Chapter 27
Broken Not a halal love story Complete · about 9 min read
t was past midnight in Vegas, and Ahmad was wide awake. Surrounded
by loud music and flashing lights. Scantily dressed hosts in fishnet
stockings and leather corsets holding liquor bottles were walking around the
VIP section. Edet’s bachelor party was just beginning to get into full swing
and he was already looking for a way out. He wondered when Vegas
stopped being fun for him, when he stopped being fun. The old Ahmad was
always the life of the party but this version of Ahmad hid in the shadows,
away from the partying as he could possibly get.
He brought out his phone, checked his email and made up his mind to
put the townhome he purchased back on the market. It was Fa’iza’s and his
dream home – a backyard, double master bedrooms with a jacuzzi. It would
have been the perfect home and he had held onto it long enough, like he
held onto pieces of her.
Edet danced towards him. Bobbing his head and throwing his hands up,
he had done a very good job of ignoring all the ladies trying to give him a
happy sent forth into married life. Edet was fiercely loyal; Ahmad knew
that they didn’t stand a chance. Joanne had this on lock and key. “You sure
you don’t want a beer?” Edet asked Ahmad for the umpteenth time, as he
ordered himself another one. He was staying off the hard stuff; a passed-out
groom was never a good look.
“Nah, I’m good, man,” Ahmad replied, pulling his bottle of water closer
to him.
Edet was slightly buzzed. He took a selfie and sent it to his wife-to-be,
who was also out with her girlfriends.
“Still not drinking?” Edet asked. Even though he knew Ahmad had
never been much of a drinker, he knew his friend to never reject a sip.
“Kinda lost my taste for it,” he said as he drank some water. He had not
had a drink in years, not since he met Fa’iza. He went through a slump
where he would just order shots, but he could not bring himself to drink
them because of a promise he had made to her.
A lady trying to catch Ahmad’s eye all night started making her way
toward them. He took the opportunity to go outside for some air and found
himself critical of women who were just being friendly. They tried too hard,
and they laughed at things that weren’t funny. Most importantly, they were
not her.
As he walked back to his hotel room, he called Audu and told him to
retrace his steps one more time from the beginning to see if they had missed
something.
Back In Toronto, Ahmad spent most of the day working and half of the
night doing the same. He thought about times he used to go to the gym
whenever she was around him because it was hard being in the same room
and not being able to touch her. Now he went to the gym to keep her
thoughts out of his head, and he was there a lot. He couldn’t stay for long
hours in his room either because her scent was wrapped up in everything –
his sheets, his pillows, his shirts. He eventually told the cleaners to toss out
the extra toothbrush in his washroom and her gym shoes.
Every morning, when Ahmad walked to the Tim Horton’s downstairs,
the baristas would start brewing his usual two cups of French Vanilla to go.
He tipped well and knew most of them by their first names, so they
remembered his regular order. Even though the person he usually got the
second cup for wanted nothing to do with him, he couldn’t bring himself to
tell the baristas that he only wanted one cup, so he always took both and
drank them. The caffeine high kept him productive for most of the day.
On some days, Ahmad would find himself driving towards the
residence. He would park far from the building, but close enough to see
people as they entered and exited the building. On Tuesdays and Thursdays,
she had early morning classes and at 7:46 am, she would come out of the
sliding doors hiding in oversized sweaters or puffy jackets, always in a
hurry. She didn’t drink coffee anymore; she drank from a clear water bottle
with lemon or cucumber slices instead. Two days every week, if he was not
out of town, Ahmad found himself watching her for about 40 seconds as
she walked past the trees, crossed the road and walked further away until
she disappeared into the University building. Then he would drive to work
for his meetings.
During one of those meetings, Edet noticed a man who had been
coming to the office every month for a year. He was not on the payroll for
the company, but he noticed that Ahmad always paid him in cash. The man
wore a baseball hat, ducked his head around corners, as if he were hiding
and carried a black briefcase. One morning, as they discussed the in-house
ratings and an upcoming pilot-testing for their most recently launched
software, Edet looked at the man through the glass pane outside the meeting
room, wondering what business he had with Ahmad. It was peculiar that
Ahmad had the receptionist usher him in without waiting every time he
stopped by.
Ahmad’s gaze followed Edet’s and when he realized that the man was
waiting, he cut the RFP bids short and requested for a break. “Why don’t
we circle back to this after lunch?” he looked at his phone as everyone got
up to leave the conference room, except Edet.
