Seventeen thousand migrants rescued from certain death at sea. Check. More than eight thousand underage girls freed from sexual slavery. Been there, done that. Three human trafficking cartels dismantled across five continents. If only I could high-five myself without feeling daft. Five hundred years of combined prison sentences handed down to the bastards who ran them. Hell yeah. Check, check, check.

And now, Rami Daly was about to add another feather to his cap—two tiny fish rescued on the north coast of Egypt.

He crouched on the edge of the shoreline, the hot sun beating down like it had something personal against him. The “fish” in question—more minnow than anything—flopped in a shallow pool of seawater that wouldn’t last another hour. His shadow fell across them as he tugged his feet free from the sticky sand.

Rami had been lounging under the lazy shade of a thatched Tiki umbrella, Cigarettes After Sex drifting from his pocket-sized Bluetooth speaker, a rum-spiked mango juice sweating in his hand. The southern Mediterranean had been its usual postcard self—calm, inviting, a palette of impossible blues—until it wasn’t.

Without warning, the water turned feral. Gentle swells exploded into furious waves, clawing at the shoreline with a vengeance. The chaos was brief, as if the sea itself had thrown a tantrum and quickly tired of it. When it finally settled, panting and repentant, it left behind a a baby lagoon carved into the sandbar just ten feet inland. The pool shimmered in the sun, sealed off completely from the now-docile sea like a forgotten promise.

Maybe it was the rum talking, loosening his thoughts and coaxing them into deeper waters. Rami found himself marveling at Mother Nature, pulling off her magic in real-time, unfiltered and unapologetic, instead of the usual routine of humanity second-guessing her or putting words in her mouth.

Out of habit, he glanced around, searching for someone to share the moment—a silent Did you just see that? But the beach was deserted, save for the relentless midday sun hanging overhead, turning the calcium-white sand into a blinding inferno. Mad dogs, Englishmen, and me, he thought with a smirk, taking another long swig, the rum burning just enough to remind him he was alive.

He sauntered toward the newborn lagoon. From a distance, he squinted at what looked like flecks of weed drifting aimlessly in the water. But as he got closer, the specks were darting with an urgency no lifeless blades of seagrass could muster.

Rami’s unprotected skin baked under the merciless sun, the heat pressing down on him like a heavy hand. Still, he lingered, determined to wrest something meaningful from this fleeting moment. Long before he became the lead criminal investigator for the UN’s top crime-fighting agency, Rami had been a scientist at heart. His first instinct had always been to classify and understand, to find order in chaos, even in tiny creatures like these.

The fish darted around their shallow prison, oblivious to how their lives had been upended in an instant. Mere seconds had turned them from anonymous specks in a vast sea to protagonists in a cruel twist of fate that would’ve ended badly if not for his presence.

To try to catch the fish and put them back in the water was near impossible without some sort of net, container, or superhuman reflexes, none of which he had. Their only hope for salvation was for Rami to dig a canal from the pond back into the water and gently coax them out. Their fate was entirely in his hands—just like the desperate migrants he’d helped rescue off the death boats smuggling them from North Africa to Europe.

Stop trying to play God. He muttered the words out loud, but they weren’t his to start. Rachel had said them. Or rather, screamed them hysterically at his face during a particularly ugly fight exactly three years to the day. A showdown like no other that set a timer on their marriage imploding not long after. Bitterness crawled up Rami’s chest, dampening whatever merriness the rum had released in his bloodstream.

The nastiness she had unleashed echoed in his ears and burned as though she had been there ranting and raving three minutes ago, not three years. Back then, he’d done something that surprised even him. He folded his arms against his chest and stood silent, and for the first time in their history of hostilities, Rami refrained from firing back.

“These migrants who risk their lives made their choice. They don’t need you to save them. If they die at sea, it’s just Mother Nature course-correcting. You’re the anomaly. Stop trying to play God!” she had said.

