Chapter 1 - THE CODE THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
Leïla Rahmani was more than six hundred miles from the palace when her phone began vibrating against the hotel nightstand.
Once.
Twice.
Then five times in less than ten seconds.
She opened her eyes.
00:46.
Nobody from the palace called her at that hour unless someone was dead.
She grabbed the phone.
Her younger brother’s name filled the screen.
KARIM.
Leïla answered immediately.
“What happened?”
Karim didn’t say hello.
“Did you authorize schedule extensions for Samira?”
Leïla sat upright.
“Who?”
“The housekeeper assigned to my office.”
“What extensions?”
“Night shifts. West Wing. Three this week.”
Leïla pushed the blanket away.
“No.”
Silence.
Not normal silence.
The kind that told her Karim was staring at something he didn’t understand.
“Karim.”
“I’m looking at the authorization right now.”
“Whose name?”
“Yours.”
Leïla stopped breathing.
Karim continued.
“Your personal code is at the bottom.”
Her stomach tightened.
That code wasn’t a signature anybody could copy from a piece of paper.
It was an eight-digit internal ID tied to senior family access.
Every sensitive authorization inside Al-Rahmani Palace required the code plus a secondary password.
Only three people officially knew hers.
Leïla.
The chief security administrator.
And the system itself.
“Send me a screenshot.”
Her phone chimed.
She opened the image.
There it was.
LEÏLA RAHMANI.
Authorization Level Four.
Below it:
72819463.
Her code.
Correct down to the last digit.
Leïla got out of bed.
“Does anyone have access to my terminal?”
“IT is checking.”
“Check faster.”
“I already woke them up.”
Leïla crossed the dark hotel suite barefoot and switched on every light.
She had been attending a humanitarian conference in Geneva for four days.
Her personal palace terminal was supposed to be locked.
Even staff with top clearance couldn’t access it without biometric confirmation.
Karim spoke again.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“The authorization didn’t come from your office.”
Leïla froze.
“Where did it come from?”
A muffled voice sounded near Karim.
Someone was speaking to him.
Then Karim returned.
“General Affairs.”
Leïla stared at the window.
Far below, Geneva streets glowed beneath the rain.
“Naïma’s office?”
“Yes.”
Naïma Ben Youssef had managed palace staffing for fifteen years.
She had survived two kings, four chiefs of staff, six security directors, and more family arguments than Leïla cared to remember.
Naïma was trusted because she had never once been caught choosing sides.
Karim lowered his voice.
“Farid says Naïma would never do this.”
Leïla said nothing.
Because suddenly she remembered something.
Two months earlier.
General Affairs Office.
Naïma standing beside a stack of shift-change forms.
Leïla had been late for a meeting.
Naïma had asked her to approve several staffing changes.
Leïla entered her personal code manually.
Only once.
Maybe six seconds.
But someone had been standing behind her.
Leïla whispered, “Who was in the room that day?”
Karim hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
She heard papers moving.
Farid answered in the background.
Then Karim returned.
“Naïma. Her secretary.”
He stopped.
Leïla closed her eyes.
“And?”
“Our cousin Malik.”
Neither of them spoke.
Malik Rahmani had no official role in palace administration.
He controlled two family companies and spent most of his time pretending he hated palace politics.
Karim finally said, “Why would Malik be in General Affairs?”
Leïla remembered his excuse.
He had claimed he was looking for travel records.
But now she remembered where he had stood.
Directly behind her.
“Pull the security video from that day.”
Karim gave the order.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then she heard somebody swear.
“What?”
Karim’s voice changed.
“The video file is gone.”
Leïla’s pulse accelerated.
“Gone how?”
“Deleted.”
“By whom?”
“No record.”
Leïla opened her email.
She searched for palace security alerts.
There.
Four days earlier.
One unread message.
SECURITY NOTICE: ATTEMPTED LOGIN USING YOUR ID.
She had ignored it.
She opened it now.
Location: Al-Rahmani Palace.
Time: 02:17.
Leïla whispered, “Karim.”
“What?”
“What nights did Samira work in the West Wing?”
Paper rustled.
“Tuesday. Thursday. Saturday.”
“And the security alert?”
“What time?”
“Tuesday. Two seventeen in the morning.”
Silence again.
Leïla walked toward the window.
“What archives are in the section where Samira worked?”
Karim answered slowly.
“Family contracts. Private correspondence. Old property records.”
Then his voice dropped.
“And Father’s succession file.”
Leïla turned from the glass.
Their father was alive.
Sixty-eight.
Healthy enough to ride every morning and yell at cabinet ministers by noon.
But three weeks earlier, he had quietly changed his will.
Only the family lawyer and two witnesses were supposed to know the details.
Leïla tightened her grip on the phone.
“Where is Samira now?”
Karim didn’t answer.
“Karim?”
A door slammed somewhere on his end.
Then a man shouted.
Karim cursed.
“What happened?”
“Security just reached Samira’s room.”
“And?”
“She’s gone.”
Leïla’s throat went dry.
Karim spoke again.
May you like
This time almost whispering.
“Her bed is still warm.”
