Page 125 of Breeding Her: The Red Flag Edition
One evening, I found myself in the office past midnight, the city a patchwork of lights beneath the blinds. Receipts lay like small confessions across my desk. The lead investigator rang.
“Sir,” he said, voice low. “We’ve exhausted the easy avenues.”
The words were a report, a bill, and a verdict all at once. I hadn’t expected a verdict. I’d expected traction.
“Then find me the hard avenues,” I said, and the sentence came out brittle, too loud even on my own phone. My jaw throbbed. “Find her.”
“We’ll continue,” he promised. “But you should prepare for expense, and for time.”
Prepare. The word landed like a colder weather front. Time. Expense. The quiet was something else now. I couldn’t repair with money alone.
I stared at the invoices and then at the photo of the pregnancy test—the small thing under the paper towel I had thrown away in my mind as soon as she left. The image, the silence, the absence—proof that one life could be managed with contracts, but never another person’s will.
I had poured money into solutions until I’d convinced myself that doors could be bought open. The doors did not budge. The professionals I hired had found everything except the one thing I wanted: lucidity. The realisation was a slow fracture, and the fracture opened with a sound like a man clearing his throat before a speech he could not remember how to give.
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Weeks turned into months, but I couldn't stop. I called the lead back and spoke in a voice that tried to be composed but found the raw edges instead.
“Keep looking,” I said. “Don’t stop. And—” I swallowed, because another word had to mean more than money. “If you find her, don't approach her. She’ll be heavily pregnant.”
There was a beat of silence, the professional kind that kept contracts intact. “Understood, sir.”
I hung up and stared at my phone.
Outside the building, the city pulsed on, indifferent. Inside, the folder of invoices gleamed on my desk like a tally of my diminishing certainty. I was used to owning outcomes. It had never been like this.
The pain of her absence never dulled.
Chapter 22
Lucia
Nahla started laughing as I picked up the crisp box.
“The shop went dark for a second. I thought we’d had a power cut.”
Sana’s mum had softened toward me—and decided it was her mission in life to feed me, which probably explained why my ass was so big right now.
“Don’t you have a home to go to?” I muttered.
“I do, but this is more fun.”
“How’s Sana doing?” I asked, swapping out the empty crisp box for a full one.
“She tries to explain her course, but all that computer stuff is gobbledygook to me,” she said, shaking her head with a sigh.
“She’s a clever girl. She’ll do well in whatever field she chooses,” I said, peeling the tape off the empty box to break it down.
“Yes. When my parents came to the UK, it was very difficult for them to find work. That’s why they went into shops. Then I married Khalid, and he came with a shop.” She laughed softly. “The circle of life. But it’s a dying business now.”
“The franchise helped,” I reminded her.
“Yes, it did indeed. Now tell me—what do you feel like for dinner?”
“Nahla, you tease me about my ass and then try to stuff me full of food again,” I groaned, walking past her dramatically with the cardboard box.
“Eh, my children have all left me. I’m stuck with an urge to feed.”