When she was done, he pulled her close to him, and kissed her temple before letting her go. Not for lack of an equally hurtful response to hurl at her face, but because he had realized there was no rescuing that marriage.

Even at the feverish height of their dating, when he first invited her to Egypt to meet his family, there was always an unspoken disdain at his constituent parts. She loved him, but not so much those things that shaped the man he was. She’d roll her eyes at his mother whenever she offered Rachel more food at the dinner table. Or the way she only seemed to notice the worst of Cairo—traffic, abject poverty, and the oppressive heat, while somehow overlooking the cornucopia of new sights and sounds, the grandeur of the pyramids, the seductive mystique of the markets, or the organic hospitality and generosity of the people.

And when he got his dream job in Geneva a year after they tied the knot, she didn’t hide her distaste for that city, either. The crisp air and quiet order seemed to weigh on her as much as the work events he invited her to. At one office cocktail, she’d arrived already glassy-eyed, her words as slippery as the stem of her wineglass. Later that night, as they walked home past the pristine fountains, she muttered, “This city has the personality of a hotel lobby,” and stumbled on the curb.

He tried to make things better. He stopped playing his music in the mornings after she threw her head back against the couch one day and groaned, “This again? Who even likes Pink Floyd other than sad, old stoners?” He started dipping his sushi more carefully after noticing the way she’d stop eating, her eyes narrowing on his plate as if he’d just committed a crime.

Rami didn’t confront her about the pills he found stashed in the walk-in closet or the empty wine bottles that appeared with alarming frequency before she turned to whiskey. He tried to care. Listened when she’d talk about missing New York, even though she wouldn’t come right out and say what he knew was true: she wanted him to quit his job and leave. As if sacrificing his career was the only cure to all her emotional and mental ailments. Like she bore no responsibility in the matter and it all rested on his tired shoulders.

Yet, Rami had somehow ignored all the red flags and settled for the version of Rachel he liked the most. For all the ways she rejected him, his job, his family, his friends, his life—he came under a different spell when she was curled against him in bed, her voice soft and unguarded, purring in his ears that she loved him, “Truly, madly, deeply,” as her fingers traced circles around his nipples. Post-coital bliss in the arms of the right person who knows all your buttons can make you forgive the most hurtful things.

He believed her. Or at least, he wanted to, until the scientist in him couldn’t anymore, faced with facts too glaring to ignore.

When the fish had finally raced out of the makeshift lagoon through his hand-crafted canal, a tiny glimmer of release flickered through his body. Freeing fish today or breaking up human trafficking gangs a few weeks ago was not about him playing God, but rather, playing along with him. Giving him a helping hand since he seemed to have a knack for turning a blind eye to some of the worst atrocities, which, if you truly believed in God, were most likely caused by him in the first place. The universe had placed Rami here and made him an agent of change for some goddamned good reason. And it would require much more than a fucked-up, entitled Manhattan brat to veer him off-course.

He packed his beach bag and strolled back to the house, meeting his folks just as they were heading out for tennis with friends at another upscale gated community further west. They kissed his cheeks in unison like he was still their ten-year-old boy and not a middle-aged man who, in their opinion, should have fathered kids of his own by now. That is, if only he’d listened to their advice about Rachel and found a kinder partner rather than wasting seven good years of his life with a woman who didn’t value him.

His father fired up the Jaguar, the engine’s deep purr a perfect match for the man behind the wheel. Even now, with silver streaking his thick black hair and faint lines tracing his once-smooth skin, he carried himself with the magnetic confidence of someone used to turning heads. His sharp cheekbones, strong jawline, and the slight curl of a knowing smile were all remnants of the striking young diplomat immortalized in those black-and-white photos from the sixties when he served in London where he met Rami’s mother. Time had softened his edges but done nothing to dim the charisma that still made strangers pause and take notice.

