and sat.

“This is fine.Dad loved his bacon.Probably why he had a heart attack.”

I took my own seat across from her.“Tell me about your mother.Who’d want to hurt her?”

“She’s quiet.Keeps to herself.She married my dad when she was nineteen.He brought her here from Egypt.After he died, it was just the two of us.”

“She work?”I’d found people didn’t typically disappear at random.Although, some just had rotten luck.It was possible someone had taken notice of her and decided they had to own her.But most of the people I tracked down had gotten mixed up with someone they shouldn’t have.A lot of young girls didn’t understand a handsome guy with a nice smile could be hiding a black heart and a cruel streak.

“At a community center.Helping immigrant women adjust to life here.Teaching English, helping with paperwork.That kind of thing.”She paused.“And she sometimes helped them escape from abusive situations.”

I took a bite of food, letting the information settle.“Any strange calls?Men hanging around?Someone from her past show up unexpectedly?”

Zara’s eyes widened slightly.“There was a man.About a month ago.I didn’t see him, but Mom was upset after he visited.She wouldn’t tell me who he was, just that it was someone from ‘before.’”

“Before what?”

“Before America, I guess.”Zara ran a hand through her hair.“She was raised in a strict household.Her father arranged a marriage for her when she was seventeen.That’s why she ran -- to avoid being forced to marry some old man she’d never met.As I mentioned last night, her family is from Israel.I don’t know why they moved to Egypt, or if they’re even still there.I’ve never met any of them.”

I rubbed my jaw.“You think this has something to do with her family?After all these years?”

“I don’t know.”Zara’s voice cracked.“I just know she’s gone, and no one seems to care except me.”

I studied her for a long moment.There was something she wasn’t telling me -- I could see it in the way she wouldn’t quite meet my eyes.

“How’d you hear about me, Zara?The truth.”

She looked up then, her gaze steady despite the fear I could see behind it.“My mother told me about you.Not by name, but she said there was a man -- an avenging angel -- who sometimes helped women when they had nowhere else to turn.A few of the women at the center, they whispered about you too.How you’ve helped women escape abusive husbands, how you’ve punished men who hurt children.The fact you’re one of us impressed them.”

“Us?”I asked.

She nodded.“From the Middle East.”

My jaw tightened.I hadn’t expected that.Hadn’t expected to be a story mothers told their daughters, a whispered legend among women who needed help.

“And what exactly do you think I can do that the police can’t?”I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“Find her,” Zara said simply.“And hurt whoever took her.”

I finished my food and set the plate in the sink.Part of me wanted to send her away.This wasn’t my usual game -- I dealt in certainties, in punishment for crimes I knew had been committed.Not in solving mysteries or finding missing persons.There had been a few exceptions over the years, but not many.

There was something about the desperation in her eyes that I recognized.I’d seen it before, in my own reflection.

“You have somewhere to stay?”I asked.

She shook her head.“I have to check out of the motel today.I spent everything I had trying to find you.”

I rubbed my eyes, already knowing this was going to blow up in my face.I’d let her stay here last night, but Charming had made it clear she couldn’t remain.

“If we’re going to help you, we need my President’s approval.”

“And will he approve?”Her voice was small.

I thought about Charming, about the unwritten rules of the Devil’s Boneyard MC.We had a code -- protect women and children, always.But we also had boundaries.Lines we tried not to cross without good reason.

“I guess we’ll find out,” I said, then turned to wash my empty plate.As the water ran over my hands again, I found myself wondering if I was about to wash blood off them again soon.Some things were inevitable in my line of work.

I glanced back at Zara, at the way she sat ramrod straight in the chair, trying to look brave despite the fear that clung to her like a second skin.She’d come to me for a reason, tracked me down based on whispers and rumors.She’d put her trust in a man known for violence.

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