Chapter 29 · Untitled Chapter

The iron gates had barely latched behind my brother before the sound of another vehicle crunching against the raked gravel broke the courtyard’s stillness. A heavy black sedan glided to a stop beneath the stone portico, its headlights cutting through the rising haze of the Riyadh night.

When the passenger door opened, it was not another young man from the Al-Otaibi council who stepped onto the pavement, but Abu Tariq—a man whose hair had turned silver alongside my father’s in the boardrooms of the old commercial district.

He walked with the measured deliberation of a man accustomed to arbitrating disputes where millions of riyals hung upon a handshake. As he stepped over the threshold of the outer majlis, he slipped his sandals off at the polished marble sill, adjusting the drape of his brown winter bisht over a crisp white thobe.

I remained seated along the side banquette, my abaya smoothed neatly over my knees and my shaila framing my face. Across the expanse of the room, Saud sat at the sadr. He did not rise, nor did he shift in his seat.