Rami overheard his mother firing off machine-gun orders to the house staff about his lunch, her tennis racket propped under one arm like a general preparing for battle. Not to overcook his tuna steaks. Spray the flies. Serve only red wine, no matter what seafood etiquette dictated. Dressed in her crisp tennis whites, her ponytail swaying like a metronome, she exuded the effortless grace of her half-British heritage. With her sharp cheekbones, striking blue eyes, and a voice that could cut through chaos with polished authority, she was—Rami admitted objectively, in the least weird way possible—hot. The kind of woman who turned heads, whether on a tennis court or at a formal dinner. He’d never admit this out loud, let alone to anyone else, but a part of Rami was jealous that his dad hadn’t careened into a shitty marriage, and found the perfect woman to get old with in style.

Sayeda, the oldest housekeeper on staff and a second mother to him played along with a wry smile, her expression sly enough to suggest she, not his mother, was the real Kaiser Soze running this household.

Against the backdrop of the garden sprinklers, seagulls calling one another, and Nora Jones wafting through invisible designer speakers like she was performing privately in the room for him, Rami drank far more wine than he ate, reflecting on this impromptu trip to Egypt to visit his parents. The last time he’d been back for a proper holiday was more than a decade ago, or exactly four years after his compatriots revolted against the ruling regime in pursuit of freedom and dignity. The world called it the Arab Spring, but in retrospect, it turned out to be a bitter winter.

For a moment in 2011, it seemed Egyptians and their Arab brethren were about to make history. But any optimism for the future was quickly dashed when Islamists took over through the ballot box, threatening to scorch Egypt’s nascent democratic fairytale dream into an Iranian-style theocratic nightmare. Then, exactly a year later, the plot thickened when a shrewd military took over the reins once again, emboldened and legitimized by the people’s suspicions of the religious whackjobs. In other words, it was like nothing had changed.

From the minute he had landed in Cairo a few days ago, Rami couldn’t resist the temptation of getting emotionally hooked on the eternal social and political soap opera of his motherland. Post-revolutionary Egypt was still rife with the same glaring contradictions that had spurred the unrest in the first place—wealth against poverty, hyper-conservatism sparring with Westernization, and religious fundamentalism on a collision course with secular modernity. Yet despite it all, it seemed a far happier place than most allegedly functional democracies. And it wasn’t even a failed state that had descended into civil anarchy like most of its neighbors.

With a hurtful, messy divorce gradually shrinking in his rearview mirror, no children to inhibit spontaneity, and a rare lull in his otherwise brutal work schedule, Rami had hopped on a plane to Cairo on a whim and surprised his folks. For a long time he’d been secretly craving to be nestled in the warmth and comfort of being his parents’ son and to have the mind space to continue licking the last of his scabby emotional wounds.

He emptied the wine in his glass, and before he could take a sip, one of the maids rushed to his table to replenish the bottle of Brunello, which, he quickly calculated, was worth about forty days of her salary.

Rami couldn’t recall her name but vaguely remembered his mother mentioning that they had taken her in about fifteen years ago. Sayeda had introduced her to his family as an honest woman from her hometown of Damietta who had fallen on hard times after her husband abandoned her for a younger woman.

“What’s your name?”

“Manal,” she said with a proud smile that he’d acknowledged her existence. Maybe a decade older than him, she was rotund but not obese, with a pretty face, a kind smile, and soulful brown eyes adorned with the longest natural lashes he’d ever seen.

Rami nodded in gratitude as she uncorked and prepared to pour the wine into his glass. Then, out of nowhere, a call to prayer app boomed from her phone, tucked somewhere in her apron. Mortified, she tried to silence it, but Rami quickly tapped her shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he said with a smile. Out of respect for her conviction rather than his, he took the bottle from her hand and placed it on the table.

“Don’t worry about me,” Rami said. “You can go and pray.”

“Forgive me, sir. I didn’t mean to disturb you. I will pray later when I’ve served you lunch,” she said, her eyes darting away in jittery nerves, modesty, or a mix of both.