“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Edet gestured to the man outside the
window, who was pacing up and down the hallway with his head ducked.
“What do you mean?”
Edet lowered his voice. “Is it drugs? Money laundering?” He had
known Ahmad longer than everyone in the building and knew that his
friend was not the kind of man to indulge in shady business of any kind.
However, he had watched Ahmad become more and more of a brooding
recluse this past year. This was not the man he knew.
“Drugs?” Ahmad started laughing, and Edet joined him, relieved.
“Well, you never talk to me anymore, since –” Edet started but couldn’t
bring himself to finish the sentence. He looked towards Ahmad’s phone,
knowing Fa’iza’s picture was still set as his screensaver.
Ahmad looked up at him, and when their eyes met, Edet knew that the
conversation was over. Whenever Fa’iza was mentioned, even without
words, Ahmad always found a way to end the conversation.
“Let’s talk about Project Feed-A-Child when you have a minute,” Edet
said as he left the room and headed downstairs to run a facial recognition
analysis on the stranger.
“You said if anything suspicious came up, I should contact you,” the
man with the baseball hat said in an unmistakable French accent as he came
into the conference room.
Ahmad found Pierre on a cold winter day a few months prior huddled
outside a café on St. Laurent Boulevard, Montreal’s busiest street. He gave
him a hundred-dollar bill to get out of the cold and get something to eat and
the man said, “I just want someone to talk to.” They walked into a café and
ordered sandwiches and coffee. Ahmad listened to the man talk about
conspiracy theories and government surveillance. He had been a computer
science major who dropped out due to “an event” he claimed he could be
killed for talking about. Ahmad could tell the man was intelligent from the
way he spoke; when he refused to get professional help, Ahmad started
giving him little assignments to keep him off the street. The little
assignments like background checks eventually evolved into bigger
projects.
As Pierre typed a 30-character password into his computer, Ahmad
watched as the man opened multiple tabs and showed Ahmad several wire
transfers to a corporation. Some ranged from five figures to six, except the
last one, which was higher than the rest; An 8 figure donation which when
converted to USD was roughly about $250,000.
“It’s an upcoming NGO,” Ahmad said as he leaned back into his chair.
“Donations of this amount aren’t a problem.”
The man typed some more and pulled up several tabs on his computer.
“Yes, but then I rerouted this offshore account and was able to track it to an
exiled former senator.” Ahmad’s eyes narrowed with interest as he moved
closer. “Shortly after, this email exchange happened.”
Ahmad leaned closer to read the email, first was hers in response to his
request for a bank account. She ended the email with gratitude: Thank you
very much for your support, uncle Sheriff. Jazakallahu Khairan. Fa’iza and
then a reply: I’m in Toronto in transit. It would be good to see you in
person. A.A Sheriff.
Ahmad’s muscles tensed as he read the exchange. That bastard. He
picked the wrong girl this time, he thought.
After Pierre left, Ahmad and Edet discussed the Project Feed-A-Child
West African project Ahmad wanted to fund as a separate entity from his
corporation.
“Just so you know, I did a police check on the guy that came earlier.”
“I’m surprised it took you so long to do that,” Ahmad chuckled. He
would have done the same thing if a stranger had suddenly started coming
to the office to disrupt meetings without an explanation. It was an unwritten
code of business and friendship. “And?”
“Well, nothing came up. It’s like he doesn’t exist.”
“No kidding.”
“So, that confirmed my suspicions.”
“What suspicions?” The two men stared at each other and Ahmad could
tell that Edet already knew.
“What do you need a hacker for?”
“Just some things I can’t be too involved with, but I need to monitor.”
“Is this about her?” Edet asked. Ahmad looked at him and even without
saying a word, Edet found the answer to his question. “You’ve gotta let her
go, man,” he sighed in resignation.
She’s not an easy person to forget, Ahmad thought to himself as he
picked up a stress ball from his desk and squeezed it, his mind going to the
email exchange between Fa’iza and Senator Sheriff. Later that evening, he
busied himself with a newspaper as he sat in an armchair in the busy lobby
of a 5-star hotel. He tried to remain discreet while monitoring the entrance
of the lobby behind a basketball hat. Moments later, he watched as Fa’iza
dropped from a taxi, went through the revolving doors and made her way
up the elevators. He looked from the left and right, waited by the overhead
display to see what floor the elevator stopped on and then he followed her
up.
