Naina (Al-Ameen Family #4)

Disarray

I had a new found anger in me to be done with this case. Seeing Armaan again had broken something inside me. I wanted so badly to give everything up but I knew I couldn't.

There was a lot of crying, a lot of stress eating samosas and burritos, but somehow Allah was giving me the strength to get through the days.

I signed up for this life of solitude. No one asked me to, and so no one would hear me complain.

Because of my encounter with one of Enzo Muccetti's lackeys, the plan to interrogate Namrata's suspects was further delayed. An agent was attacked, which meant HQ was diverting all their resources to finding all the men milling about freely on the streets of London who worked for the mafia.

I should be flattered that so much attention was given to my safety but all I felt was a bitter-sweet relief that the Nazeeha, Safiyana, Inayah, and the others were saved from being dragged through this mess.

The only solution I could come up with however was going to Dubai and staking out the hotels in question. But this meant being close enough to the Al-Ameen family that someone might recognize me.

I frequently checked the tracker paired with the chip I put inside Armaan's jacket. The chip was so small, he would think it was a chocolate crumb or something if he found it. But he hadn't found it. Last I checked, he was in India. Or at least the jacket was. But between that and the news, I was sure he was in India.

The guy from that day was just some random man hired to scare Nazeeha off the case. He didn't know much except that her tracking patterns of Enzo's cousin going in and out of the prison was causing a problem for them when they wanted to move money. Now that Enzo was caught and imprisoned in Dubai, the rest of his team was in disarray.

Disarray was good. It meant we were making a dent in this case.

I spent nights coming up with a plan. But the best I could do was tell Namrata I would go on the stakeout and conveniently leave out the part where I was at risk of being exposed. Then when I get there, pray my butt off that I would not run into anyone I knew.

That was unlikely however, and I was not dumb enough to risk it. If nothing else, I cared enough about Armaan to stay away.

When I ran my idea of the hotel surveillance by Namrata- obviously leaving out the part about Armaan- she suggested another agent be assigned to this, under my direction. I agreed, feeling better that I still had control and say over how to do this.

I was meeting him today at HQ. I sauntered in glumly, still not over my heartbreak with Armaan. Sanam's advice had been to find someone else to divert my attention with.

This was rich coming from the girl who couldn't go two minutes without talking to her husband. I knew she was just teasing, trying to make me feel better, but what else could she say. There wasn't anything I could actually do.

I just prayed day and night for some relief to my heart and my soul.

I typed away on my phone, replying to Sanam's message about some movie she had just seen when the new agent walked in to the spare boardroom we were meeting in.

"Ms. Patel?"

I turned in my chair, coming face to face with a young man, dressed in a sweater vest and dress pants with his lanyard neatly around his neck and a leather binder in one hand. I glanced down at my lanyard, hanging haphazardly out of my hoodie pocket.

"Please, call me Naina," I gestured for him to sit.

"My name is Hasan, I'm the new intelligence agent assigned to this case." He sat down, setting his binder and coffee in front of him. He pulled a pen out of his vest's pocket and placed that perfectly beside his binder.