“Have you always prayed?” Rami asked suddenly, his directness catching him off guard. His lack of personal faith had always sparked an intrigue in the fundamental reasons other people choose to believe. Not with cynicism or arrogance, but a bona fide intellectual curiosity. He wasn’t drawn to the mechanics of a religious tenet—the who, what, or why of its commandments. What fascinated him was what those beliefs whispered about the people who clung to them: their fears, hopes, and the stories they told themselves about the world.

“No, sir, I only started about thirteen years ago.”

Rami did the math and reached a tentative conclusion but asked anyway to be sure. “Did you start praying when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power?”

Manal smirked, her eyes rising to meet his for the first time. They were deep and expressive, protecting many secrets he was certain.

“No, sir—these morons couldn’t force a donkey to bray, let alone a woman like me, to do anything against my will. I started praying for—personal reasons…” she said. Her gaze shifted somewhere distant, but he couldn’t quite place where.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosy. I was just impressed that you remembered the exact number of years,” Rami said, hungry for more but careful not to bully the details out of her. “I don’t remember what I did this morning,” he said with a smile to break the tension.

Manal smiled back. “You are not being nosy, sir. I can tell you why I started praying if you really want to know.”

This took Rami by surprise.

“But please don’t tell the Big Bey and the Hanem, or Sayeda. Especially Sayeda,” Manal said, scanning the large dining area around her to make sure there wasn’t a third pair of ears.

“Of course. This remains between us,” Rami said, perking up.

“Something happened to me thirteen years ago.”

“Something?”

“Something bad. I was on my way home. I usually take private microbuses from your parents house in Heliopolis to Maadi. They’re more expensive than public transport, but at least I get a seat without sweaty perverts grinding against my body.”

Rami fixed his eyes intently on Manal.

“Go on.”

“When I first got on, the microbus was packed, which is normal. Then an old woman sitting next to the driver got off, I moved from the cramped back to take her spot in the passenger seat.”

“Why’d you do that?”

Instinctively, Manal touched her hips, pushing her uniform against her body, briefly revealing curves. “I am a big girl. The seats in the back are a little tight.”

Rami nodded, then took another sip of wine. “These are the small Suzuki vans you see everywhere, right?”

“Yes, sir. Eventually, all the passengers got off, and it was just me and the driver. He was young and polite. Never once looked me in the face, let alone in the wrong way. Kept his eyes on the road. It was a new van. I remember the smell and how he hadn’t removed the plastic covering on the head rests.”

Rami had a bad feeling he knew where this was going.

“We started talking. He told me his father had died a few days ago, but he didn’t care to attend his funeral because he had abandoned his mother for another woman when he was just five years old. And that was pretty much the story of my life. My ex-husband ran away with another woman and left me to raise the kids. So I told him all about it.”

“Yes, I remember hearing that from Sayeda when you first started. How many children do you have, Manal?”

“Two boys and two girls. They’re all married now with their own kids,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes.

“God bless. Sorry, carry on.”

“As I blabbered on, he asked if it was okay if he took a shortcut to avoid traffic and save us an hour at least.”

“And what did you say?” Rami’s stomach started to churn a little harder unto itself.

“No one had ever taken a shortcut on that route, so it seemed a little odd. But I said it was okay.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It felt like I was caught in a web. Like I had no say in the matter.”

“Then what happened?”

“We drove through an abandoned stretch of desert behind all the ceramics factories. About fifteen minutes off the road, he stopped suddenly. Said the van had overheated.”

Rami’s chest heaved, but he continued to listen.

“Ten minutes is what he said it would take for the motor to cool down and suggested we wait outside to enjoy a cool breeze in the air. Said he had some soft drinks in an ice box we could enjoy.”

“Cool breeze? I thought it was hot out?”

Manal shrugged as if acknowledging her gullibility.

“Never mind, carry on.”

“We stood for a few minutes sipping cold Fantas, talking. He kept sliding closer to me, then, he casually turned and pinned my hands against the van and kissed my lips.”

Rami’s gaze fixed on Manal as his hands clutched the wine glass harder.

