Coming Home (English Version)

48. Broken

"But it has to be the man in the pics, Layla! The one asking for money. What's his name?" Reem asks me.

"It can't be him," I reply dryly, not lifting my head up.

"How could you be so sure?"

I lift my gaze to look at her. "Because he died a few years ago, he had some weird type of leukemia."

Her jaw drops slowly. "Then who?"

"I have no idea, someone in the UK obviously, if they're asking for pounds and Robbie lived his entire life there," I explain. "Someone that somehow got access to his personal belongings after he passed, maybe."

"A family member?" Reem guesses.

I sigh. "I never met his family, they were highly dysfunctional."

"Well, I suppose we will hear more from them, I mean, they're asking for money but how are you supposed to get in touch with them?"

"I don't know what I am going to do, Reem."

"Don't worry about it, I'm sure there are people in the government that can help you with this."

"No!" I jump from my seat and begin pacing around. "I won't take this to Hamdan, he cannot know about it and I cannot think about one single person that I can trust with not telling him."

"I'm sorry, Layla, but that's insane! How are you going to handle this alone?" She challenges me. "It could even get dangerous!"

My mind races searching for an answer and I stop on my tracks when a possible solution comes to me and now I know exactly who to call.

Farouk arrives at one of the small majlis shortly after our conversation over the phone. First, I thank Reem for showing him the way as she closes the door to grant us some privacy and then I greet him with a kiss on the cheek.

"Please, sit down," I invite him. "Thank you for coming so soon."

"No problem," he replies as he takes a seat on the other side of the couch. "It sounded like something serious. Are you and your family okay?"

"Yeah, we're all good."

"Baby Saeed looks just like his father," he points out.

I let out a small chuckle. "Right? Oh! And thank you so much for the rocking horse you sent for him, Hamdan and I loved it but we hadn't been able to thank you in person."

To be entirely honest, Hamdan rolled his eyes a tiny bit when he found out the beautiful rocking horse was from Farouk, but deep down I know he likes it as much as I did and I cannot wait for Saeed to be able to use it. In the meantime, it sits as a decoration in the nursery.

"It's okay, I got your card and I'm happy that you liked it," he pauses for a moment. "So, what's going on, I'm a bit worried."

I clear my throat. "I think I'm being black mailed."

He furrows his brows. "What?"

"Today I got some pictures of me and an ex-boyfriend from ten years ago," the embarrassment starts creeping up to my cheeks as I talk. I cannot imagine how I would feel if more people knew about this. "In the pictures you can see me drinking and partying and being obviously intoxicated and some of them are intimate, not explicit, but intimate," I disclose to him. "And they came in this envelope with this letter," I take both items from the coffee table and give them to Farouk.

His eyes scan the papers. "One million pounds?"

"I know."

"This guy is such an asshole!"