Chapter 3: The Unspoken Scar

Chapter 3: The Unspoken Scar

The summons came less than an hour later. Elara was escorted back to the penthouse, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. She had spent the interim in a luxurious guest suite, a gilded cage where she was too terrified to touch anything. She expected another interrogation, another round of questions she was too afraid to answer.

But when the elevator doors slid open, the scene was different. Alex Thorne was not seated behind the vast, intimidating expanse of his desk. He stood by the window, silhouetted against the morning sun, holding two glasses of water. The room, which had felt like an execution chamber the night before, now seemed simply large and quiet.

"Elara," he said, his voice calm, devoid of the sharp edge of command it held previously. He turned, and his dark eyes held a new expression, one of concern rather than calculation. "Please. Come and sit."

He didn't gesture to the stiff leather chair opposite his desk, the one she had perched on like a condemned prisoner. Instead, he indicated a soft, charcoal-grey sofa in a seating area to the side, a space meant for conversation, not interrogation. He placed the glasses on the low marble table between them and sat in the armchair opposite, creating a space of equality that was more disarming than any threat.

She sat, her hands twisting the fabric of her uniform in her lap. She kept her eyes downcast, studying the intricate pattern of the Persian rug.

"I want you to listen to me very carefully," he began, his voice low and steady. "You are not in any trouble. Your job is secure. Your visa is untouchable. Whatever happens next, you are safe. I give you my word."

His word was the bedrock upon which thousands of lives in Al-Masdar were built. To hear it given so personally, so directly, was like being granted royal clemency. A small, shuddering breath escaped her lips, a crack in the wall of her fear.

"I know you are frightened," he continued, leaning forward slightly, his forearms resting on his knees. He wasn't looming over her; he was meeting her at her level. "And I know you are hiding something. I don't blame you. People in your position are taught that silence is survival. But right now, silence is danger. It protects the person who did this to you."

He paused, letting the words settle. "My investigation hit a wall, Elara. The official channels are useless. The call that led to your arrest was made from an untraceable burner phone. But I learned one thing."

He watched her face intently. "The caller pretended to be a very pious, God-fearing man. He told the dispatcher he was reporting you to uphold the city's moral standards. He used religious language to make himself sound righteous."

At those words, Elara flinched. It was a small, almost imperceptible movement, but in the quiet of the room, it was a thunderclap. Her head snapped up, her eyes wide with the same horrified recognition he had seen the night before. He had found the nerve.

"He called you a 'troublemaker woman'," Alex pressed gently, using the information from Kasim like a key. "Does that sound like a stranger to you? Or does it sound like someone who knows you? Someone who holds a grudge?"

The dam of her composure, already cracked, began to crumble. Her breath hitched. A single tear traced a path down her cheek, then another. The silver locket at her throat trembled.

"He… he warned me," she whispered, her voice fractured and raw. "He said he would teach me a lesson. He said… he said a woman like me needed to be put in her place."

Alex remained perfectly still, a silent anchor in her rising storm of emotion. "Who, Elara? Who said that to you?"

"Fahad," she choked out, the name escaping her lips like a poison she'd been holding in for too long. "One of the company drivers."

The name landed in the room with the force of a physical blow. Alex’s mental database instantly pulled up the file. Fahad Al-Jamil. Forty-eight years old. A senior driver with a long record of service. A man known for his public displays of piety and his sanctimonious lectures to younger staff.

"Tell me everything," Alex said, his voice soft but insistent.

And so, it all came pouring out. The story she had buried under layers of shame and fear. It had happened three weeks ago. She'd been working a late shift, and Fahad had been the assigned driver for the staff shuttle. He had insisted she sit in the front, making her deeply uncomfortable with his leering gaze and cloying compliments. When they arrived at the staff accommodation, he'd told everyone else to go ahead, that he needed to speak with her about her schedule.

As soon as they were alone, his demeanor had changed. He had grabbed her, his sanctimonious whispers turning vile as he pushed her against the side of the van in the shadows of the parking garage. She had fought back, kicking and shoving, the terror giving her a strength she didn't know she possessed. She had managed to break free and run, his final, snarled threat echoing behind her: "You will regret this. You belong to me."

For three weeks, she had lived in constant fear. He stalked her, appearing wherever she was, his predatory eyes promising retribution. He would corner her in hallways, whispering verses about a wife's obedience, twisting faith into a weapon of intimidation. She rejected him every time, her fear hardening into defiance. She hadn't reported it because she knew how it would look. Her word against a senior employee, a "pious" family man. She knew who they would believe. She knew that for a foreign worker, making trouble was a faster ticket home than any crime.

"The police…" she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. "He knew my friend Maria and I have coffee after our Friday shift. He must have followed us. He made that call. I know it was him. It was his punishment."

A profound silence descended upon the room. Elara’s weeping was the only sound. Alex leaned back in his chair, his face a mask of cold granite. The gentle protector who had coaxed the story from her had vanished. In his place sat The Sponsor, the ruthless magnate whose kingdom had been violated.

His simmering suspicion hadn't just exploded. It had flash-frozen into something far more dangerous: a cold, crystalline, and absolute rage. The issue was no longer a mysterious tip or a corrupt system. It was a man. A man who wore his company's insignia, who preyed on the very people Alex was sworn to protect, and who had the audacity to use religion as a shield for his filth.

He looked at the trembling young woman on his sofa, at the unspoken scar her trauma had left on her. In his city, under his sponsorship, this was not just an injustice. It was a declaration of war.

Alex stood slowly, his movements deliberate, precise. He walked back to his desk and pressed the intercom. "Amir. Take Elara back to the guest suite. Ensure she has everything she needs. No one is to disturb her."

He turned back to her, his dark eyes like chips of obsidian. The warmth was gone, replaced by an arctic chill that promised a winter from which there would be no spring.

"Thank you for telling me the truth, Elara," he said, his voice flat and final. "You did the right thing. Now, I will do mine."