“I moved my face away but he slipped his hands under my tunic and started feeling my breasts and twiddling my nipples. He was smiling like it was normal. Like we were in on it together. Like this had been the plan all along.”

“And was it normal?” Rami regretted the words the instant they left his lips.

Her eyes darted down. “Not at all, Rami Bey. I resisted, even told him I had my period.”

“A lie to put him off?”

Manal shook her head. “I really was bleeding. But none of that mattered. Things happened very fast. He forced me to the ground and raised my tunic then stripped my underwear off. I started to cry and scream for help, but that only got him more excited. I love it when sluts like you pretend to be pious, he said. In the end, I surrendered and just lay there, waiting for him to finish. When he was done, he got up, put the icebox back in the van, and pointed with his head for me to get back in.”

An arctic frost set in the air. Rami couldn’t think of what to say.

“Do you want to know what the worst part was, sir?”

Rami heard her words but was still silent for a second before responding. “What?”

“It seemed like he had done this many times before,” she said.

“He raped you…” Rami said, just to make sure they were both reading from the same page.

“He didn’t exactly call it that.”

“What the hell did he call it?”

“Sex.”

The herbaceous, savory punch of the wine in his mouth turned slightly bitter.

“Later in the van, he said he was doing me a favor because I hadn’t been with a man since my husband left.”

“So, he thought you wanted it.”

“In his mind, yes, but not one bit I didn’t, sir. There’s nothing to enjoy when it’s forced on you like that. Other than my period, I felt filthy, hot, and sticky. I hadn’t showered that morning, and it was a long summer day. If I had been at least happy in my skin, it would have felt less disgusting.”

“He raped you, how would showering have changed anything?”

Sayeda’s eyes misted, even though she was still holding a smile. “You know what the funny thing is, sir?”

“Funny?” Rami said.

“If he had picked me up and maybe taken me out a few times, then asked outright like a man to sleep with me, I may have said yes. I am neither a saint nor an angel. But he just assumed I was fair game because I was weak, poor, and helpless. He knew the minute I got in and opened my mouth what he would do to me and that he would get away with it.”

“Did you struggle?”

“In the beginning, yes. I begged him to stop, but he was possessed. I screamed at that son-of-a-bitch that I could have been his mother but that only made him grind harder as he pounded me on the ground, with sand and dust everywhere like we were two stray dogs.”

Rami placed his hand over his mouth, his mind working hard to process these revelations, and the seeming nonchalance of how Manal was recounting the story.

“So, to answer your question, what happened to me that day was a sign from God. A divine warning that I should heed his call. Ever since then, I’ve been praying five times a day. Not simply to appease God, but to purify myself of the sins I committed,” Manal said.

“The sins you’ve committed?”

“Of course. I am equally complicit. If I hadn’t been so careless, if I hadn’t been so talkative, I wouldn’t have been so suggestive to him, and he wouldn’t have had the pluck to do what he did. He seemed convinced I was playing hard to get and secretly enjoying it. And he could sniff that I’d been with other men. If only for that, I deserved what happened to me.”

“That’s pure and utter nonsense, Manal. A victim is never responsible for the crime. Never.”

Manal shrugged like she wasn’t prepared to redraw the narrative.

“How about the police?”

She let out a sharp, bitter laugh that cut through the air like a blade.

“Rami Bey, you’ve been away from Egypt far too long.”

“Why do you say that?”

And for the first time since she began recounting her chilling story, she stopped smiling. It sent a cold shiver down his spine. He’d seen the exact same glance in the eyes of men, women, and children who’d been subjected to the very worst humanity had to offer, and could no longer believe in its innate goodness. A terminal loss of innocence.

“Do you know what happens in Egypt if a divorced woman of my standing goes to the police station to report sexual assault?”

Rami bit his lips.

“Best-case scenario, they’d tell me to go to hell because they have more important things to take care of.”

Rami bit his lips harder as he waited to hear the worst-case scenario.

Manal looked down.

