Chapter 25 · Chapter 25

The quiet outside the majlis did not last five minutes before the heavy brass handle turned again. This time, they had not sent an elder with family grievances and veiled appeals to lineage; they had sent the machinery itself.

Sulaiman Al-Dakhil stepped past the mahogany threshold with the dry, measured precision of an auditor who believed numbers were immune to pride. He was a man of sixty, dressed in an immaculate, stiff-collared white thobe, his red-checkered ghutra pinned neatly without a single fold out of alignment. Under his arm rested a dark leather folder, embossed in gold foil with the seal of the interim oversight committee.

He stopped three paces from where I stood, inclined his head with the bare minimum of formal deference, and waited until the door latched completely behind him.

"Mariam bint Fahad," he began, his voice flat and devoid of hostility, which made it far more dangerous than an elder's bluster. "I was told you were here. The family’s general assembly met two hours ago. In light of Talal’s... protracted seclusion in the private wing, the commercial board has executed an interim asset freeze.