C
by loud music and flashing lights. Scantily dressed hosts in fishnet
stockings and leather corsets holding liquor bottles were walking around the
VIP section. Edet’s bachelor party was just beginning to get into full swing
and he was already looking for a way out. He wondered when Vegas
stopped being fun for him, when he stopped being fun. The old Ahmad was
always the life of the party but this version of Ahmad hid in the shadows,
away from the partying as he could possibly get.
He brought out his phone, checked his email and made up his mind to
put the townhome he purchased back on the market. It was Fa’iza’s and his
dream home – a backyard, double master bedrooms with a jacuzzi. It would
have been the perfect home and he had held onto it long enough, like he
held onto pieces of her.
Edet danced towards him. Bobbing his head and throwing his hands up,
he had done a very good job of ignoring all the ladies trying to give him a
happy sent forth into married life. Edet was fiercely loyal; Ahmad knew
that they didn’t stand a chance. Joanne had this on lock and key. “You sure
you don’t want a beer?” Edet asked Ahmad for the umpteenth time, as he
ordered himself another one. He was staying off the hard stuff; a passed-out
groom was never a good look.
“Nah, I’m good, man,” Ahmad replied, pulling his bottle of water closer
to him.
Edet was slightly buzzed. He took a selfie and sent it to his wife-to-be,
who was also out with her girlfriends.
“Still not drinking?” Edet asked. Even though he knew Ahmad had
never been much of a drinker, he knew his friend to never reject a sip.
“Kinda lost my taste for it,” he said as he drank some water. He had not
had a drink in years, not since he met Fa’iza. He went through a slump
where he would just order shots, but he could not bring himself to drink
them because of a promise he had made to her.
A lady trying to catch Ahmad’s eye all night started making her way
toward them. He took the opportunity to go outside for some air and found
himself critical of women who were just being friendly. They tried too hard,
and they laughed at things that weren’t funny. Most importantly, they were
not her.
As he walked back to his hotel room, he called Audu and told him to
retrace his steps one more time from the beginning to see if they had missed
something.
Back In Toronto, Ahmad spent most of the day working and half of the
night doing the same. He thought about times he used to go to the gym
whenever she was around him because it was hard being in the same room
and not being able to touch her. Now he went to the gym to keep her
thoughts out of his head, and he was there a lot. He couldn’t stay for long
hours in his room either because her scent was wrapped up in everything –
his sheets, his pillows, his shirts. He eventually told the cleaners to toss out
the extra toothbrush in his washroom and her gym shoes.
Every morning, when Ahmad walked to the Tim Horton’s downstairs,
the baristas would start brewing his usual two cups of French Vanilla to go.
He tipped well and knew most of them by their first names, so they
remembered his regular order. Even though the person he usually got the
second cup for wanted nothing to do with him, he couldn’t bring himself to
tell the baristas that he only wanted one cup, so he always took both and
drank them. The caffeine high kept him productive for most of the day.
On some days, Ahmad would find himself driving towards the
residence. He would park far from the building, but close enough to see
people as they entered and exited the building. On Tuesdays and Thursdays,
she had early morning classes and at 7:46 am, she would come out of the
sliding doors hiding in oversized sweaters or puffy jackets, always in a
hurry. She didn’t drink coffee anymore; she drank from a clear water bottle
with lemon or cucumber slices instead. Two days every week, if he was not
out of town, Ahmad found himself watching her for about 40 seconds as
she walked past the trees, crossed the road and walked further away until
she disappeared into the University building. Then he would drive to work
for his meetings.
During one of those meetings, Edet noticed a man who had been
coming to the office every month for a year. He was not on the payroll for
the company, but he noticed that Ahmad always paid him in cash. The man
wore a baseball hat, ducked his head around corners, as if he were hiding
and carried a black briefcase. One morning, as they discussed the in-house
ratings and an upcoming pilot-testing for their most recently launched
software, Edet looked at the man through the glass pane outside the meeting
room, wondering what business he had with Ahmad. It was peculiar that
Ahmad had the receptionist usher him in without waiting every time he
stopped by.
Ahmad’s gaze followed Edet’s and when he realized that the man was
waiting, he cut the RFP bids short and requested for a break. “Why don’t
we circle back to this after lunch?” he looked at his phone as everyone got
up to leave the conference room, except Edet.
