Chapter 141

Sifah let us digest her words a little more before addressing me again:

“Tell me, Nikolai, is there any reason why Haydar would want to go to the United States? What does the message he left you mean? Kabir needs to know; it is very likely that they are both already on American soil.”

I snorted under my breath and ran my hands over my face nervously.

“Yeah. There’s a woman. Haydar thinks she’s mine, he thinks…” I tried to explain, but the words ran over each other inside my mouth. I paused and started again. “She’s someone who helped us at the time and I don’t want her to get hurt. He knows I care.”

“Is that woman your female?” Sifah insisted.

The way she said it bothered me; it upset me on a very personal level. I would have liked to say yes to make things easier, in a definitive and unappealable tone, but the eyes of my father and my brother were on me. I could smell the impatience of both of them.

“No. It is not. But she’s important to me,” I c