“Yes?”

“Isn’t it obvious, sir?”

Rami shook his head, but of course he knew.

“The cops would rape me themselves. If it was a slow night at the precinct and they had an empty cell, they’d take turns and do it there. If not, they’ll take note of my address and bring me back when it suits them. Or the commanding officer at the station would just show up at my place a few weeks later ready to claim his prize. In this society, divorced women are fair game. We’re regarded even lower than paid hookers.”

“It’s been thirteen years. Have you told anyone? Your children?”

Manal’s eyes trailed again. “They’ve got their own families and problems. Why humiliate them more with ancient history that they can’t change or do anything about?”

Rami probed deeper into Manal’s soul through her eyes. Underneath her happy-go-lucky persona casually recounting that ‘day I got raped,’ there must have been some melancholy, pain, or bitterness that had been stewing, despite her brilliant show of masking it.

“Did you get his name, or do you remember what he looked like?”

“He said his name was Gaber. Not too tall and rather bulky in a muscular sort of way. He had a short beard and a prayer mark on his forehead. Like the bastard was a pious Muslim.”

“And the van?”

“Just another white microbus with stickers of Zamalek football club and verses from the Koran.”

“I’m sure there are a million Gabers across Egypt driving a white microbus with soccer and God stickers,” Rami said.

“But I pray none of them are anything like him. Sometimes when I remember what happened, I fantasize that he died in a horrible crash, or the father of another woman he raped tracked him down and flayed him open. I’ve never wished ill on anyone except him. Even the woman my husband left me for. ”

Rami heard every single word she said and thought it about it. There was one last thing he needed to know.

“I can understand why you didn’t report this to the police or tell your family, but why didn’t you want my parents to know? They could have helped. They’re extremely well connected. My dad could have made one call and the police would have sieved him out in a few days.”

“I love your parents dearly, Rami Bey. Working for them has been one of the few bright spots in my life. I didn’t want them to see me as a victim or think I was fishing for compassion. And to tell the story, I would have had to also come clean that I’m the sort of woman who’s slept with other men after my husband left me.”

Rami felt a burning urge to launch into a tirade about the warped sexual morality of patriarchal societies and how it was designed solely to control women, but the booze he’d been consuming since after breakfast dulled his sharp edges. He knew he wasn’t sober enough to do the subject justice.

“But you told me. I’m their son.”

“You asked, and I don’t know how to lie.”

Rami pushed harder.

“You said it was personal; you could have left it at that.”

“Yes…But…”

“But what?”

“I don’t want to offend you, sir.”

Rami let out a single chuckle. “Oh, don’t you worry. It takes quite a bit to achieve that.” Rachel had sufficiently thickened his skin in that department.

“The thing is, for you, Rami Bey, I’m just an anecdote from this trip to Egypt, like seeing a horrific accident on your way to the airport. You’ll feel bad for the victims during those fleeting seconds as you drive by, but that’s about it. Once you get on your flight back to Europe, you won’t even remember you saw a crash. Your knowledge of what happened to me will neither affect your life nor mine in any meaningful way. It’s just a story to share. Words, really.”

Rami allowed Manal’s scathing assessment to settle in before he spoke again.

“What would you do if you saw him again?”

“Hope I would have showered this time,” she said with a wry giggle.

“You’ve got a good sense of humor. I’m sure that helps,” Rami said, reaching out to pat her hand.

“I never saw him again on that route. Even though it’s been thirteen years, until this day, every time I get into one of these microbuses, my heart rumbles like a tabla just at the thought that he may be there in the driver’s seat. A strange mix of fear and anger. Like every part of me wants to seem him again, but at the same time, I dread it like death. I can’t explain it…”

“These are normal feelings for anyone who’s experienced any trauma.”

Manal shrugged like she didn’t quite know what to do with that information.

“You said it was a brand new van. The average lifespan of a commercial vehicle in Egypt is twenty to twenty five years. Sometimes even thirty. There is a big chance he’s still out there, or at least his van.”