“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Edet gestured to the man outside the
window, who was pacing up and down the hallway with his head ducked.
“What do you mean?”
Edet lowered his voice. “Is it drugs? Money laundering?” He had
known Ahmad longer than everyone in the building and knew that his
friend was not the kind of man to indulge in shady business of any kind.
However, he had watched Ahmad become more and more of a brooding
recluse this past year. This was not the man he knew.
“Drugs?” Ahmad started laughing, and Edet joined him, relieved.
“Well, you never talk to me anymore, since –” Edet started but couldn’t
bring himself to finish the sentence. He looked towards Ahmad’s phone,
knowing Fa’iza’s picture was still set as his screensaver.
Ahmad looked up at him, and when their eyes met, Edet knew that the
conversation was over. Whenever Fa’iza was mentioned, even without
words, Ahmad always found a way to end the conversation.
“Let’s talk about Project Feed-A-Child when you have a minute,” Edet
said as he left the room and headed downstairs to run a facial recognition
analysis on the stranger.
“You said if anything suspicious came up, I should contact you,” the
man with the baseball hat said in an unmistakable French accent as he came
into the conference room.
Ahmad found Pierre on a cold winter day a few months prior huddled
outside a café on St. Laurent Boulevard, Montreal’s busiest street. He gave
him a hundred-dollar bill to get out of the cold and get something to eat and
the man said, “I just want someone to talk to.” They walked into a café and
ordered sandwiches and coffee. Ahmad listened to the man talk about
conspiracy theories and government surveillance. He had been a computer
science major who dropped out due to “an event” he claimed he could be
killed for talking about. Ahmad could tell the man was intelligent from the
way he spoke; when he refused to get professional help, Ahmad started
giving him little assignments to keep him off the street. The little
assignments like background checks eventually evolved into bigger
projects.
As Pierre typed a 30-character password into his computer, Ahmad
watched as the man opened multiple tabs and showed Ahmad several wire
transfers to a corporation. Some ranged from five figures to six, except the
last one, which was higher than the rest; An 8 figure donation which when
converted to USD was roughly about $250,000.
“It’s an upcoming NGO,” Ahmad said as he leaned back into his chair.
“Donations of this amount aren’t a problem.”
The man typed some more and pulled up several tabs on his computer.
“Yes, but then I rerouted this offshore account and was able to track it to an
exiled former senator.” Ahmad’s eyes narrowed with interest as he moved
closer. “Shortly after, this email exchange happened.”
Ahmad leaned closer to read the email, first was hers in response to his
request for a bank account. She ended the email with gratitude: Thank you
very much for your support, uncle Sheriff. Jazakallahu Khairan. Fa’iza and
then a reply: I’m in Toronto in transit. It would be good to see you in
person. A.A Sheriff.
Ahmad’s muscles tensed as he read the exchange. That bastard. He
picked the wrong girl this time, he thought.
After Pierre left, Ahmad and Edet discussed the Project Feed-A-Child
West African project Ahmad wanted to fund as a separate entity from his
corporation.
“Just so you know, I did a police check on the guy that came earlier.”
“I’m surprised it took you so long to do that,” Ahmad chuckled. He
would have done the same thing if a stranger had suddenly started coming
to the office to disrupt meetings without an explanation. It was an unwritten
code of business and friendship. “And?”
“Well, nothing came up. It’s like he doesn’t exist.”
“No kidding.”
“So, that confirmed my suspicions.”
“What suspicions?” The two men stared at each other and Ahmad could
tell that Edet already knew.
“What do you need a hacker for?”
“Just some things I can’t be too involved with, but I need to monitor.”
“Is this about her?” Edet asked. Ahmad looked at him and even without
saying a word, Edet found the answer to his question. “You’ve gotta let her
go, man,” he sighed in resignation.
She’s not an easy person to forget, Ahmad thought to himself as he
picked up a stress ball from his desk and squeezed it, his mind going to the
email exchange between Fa’iza and Senator Sheriff. Later that evening, he
busied himself with a newspaper as he sat in an armchair in the busy lobby
of a 5-star hotel. He tried to remain discreet while monitoring the entrance
of the lobby behind a basketball hat. Moments later, he watched as Fa’iza
dropped from a taxi, went through the revolving doors and made her way
up the elevators. He looked from the left and right, waited by the overhead
display to see what floor the elevator stopped on and then he followed her
up.
C