Manal raised her eyes and was lost in thought briefly.

“That day, when he took the detour, something inside me knew it was off. I took out my phone and tried to snap a picture of his face secretly. My hands were trembling, and on a good day, I’m hopeless with phones. The only thing that shows is the dashboard. But even without a picture, I will never forget what he looks like. The repulsive smell of his aftershave mixed with sweat.”

“I suppose you don’t still have that same phone of thirteen years ago with those images of the dashboard?”

Manal just glanced at him without blinking.

“Wait, you still have them?”

She gave a quick, hesitant nod, her unease flickering across her face like a shadow.

“I’ve changed many phones since then, but every time I did, I always asked my daughter to transfer all my old photos. I felt like these photos of the dashboard were the only proof I had of that day and what happened. And if I deleted them, it would be like I had made it up and lied to myself.”

“Can I see them?”

“They’re all blurred and show nothing,” she said.

“That’s okay.”

She flipped through her low-cost smartphone until she found the frames in question and handed it over to Ramy.

She was right; all of them were fuzzy to some extent and of a thirteen-year-old quality, but a few revealed some details on the dashboard that a good forensics officer may or may not get slightly excited about.

Instinctively, Rami surreptitiously beamed a copy of the photographs from Manal’s phone to his via Bluetooth.

As he handed her back the phone, he observed her. She was still holding on to what happened like a relic for some reason other than the prospect of justice. He had no idea why he copied the photos. Even if the pictures provided clues about her rapist’s identity, there was nothing she could do with this information, and more importantly, there was nothing he could do to help her. Especially thirteen years later. She was right. Theirs was a fleeting encounter, and like it or not, he was just another rubbernecker.

For the next few days, both Manal and Rami avoided each other until she went back to Cairo to be with her children, relieved by another of his parent’s maids. He left her a handsome tip with Sayeda, which he would have done regardless of their encounter.

*

On his last day in Egypt, Rami decided to leave the North Coast at the crack of dawn, opting to spend a few hours in Cairo rather than endure the soul-crushing afternoon traffic if he’d left later to go directly to the airport. He planned to grab a bite in the leafy suburb of Heliopolis, where he’d grown up, and drive past his parents’ villa, hoping to catch a glimpse of the boys he’d once played football with under the street light or the girls he’d kissed under the jasmine trees at the neighborhood playground. How had they all turned out?

By his best calculations, after doing all that, he’d still have about three hours left at the airport, which he would spend at the lounge catching up on work.

The drive back to Cairo this early in the day was smooth for the first hour until traffic slowed to a screeching halt. For forty-five minutes, he inched forward slower than drip irrigation until he passed the harrowing accident causing the delay. A truck had veered in the wrong direction and made minced meat out of a small Korean sedan. Two bodies laid out on the hard shoulder were covered with old blankets and there wasn’t an ambulance in sight. Just an endless supply of Good Samaritans. As he accelerated faster and the scene of the carnage grew smaller behind, Manal’s words vibrated under his skin.

Once you get on your flight back to Europe, your knowledge of what happened to me will neither affect your life nor mine. It’s just a story to share. Words, really.

Rami picked up speed on the freeway to Cairo, teetering on the edge of accepting Manal’s prophecy, when a sign for an upcoming rest area and coffee shop jolted something awake in him. In big red neon letters it read, Last chance! And in a smaller font under,  For good coffee before Cairo. At the last possible second, he swerved sharply to the exit, tires screeching and burning rubber, drawing a chorus of angry honks from other drivers. The acrid smell and the insults didn’t faze him. He pulled up directly in front of the coffee shop, determined to collect his thoughts and recalibrate his plans for the weeks ahead.

Rami was going to stay in Cairo, determined to prove Manal wrong—that she was more than a fleeting anecdote and deserved justice. But even as his resolve hardened, Rachel’s voice gnawed at him from the pit of his stomach, whispering the words he couldn’t shake: Stop playing God.